Adventures in Monotangles #8 – PHICOPS

Well it looks as if I am getting this weeks adventure posted on time, which makes me happy. Yesterday I was not so sure this would happen. The process I normally use in creating an adventure is as follows:

1:         The weekend before, I’ll select a Tangle for the upcoming weeks adventure.

2:         Monday & Tuesday, I’ll think about it, what I want to post, and decide on a string to use. I do not decide in advance what the tile will look like, as I prefer my tiles to be spontaneous.

3:         Wednesday, on my lunch hour I’ll create a the piece for the adventure, I often do Zentangle® on my lunch, as it is so relaxing.

4:         Wednesday Night, I’ll pre-type the blog post and have it ready so I can just publish it Thursday Morning.

5:         Thursday, after getting back from Grocery shopping in the early AM, I’ll publish the Adventure for the week.

Things were on track this week, until Tuesday night, when I was doing laundry. I went to the basement and lo and behold, the water was not draining. Well everything else screeched to a halt, I have had this problem before and it is not good. I tried the easy fix, ran to Home Depot and got industrial strength main line cleaner. Tuesday night I used all of it, adding an application every hour or so. By the end of the night the water was moving just a little. I hoped that it would be OK in the morning, it was not. If anything it was worse. I went to the YMCA, to shower, and went to work for a couple hours (I am the only one in the office from 8AM-9AM,) so I figured I should go in. I stayed a couple hours and then headed home to get to work. By lunch I thought I had I cleared, but after lunch it was slow again. After more snaking and the use of a Blow-bag, I got it. It should be good now. Then it was clean-up time. Got the basement scrubbed down with bleach, ran out and got dinner, did shopping (as I was going to work early Thursday.) Once all of that was done it was 9:00 PM, I broke out my Tangle kit and watching/listening to the TV show Vikings, I got my Tile done for this weeks Adventure. I have to say If I had not been so busy I would have done more than one, I really like this weeks Tangle.

Now sometimes when choosing a Tangle, I’ll simply choose one that is one of my favorites. I often try to switch between, organic, and ridged tangles. This week I decided to explore Zentangle a little bit more. I headed over to tangle patterns.com and looked around for one that fit two criteria, one: it looked fun, two: I had never done it before. The winner this week was Phiscops, I think it was love at 1^st tangle. I am now a huge fan of this tangle, if you have not used it before, give it a try, it is lots of fun.

Here, is a link to the Phicops Tangle patterns page

And here is the tile I created for adventure #8

Zendala Dare #51-54

Well I have been slow in both finishing these and in getting them posted. Life has been a little crazy and, I have been working on these for a while, and I finally got them done. Honestly, the only thing the older ones were waiting on was shading. So without further ado here are the last 4 Zendala Dares.

Zendala Dare #54

Zendala Dare #53

Zendala Dare #52

Zendala Dare #51

Diva's Weekly Challenge #115

Well it is time again for the Diva’s Weekly Challenge, this time it is Number 115. This weeks challenge is an Earth day Challenge. This year for Earth-Day, and my wife’s birthday we volunteered at a local nature center. We were supposed to spend the time pulling garlic Mustard (an invasive species of plant here,) however with this being a cooler spring, the plants were not very large, and pulling them would be difficult. The nature center decided that our group could work on clearing an area for a Natural playscape. This was a bit of fun, as I still enjoy having to lift and move heavy objects. There were a large number of fallen trees and limbs that had to be hauled out, or chopped up and hauled out.

Here is a link to the nature center we worked at.

As I was dealing with trees, for Earth day, I decided to do a Tree Tile for the challenge. I decided this needed both color, and glitter. =D

Tangles: Diva Dance, Footlites, Squid, amaze. and Meer

I hope you enjoy my entry into this weeks challenge.

Adventures in Monotangles #7 – ONAMATO

Welcome to another wonderful week in the Adventures in Monotangles. It is amazing how fast time goes, it seems like just the other day I started this Adventure.

This is a great week, as yesterday was my wife’s birthday. This weekend to celebrate she is organizing a few friends to go to a local nature center and pull invasive weeds. We will most likely do dinner and a movie afterwards also. I love that for her birthday she is getting people to get out into nature, and to have them help out.

This week I have chosen the tangle Onamato, as our adventure. It is interesting that the reason I decided on it was that there are so many tangelations for this tangle. Then when I did my tile I just used the basic version. That is one of the things I love about Zentanglr®, as it is unplanned, so even when you think you may know how it will turn out, you can surprise yourself.

For instructions on Onamato, Here is the link to it on Tangle Patterns.

Here is my tile for this weeks Adventure.

The Diva’s Weekly Challenge #114

Another Monday is here!

Though many people dread Mondays, I find myself looking forward to them, as they bring yet another Diva’s Zentangle® challenge. Even though I am working my way through all of her earlier challenges, I find myself waiting to see what each Monday will bring. This week was the a star challenge, and as I had just done a star in my redoing the early ones I was at a bit of a loss. I hear star & Zentangle, and I think Auraknot. As that is what I did for the 1^st star challenge, and was this weeks adventure, I decided I should go a different direction. I love Paradox, and the triangles of the Ohio Star was perfect for them. I put it on a simple background of W2, and I am pleased with the results.

Here is my entry in The Diva’s Weekly Challenge #114

Tangles: Rick's Paradox, and W2

Adventures in Monotangles #5 – Slideshow

Well it is that time again, another adventure is coming to a close, and the slideshow is finished. Please do not feel that this means you cannot not still take part in this adventure, if you have not done it yet, give it a shot. I love all of the variations of the Tangle “W2” in this show. From a simple tangle, that is pretty ridged on it’s creation, an amazing number of tiles were born. I love each and every one of the following tiles. Everyone did a wonderful job.

I hope you enjoy each of the tiles in the following show.

Please note: if you click on any picture in the slideshow it should take you to the artists website.

Adventures in Monotangles #6 Auraknot

Man where does the time go!

As I have mentioned in a previous post this has been a crazy week, and again I am sorry this is late. Between the crazy week, and wanting to rip my own head off, everything is a little late this week.

The Adventure this week takes us to a Tangle that is perfect for monotangles. It also happens to be another of my favorite tangles. This week your adventure should you choose to accept it is a little tangle called Auraknot. Here is a link to it on tangle patterns. If you have not already watched the video I recommend you do, it make the tangle easier to understand, and I just love watching Maria do any Zentangle®.

Part of the reason this is late is I was working on a ZIA, that had 5 Auraknots linked together, and with my headaches, it just did not (or knot) workout, so I had to do another piece. 

Here is my hastily done Auraknot monotangles.

Here is my Auraknot for the ongoing adventure.

Thanks again for joining in on this Advanture!

Diva’s Challenge #113 (and 16-25)

Well this weeks challenge was lots of fun. Maybe I should not have done it while half blinded with pain and heavily drugged, but it still turned out well. The only problem I see is some lines are not straight but that’s fine.

Here is Challenge #113

 

Tangles: Cubine, Rick's Paradox

Below here are some of the catch-up challenges I have been doing, specifically #16-25. Most were done on my binder cover, which is done. The last image will be the cover.

Challenge #16 "Mooka" (April 4, 2011): I am becoming more and more a fan of Mooka.

 

Tangles: Mooks, Cubine, FooLites

Challenge #17 "15 Minutes of Fame" (April 11, 2011): This was more difficult than I thought it would be, I blame the ‘Nzepple.

Tangles: Hollibaugh, 'Nzepple, Crescent moon, and Static

Challenge #18 "EGGZZZZellent" (April 18, 2011): I had lots of fun with this, and how strange that I made it a monotangles.

Tangle: Moving Day (Tangleation)

Challenge #19 "More Morris" (April 25, 2011): This was fun, I need t do more work on black tiles.

Tangles: Static, 'Nzepple, Rick's paradox, Foolites, and Cubine

Challenge #20 "Royal Wedding" (May 2, 2011): I choose the cake and for some reason the song  McArthur Park was running through my head while making this, and as a result the cake is in the rain.

Challenge #21 "Oof" (May 9, 2011): This one was lots of fun, I kind of wish I had done it a whole tile.

Tangles: Oof, IX, Bales, Verve

Challenge #22 "A Little Help From My Friends" (May 16, 2011): I had a co-worker, who has taken Zentangle® classes with and from me, do the string for me. She thought it would be cute to do just 2 areas, and it was fun. I also played with schway.

Tangles: schway & W2

Challenge #23 "String Theory" (May 23, 2011): This was a really fun string!

Challenge #24 "String Theory V.II - Stripes" (May 30, 2011): This was fun, as I used very dark tangles, I decided to avoid shading.

Challenge #25 "Zendala Magic: Guest blogger Genevieve Crabe" (June 6, 2011): Let me just say YAY! Zendalas.

And here is the final Binder cover!

Adventures in Monotangles #4 – Slideshow

Better late than never!

This was a rough weekend. The school I work for did our 1^st administration of the MPRS (Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination.) As I am the one who organizes these things, the last week was a little stressful. Then on the 1^st Saturday of the month I run a Role-Plating game, based off the Dresden Files (If you have not read these books do so now!) So after the crazy Saturday, I took it easy Sunday.

I was hoping to post this Tuesday, but with the weather change, and spring coming my allergies are in full effect, and I ended up going home from work early yesterday, drugging myself and going to bed. I am still feeling blah, but the drugs are making me functional.

So without further ado, here is the slide show!

Adventures in Monotangles #5

Welcome to another week in the Adventures of Monotangles. Tonight was a great night, as it was my wife’s monthly shamanic journey circle, so I was able to sit on the couch and tangle and listen to the drumming coming from the living room. If you have never done Zentangle® to rhythmic drumming I cannot recommend it enough. As both practices lower your mind into a meditative state, it is a double dose of relaxation. The fact that tonight was the circle also reminded me that I really want to start tangling the drum I bought. I think I will start taking it to work with me and work on it on my lunch hours.

This week’s adventure is another set tangle. As last week was a curvy organic tangle that was an official tangle without a published step out, this week’s will be the opposite. The tangle for this week it very straight, (curved lines make it a different tangle) and there is a step out, it is even on Tanglepatterns.com.  The pattern for this week is W2, the Tanglepatterens page for it is here.

I did two different tiles for this challenge, the 1^st I used W2 as a string, then used W2 inside it is different sizes.

The second one I used both a ripped open paper effect, and romancy effect under that.

Ongoing Monotangle challenge. As a bonus challenge starting this week and going for the next 20 weeks, I am proposing a 20 sided challenge. Below is a link to a template for creating a 20-sided 3D object.  I print the pattern out on card stock and trace a triangle on the back side each week.  When finished you will be able to fold it up, and roll it to decide on a pattern if you are drawing a blank. When I did this before I taped a penny on the inside of each side to give it weight.

Here is the site for the pattern.

I have a page with more detailed instructions here.

Here is this week’s entry in the ongoing challenge. (Before shading)

Diva’s Challenge #112

Well it is time for another Diva’s Challenge. I took a few moments to knock it out today on my lunch hour. You may notice the it is not on a tile and it is shaped oddly. I am making a cover for the binder I keep all my tiles in, and I drew an number of tiles on it, most of them are partial tiles. For the next few challenges I do, they will each get a section of the cover. Once the whole thing is Done I’ll post it also.

PS: I did not do this pattern exactly right, but I like how it turned out!