Going With the Flow

We had a lovely weekend beginning with a skype session with my son, followed by going to a concert at the winery up the hill from us, (that's Fleetwood Mask, a cover band for guess who?)

and ending with an impromptu backyard BBQ with my daughter and some friends dropping by.

The August Muster Mixer challenge was a fun one. The challenge was to combine the patterns Tropicana and Ixorus into a new tangleation. I came up with a few variations so my tile is more of a sampler exploring the idea.

The Diva Challenge this week was set by guest blogger Sharla Hicks and is to explore patterns that use undulating S and C curves. As you can see by this tangle I did on a place mat while waiting for our meal to be served at a local restaurant the challenge is right up my alley.

I decided to work with patterns that I had used before. Two are favorites and one I haven't explored as much. I enjoyed an opportunity to get into the flow of the piece. Especially after last week's contractor "infestation" when we had solar installed and our back fence replaced!

Tangles Used: Pop Cloud, Scroll Feather, and Pais

Tangling From A to Z (ATCs to Zendalas)

The postman brought a lovely package last week that contained the ATCs from the swap that I participated in with the Stacked and Tangled Facebook group.


They are all so different and beautiful each in their own way. Such exquisite work everyone! Thank you all. I am trying to think of how to display them.

This week's Diva Challenge was set by guest blogger Erin Olson, author of the Bright Owl blog and host of the Zendala Dare. She provided a Zendala template for us to work with. So with template in hand and keeping in mind her suggestion to "do what you feel is right" here is what I came up with.

Tangles Used: Quipple, Flukes, Floerez, and Gra-Vee

In addition, I had noticed a while ago that Erin had provided a template for Diva Challenge 81. I had printed it onto a tile but had never tangled it so this seemed like as good a time as any to do that one too.

Tangles Used: Umble, Mei, Cayla, and Abundies

A really fun challenge. I feel very zen right now!

The Positive in the Negative

I have been working on a piece in my studio journal off and on since our vacation in May. I think I am done with it now. At least when I look at it I am not compelled to add "just one more tangle" to it :)

Tangles Used: Antidots, Nzeppel, Printemps, Vigne, Bandola,
Lazy Eights, Poke Leaf, Tipple, and Abundies

For the Diva Challenge this week guest blogger Sandy Hunter challenged us to shift our focus to the negative space, so the white part of the tile is the focus. I used a vaguely leaf-ish sort of string and then drew Pand in the background playing with the positive and negative spaces in the squares. This reminds me that I bought a book about Notan late last year and was going to go through it in January. Maybe it is time to resurrect that goal!

Tangle Used: Pand

Something New and Something Old

I took a 6 week Photoshop class this summer at a local community college. For the final project I drew a tangle using a Wacom tablet. By keeping the areas, tangles, colors, etc. on separate layers I can display the result in several different ways. Here are 4 of them:


I learned a ton about Photoshop and using a Wacom tablet although I didn't find it very Zen!

For the Diva Challenge this week guest blogger Cari Sultanik challenged us to use organic tangles. Since those are my favorite kind I decided to add an extra challenge to it and finish the box I started tangling in February. I had thought to buy some Sharpie furniture touch-up pens to supplement my extremely old and nearly dried out collection of Pro Mark II markers. The Sharpies seem to be discontinued so I decided to supplement with the brown markers that I already have from Sharpie, PrismaColor, and LumoColor. All of these spread more than the Pro Mark II but I'm pretty happy with the result. A google search shows that Marvy makes some wood stain markers and most of them are on sale right now so I bought a set because I think this is a project I would do again.

Front Tangles Used: Snugz, Beadlines, and Lazy Eights	Back Tangles Used: Snugz, Catkin, Quabog, and Abundies
Left Side Tangles Used: Snugz, Flux, Flukes, and Snaylz Trayl	Right Side Tangles Used: Antidots and Tipple

Well, now I'm off to try and catch up on all of the things that didn't get done while I was working on the Photoshop class!

Christmas in July

Last week I taught my Snowman Ornament twice. Both groups were excellent and it was fun to see the aha moments but I sure didn't have much voice left by the end of it!

A while ago I picked up some scrapbooking papers on the "freecycle" table at a group I go to. I used one of them on Saturday to tangle on while a group of us sat on the patio and enjoyed the weather.

Tangles Used: Kandysnake, Quipple, Nzeppel, and Screen

Over at the Diva Challenge this week's guest blogger is Lee Darter. The challenge is to create a tile with lots of action and movement using Tropicana, Cack, and either Florz, Linq, or Fescu.

Tangles Used: Tropicana, Cack, and Fescu

I have been taking a Photoshop class this summer and will post my final project next week. Hint: It's a tangle ;)

And Breathe....

This week's Diva challenge by guest blogger Katie Crommett couldn't have been more timely. She challenged us to keep it simple. Fewer tangles, more white space, and remember to breathe! I have found myself stressed because of my many commitments and this was just the nudge I needed to really set aside some time for me and get into the moment.

Tangles Used: Pop Cloud and Sails

Well, that is about all the time I have for breathing for now! I still have kits to finish putting together for the class I'm teaching tomorrow, and one the the components hasn't arrived in the mail, and....

Just Add a Little Love

We had a great weekend with a lovely visit from my daughter which included sipping cosmos on our patio while watching the fireworks show in the park below our house. Does it get any better?

I was missing my son though (he lives in Taipei) and was putting together a box to ship to him.  I decided to buy him a new go cup and tangle it. A little tangley love with his morning cuppa :)

I also finished the ATCs for the swap for the Stacked and Tangled group. Here are the last four:


The remainder of the summer the Diva has lined up guest bloggers to set the challenges. First up is Jen Crutchfield who set a color challenge. I chose to limit my color palette to 3 as Jen suggested by using pink and purple pens on a moss green tile. Since most of the pens I used were metallic it didn't scan very well but you get the idea.

Tangles Used: Quipple, Lazy Eights, 
Sand Swirl, Organza, and Logjam

Go share some art love with someone and brighten their day!