Diva Dance

Today Laura Harms of the enchanting I am the Diva CZT blog posted her 100th Challenge! This one is guest hosted by none other than Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts, founders of Zentangle...they came up with a new tangle with three variations in honor of the Diva and her challenges that have connected and inspired tanglers all over the world.

You can see the step-outs for drawing Diva Dance here in Laura's blog. Give it a whirl! It is fun and it develops quickly. As I was completing my tile, I couldn't help but think of Diva Dance as a visual representation of Laura's journey and message--that bumps in the road happen, and there will be dark times...but you just keep going, you work around what life throws at you. You have to! Just keep "aura-ing"--keep growing and giving, adjusting whenever you need to, and having fun when the opportunity arises. But always, always adapting to challenges and difficulties.

I love that this tangle looks like a topographical map. After all, we are all finding our way, and yes, sometimes we have to make up our own maps. Sometimes we also make up tangles...in addition to Diva Dance, my tile features two variations of my newest tangle, Paushalöv. Step-outs (and an explanation of the name) to follow later this week!

Happy Tangling, everyone! And Happy Holidays! What a busy week this will be...if you have time, I'd love for you to leave me a comment. I don't get many, so I cherish each and every one!

Loop Love



Featured in the loops: Festune, Paushalöv, Riveting,
and Gneiss. Around the loops is a series od Auras with
rounding, similar to Auraknot. Auraflow???

 Still to come: shading!

I have been out of the loop for several weeks--I've had what I think was a cold plus a sinus infection. Eeew. Throughout this, I've been pretty good at starting challenges on time, but not so good at getting them completed and posted. I hope to make up for that in this post--I have several tiles featuring loops...plus step outs to one of my original tangles that I mentioned here in my blog a looooong time ago (in this post). Riveting. It is a precursor to Ving (click on Ving for the blog post that features the stepouts to Ving I posted a while back), but is actually more complex. 

This is my looped string prior to tangling...

Only the first of the tiles in this post is intended for this week's Diva Challenge: the Looped Border String Challenge, brought to us by a guest host: the oh-so-talented Margaret Bremner, CZT, of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. (Can you believe this is Challenge #99!!!) Margaret is the artist/author of a wonderful Zentangle blog entitled Enthusiastic Artist as well as a soon-to-be-released book entitled The Art of Zentangle: 50 inspiring drawngs, doodles & ideas for the meditative artist. (Click on the link to pre-order it from Amazon!) The Looped Border String Challenge is based on a blog entry that Magaret posted earlier this year: click here to connect.



Steps to Riveting by Amy Broady, CZT

I filled the largest loop with Riveting, a tangle I came up with in 2010. Riveting is a grid-based tangle that utilizes the overlapping (or should I call it “underlapping”) quality of Hollibaugh. This is the tangle that I contributed to the large group tangle that we completed at CZT training (#4, October 2010).

I named it “Riveting” in reference to the rivet-like dots as well as the converging lines that are riveted to a converging spot in each division of the grid. Of course, I also like to think of my tangle as “riveting” in that it is so fascinating.

So, here are visual step-outs to Riveting...



I have a document in which I elaborated on the step-outs with text...but it will take me a while to get them posted. I've discovered that it is no easy task to publish a document (pdf or Word) within my Tanglefish blog, so I have to do a work-around which involves printing the document and scanning it, which is more than I can handle tonight. :-) Plus, I think the visuals really say it all...the text is just explanation of that which is illustrated.



Keenees, Kardz, DL Neumba, Rick's Paradox, and a
variation of Cadent.

Next, showcasing another loop, is my response to last week's Diva Challenge #98: The Keenees Challenge. Keenees is a fun tangle brought to us by Donna Hornsby, CZT, of Forth Worth, Texas. On either side of the Keenees, which is in the central loop, is DL Nelumba and Kardz, also by Donna Hornsby. Donna is an artist, graphic designer, technical writer, and a person of many talents; she runs a business (and writes a blog) enitled Pegasus Papers.

And finally, also sporting its share of loops in the form of the tangle known as Echoism, is my response to the Diva's 97th Challenge, "No Strings Attached" in which we started tangling without the benefit of a string to guide us. I started with Ibex, a tangle that challenges me. Once I had "ibexed" enough--and I was pretty pleased with it!--I drew an aura, and started tangling around it with Echoism. And regretted it almost instantly. I did NOT like what my rendition of Echoism did to my composition!!!



Ibex, Echoism, Keeko, Shattuck

So then I had to find the motivation to keep going. I called upon Keeko to move me forward, and then Shattuck, and then the magic of the pencil and tortillon. Shading the Echoism section was the most difficult...I had to find a way to make peace with that whole area that just looked wrong to me. I chose to add tiny black "beads" to the intersections...and to have some fun with shading. I stuck with it and saw it through. Finally.
Whew!
Having found a way to "finish" the Echoism section in a manner that satisfied me, I used the same idea in the Zentangle Ganesha I completed for Dilip (explained below; see Gift of Ganesha).

Remember, it's all about the process! The end product is just tangible evidence of the journey, of the time spent creating and contemplating penstrokes. (And pencil blends!)

That, my friends, is the whirlwind summary of (some of) what I've been up to. Also, if you have not yet seen my last post, Gift of Ganesha, I invite you to check it out. You will see my contribution to an international Zentangle collaboration that initiated with a CZT in India. Also in that post is Paisley Boa, a tangle I am pleased to share with my Tanglefish readers.

Let me know what you think of anything that I've posted, be it words or images. It's always nice to know that my blog posts are viewed & read by the people who find there way here! But please be kind about the layout. Please?! It's unfortunate and it drives me crazy. I have fits over things that I arrange and things that I can't arrange...and none of what I do looks the same when it is published, anyway!

Gift of Ganesha

Earlier this year, a Certified Zentangle Teacher named Dilip Patel embarked on a Zentangle quest and in return has both given and received an abundance of gifts--gifts in the form of Zentangle Ganeshas.

Dilip lives in Bengaluru, India. He is, in fact, the only CZT currently listed for India at the official Zentangle website.  He authors a fascinating and inspiring blog entitled "Things Often Speak to Me". I encourage you to visit it and spend some time exploring Dilip's thoughtful blog entries and learn more about his commitment to publish 100 Zentangle Ganeshas by December 31, 2012.

For those who are unfamiliar with this Hindu deity--Ganesha--I offer this from  http://hinduism.about.com/ :
"Ganesha has an elephantine countenance with a curved trunk and big ears, and a huge pot-bellied body of a human being. He is the Lord of success and destroyer of evils and obstacles. He is also worshipped as the god of education, knowledge, wisdom and wealth. ...Ganesha is one of the five prime Hindu Deities (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and Durga being the other four)....

As a Christian, the idea of Ganesha is interesting to me, but is not a part of my faith and spiritual belief system. As an artist, I am attracted to elephant imagery and am fascinated by the Ganesha images I found as I searched the internet for resources and information. I was slow to attempt a Zentangle Ganesha, but today I finally put my reluctance aside and prioritized this little piece of art. I am humbled by the beauty and cleverness of the Zentangle Ganeshas that are posted in Dilip's blog...my own effort seems awkward to me. I think it's the eyes. I was trying to make them exotic and expressive of wisdom and kindness; I fear they turned out droopy and sad. But I offer it to Dilip in support of his goal, with gratitude for his idea and willingness to share his journey and blog about his quest, and in sympathy for the recent passing of his mother-in-law.
I regret the poor image quality--I do not have access to my scanner at the moment, and will try to update it with a clearer scan in the near future.

I'm not even sure it is complete--the empty background bothers me...and yet I do not have a current solution.

In addition, I would like to offer a new tangle in this post--though again, I do not have access to a good image. So as soon as I have some time at the family desktop, I will post step-outs to Paisley Boa--a version of which can be seen here in Ganesha's trunk. (Note: done! See below!)

So my version of Ganesha presents you with a gift--a tangle I came up with in the spring of 2011. I was just waiting for the right time to share it.

I can post some of my tiles that feature Paisley Boa in future Tanglefish entries...I think this entry is long enough for now. :-)

If YOU use Paisley boa in your art, I'd love for you to send me a photo or scan! The quickest way for me to get it would be for you to send it to abroady (at) comcast (dot) net, and put "Paisley Boa" in the subject line. Or you could put a link in the comment section below.

If you have any questions, just post them in the comments below (or send them to the email address I listed above).

Happy Tangling!