Cool WiP & Fi di Pi & Cintronica

WiP: Work in Progress. Need I say more? Of course I do. Even if I don't need to, I will.  After all, that's why I have a blog: to elaborate on my ideas with anyone who cares to take the time to read them. :-) If that's you, then thank you for reading!

I have just returned home from a delightful family vacation...I thought I'd be blogging from the beach condo, and tangling up a storm, but that didn't happen. Instead I read...and shopped and dined and slept, and took in a show (SHOUT! The Mod Musical), and enjoyed time with my inlaws and nephew as well as my husband and kids. So now I feel very relaxed, but also waaaaay behind on Diva challenges and blog posts, as I was already behind before I left on vacation!

My next few entries will feature unfinished tiles--ones that I started for various Diva challenges, including this week's challenge, UMT v. VI: Fiore di Pietro (Challenge #77). Fiore di Pietro is a new tangle by Rho Densmore, CZT, in memory of her brother-in-law who passed very unexpectedly a mere two-and-a-half weeks ago. It's a beautiful tangle, full of possibilities to explore. Click here to link to directions. This first tile in which I've utilized Fiore di Pietro is incomplete in that I haven't yet shaded it...but I am so eager to get a post up, after skipping a few weeks, I want to go ahead and share it! I'll post it again after I've shaded it. (DONE! 7/10/12) I love seeing other people's work mid-process, so I hope you can enjoy mine in stages.

Tangles used: Fiore di Pietro, Pweeko, Ving, Tipple

And here's the finished tile. Rho, you are welcome to use this, if you wish.

Also in the WiP category--make that the Cool WiP category; I wouldn't post something if I didn't think it was cool--is a glorious new tangle from Zentangle! It is currently nameless. (!!!!!!) Rick and Maria posted it to the Zentangle newsletter and blog last week and challenged us to name it and draw step-outs (the diagrams that break down a tangle into simple steps). 

My proposed name is Cintronica, after Tina Cintron (see explanation below). I completed these step-outs super fast on vacation at Hilton Head Island on the coast of South Carolina last week. I jumped right to task as soon as I saw the newsletter about the new tangle and the name/step-out challenge. I had to rush through them for fear that I'd peek at directions if someone else posted their version before I'd finished mine. I allowed myself very little time to do this, as our family was about to head out for an afternoon of kayaking. (Our first ever kayak excursion...and it was WONDERFUL! Our tour group enjoyed the presence of a lone dolphin who surfaced in our area numerous times...once a mere 15 feet or so behind me!)

My step-outs, messy thought they are, and crudely photographed with Caroline's iPad, are as follows:

About the name I propose, Cintronica, and it's origin: Tina Cintron has an instructional DVD that I purchased for use in my classroom. The DVD's focus is on watercolor resist techniques, but a bonus feature is that she shows how to draw basic Celtic knots using a configuration she calls "Headless Dancing Man." Headless Dancing Man is a square whose sides are extended in four different directions, as seen in the first diagram of Step 2 of my step-outs above. If that figure is turned diagonally, it really does look like a block-bodied stick man that is missing his head and doing the can-can. Or about to do a cartwheel.

Headless Dancing Man is a great way to start an endless number of Celtic Knot design variations...and as such, has become an important figure in my teaching. Thus, when I saw this new tangle that utilizes the concept I learned from Tina Cintron, I wanted to propose a name that honors her. The "ca" I added at the end of my proposed title is short for "cabin," as in "log cabin," the tradition quilt block construction method that utilizes strips of cloth. My daughter Caroline has a tangle that we call DecoLoCa (see it used here on the egg), which is short for Deconstructed Log Cabin, which is also inspired in part by the log cabin quilt block.

About my Cool WiP concept: This past school year our PTA adopted a food/cooking theme for the annual back-to-school activities and membership drive. It was a fun theme; I thought of our art room as "Smorgasbord Studio," though I never officially named it that by making a sign. I also tried to think of unusual ways to work the theme of "food" into the art curriculum. I  had a lot of ideas that never made it to fruition (note the pun I worked in there? FRUITion?!), but one of my ideas that I did bring to life is the Cool WiP board: Cool Work-in-Progress. I had a bulletin board that I would occasionally post impressive artwork-in-progress by my students. Sometimes I even gave out a Cool Wip wristband that I made up as an award that students could wear home to show their parents that their artwork had been honored. I didn't get it going until late in the year, though, so it wasn't a main feature of the artroom and class routine...but next year I want to carry on with it and make a bigger deal about it to get the students excited.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far! As always, any comments you post are cherished. 

Happy tangling!