Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Fortune Teller: #64 String Theory

Ahhh, the ol' fortune teller. Laura Harms gave us a fun challenge (aren't they all fun?) this week, using the segmented tile that is reminiscent of the kids' paper folding fortune telling game. Yes, I do remember them and happy that they are still being made by kids today. I have also seen them made by big kids, filled with different tangle designs, to decide which tangle to use next. Personally, I just flipped through different tangle patterns to see what I wanted to come up with next. I wanted to try some that used to give me problems for the extra challenge and I wanted to alternate dark and light patterns. Here's my first one and hopefully I will do another later this week because I've got other ideas dancing in my head.

Chartz, Shattuck, Strircles, Squid, Pokeleaf, Umble, Drupe & Flux


Saturday, March 24, 2012

Challenge #63 Fun with Fengle

I'm so glad that Laura aka Diva challenged us with the new official tangle "Fengle". I've been poking at it for a while but really needed to dive in and play with it. I'm glad I did. The first one I made in my journal so it's a bit bigger than an official zentangle tile, but it was fun. I kept it fairly simple.

Then I wanted to see what would happen if I tried more than one fengle. I had seen other folks create a tile with multiple fengles so I wanted to give it a try. This time I made it on a zentangle tile.
It was fun exploring different ways to fill in the fengle. I'm not sure I love them all, but I did have fun experimenting.

I've been showing the kindergartners how to make fengle since they are very curious of my zentangling, and because we spend a lot of time with letter shapes. Fengle begins using "s"es. I'm not sure they have the patience yet, but they do enjoy the filling in shapes with tangles. They have been throwing patterns in their own art work. It's so much fun to see. How cute is this? One of our students even put it in his writing journal:

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Paradoxal Spirals

Ahhh, Challenge #62 from Laura aka Diva, is to create a spiral or spirals while using the Paradox tangle. I love paradox; it's very magical. As you see my first piece, I made a double spiral switching the variations of paradox. The top spiral repeats the paradox exactly the same way. The bottom spiral switches the the way you start the pattern, mirroring the square before. I must admit that sometimes I would get lost in the pattern but since there are no mistakes in zentangle, I carried on and am pleased with the result.

without shading

 with shading

The second  piece I was going to try to do both variations again but I stopped when I liked the way it was looking. I created the lines where I was going to make the mirrored paradox squares but thought that it would be way too busy. Keep it simple. I like it.

first attempt
a day later

Fun, fun, fun. Thanks to Laura for another challenge. They keep me going, keep me practicing. Keep on keeping on!

Oops, I just realized that I forgot to shade! Tomorrow I will add pics with the shading.Silly me. Okay, here are the new ones added on. As you can see, the second design got some waves in it as well. I like that better. Interesting.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Golven Challenge....Waves

Ah, once again I am closing in to midnight with my challenge entry for the week. Some day I want to have it done on the day the challenge comes out; Monday.  Work and meetings get in the way of my own playtime though.

This week we are challenged with the tangle Golven which is Dutch for waves. You can easily see the waves in the pattern. This week we have been having waves of weather here in Vermont. Beautiful spring-like weather one day and then snow squalls the next. Crazy stuff. I did get out cross-country skiing today with some friends which was quite nice. Lots of fun animal tracks out there! Here's my Golven tile:
I was watching a great PBS special using Netflix while creating this tile, called Between the Folds. Great documentary on the art of paper folding. Wonderful and quite interesting. Hope you all remember to set your clocks ahead. Spring is near.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Fun with Challenge #60 Duotangle v.III

It was interesting in where this challenge took me this week. Laura a.k.a Diva challenged us to a duo tangle (using only 2 tangles) with Cirquital and Munchin. I have used Munchin before but Cirquital was a tangle that I wanted to play with, so how perfect. For some odd reason I didn't want to start out on a traditional tile so I went to my journal book. I reached for my pens and came up with at Sharpie pen....not the usual Micron, but I decided to go with it. Oops, it's the blue one, not the black! Ah, there are no mistakes. So here is my multi colored, ZIA. Okay, so the cirquital isn't in the round, either. It's just one of those weeks!


Looks like I should dedicate this to Dr. Seuss, whose birthday was March 2nd! Doesn't it look a bit Seussical?

I got a new iMac the other day. I hope to learn to work with PhotoShop to help me with my creating brochures, flyers, and working with photos. I have a lot to learn and hopefully you will see some decent results. 

I was checking out a fun Google Talk with Trey Ratcliff from stuckincustoms.com. It's a great, inspiring talk. He is certainly a very gifted photographer who has learned to keep the fun in his day to day life. Here's one of his photos I found very inspirational:


He also has a great, free app for the iPad..... Stuck On Earth. Check it out!