Striping with the Diva 2

I made another round with striping for the Diva´s challenge this week. I really like stripes in any form. And I wanted to try two for me new patterns: Stone Story by Tina Akua Hunziker and Ruutz by Eni Oken. Ruutz is also the featured pattern at Square One this week. The other patterns are Tri-Bine (Laura Liu), Ticking (JJ La Barbera), Snail (Sayantika Ray) and Knightsbridge.

Linedance

Just to draw a line, let it continue without interruption. No thinking on what´s coming up next. It sounds very easy but this is one of the hardest things to do for many of us. IAST no. 142 is about this. Use Quib as a sttring and then fill it up with Echoism. Echoism is a tanglepattern that is so familiar. You find it everywhere when it is about hand-writing, calligraphy and ornamentation. It must be a very old pattern, start at one point and then go into eights. That is the basic.

I also recognize it as a part of other patterns. It is in itself a perfect string! I think I am going to try to use it that way some day! The Quib is not that familiar. But they work quite well together I think.

This challenge from Adele Bruno was very relaxing and there are a lots of ways to go with it. This was my way today. 

Striping with the Diva

Black tiles are special!So different to work on and so exciting, because you never know where it will lead you! No planning but following the Diva´s challenge this week: Striping. I like stripes very much. I often use it in my paintings too. A lots of them or just a few stripes. The outcome is never the same. There is one thing that makes this challenge so inspirating: It is so free and open. I enjoy that. Sometimes you need a lots of limits to get into the zen-zone. Very often that is not the case for me though. I am most satisfied when I just may be in the flow and it takes me somewhere I didn´t expect. So there might come more striping this week from me!

There are just 2 patterns here: Onamato (which I learned very early in my tangeling journey) and my own pattern Dorsal. I felt they made a great match so I am glad the way this went!

Slow Down 2

Today I made Joey´s challenge no 110. As I saw this challenge with Roman numbers as string I was thrilled. Every week a new number. It is like boxing up tangles in geometric systems. This week was  Joey´s idea to use 5 tangles! Thats a lot! But today I found it very relaxing. So much going around me, it was good to just do it. Slow down. One stroke at a time. I worked on a Rennaisance-tile using Black Micron 01, Red Micron 01, Sepia F (Faber Castell, White Charcoalpencil, Gellypen, and graphitepencil 2B and a little 7B.

Patterns: Ticking (JJ La Barbera), Wedge (Rosemary Turpin), Showgirl (Vicki Bassett) Snookums (BJ Thompson) and Diva Dance. I am glad to find Showgirl among them! Showgirl is a pattern I never tried, but one of those I had in my little drawingbook, because I wanted to try it sometime! And forgot all about it! Now here she is taking a big part of the tile and i think she will show up another time, because she is just beautiful to work with!

Slow Down

Today I had a high-speed dog to handle. Bisse (our Pumi) is now 8 month and a teenager-dog. Her energy is fabulous and overwhelming.I have worked hard to calm her down. The result is I am exhausted and the high-speed has moved into me. It is fun to see her when she runs freely and it is fun to play with her. But then I have to get her in a more calm state of mind and thats the hard work. 

All this affected me when I finally sat down tangling.I really had to tell myself this: SLOW DOWN!I skipped the challenges and went on with string 101 and focused on the breathing and it worked.  I did slow down. Choosing to work with Snail (Sayantika Ray) was a natural choice as it is the focus tangle of Square One this week. 

The other patterns are: Snookums (BJ Thompson), Natti (mine) and Lenche (mine). Lenche is the hungarian name on Bisse, so it was clear to me that she still was in my mind. But now I feel cool and ready to be with her again. 

Celebrating a birthday and string 100!

Today is a great day. Sun all over the place. The spring is here. I have done my string no. 100. A great artist is celebrating her birthday today. Tina Aqua Hunziker CZT from Switzerland. Her patterns are so inspiring. Every time I use one of them I feel grateful and blessed. Using string no. 100 there were three spots perfect for her little Kauribena! You also find her website in my linklist! With this I want to say Happy Birthday to you Tina! 

The other patterns are Jay-Six (Eni Oken)and Snail (Sayantika Ray).

Shading

Shading or not? As in other questions about zentangle there is no right or wrong. A light shading is very often making big difference. A heavier shading can make a very dramatic difference. I didn´t care too much about shading when I started tangling. It takes more time if I want to work with shading. One can work with light and shadow in other ways, and get contrast by chosing tangles that matches. But it is a great tool to use shading to make the tangles "pop-out", to get a 3D-effect. Nowadays I hardly manage without that. I use a pencil 2B most of the time, sometimes I also use 6B, but only where I want the darkest corner or lineshadow. I am talking about black on white tiles. There are black tiles and renaissance-tiles as well and working on black surfaces there are other ways to go.  

Today I managed to take one photo before shading and one after. Most of the time I don´t do that, because I forget about it. But I find it developing to see the tile I worked on before and after. So here it is.

As I worked on the shading I also found that I wanted a border, so that came later. This is a crowded tile. No open spaces. But that´s the way it went today. Patterns: Snail (Sayantika Ray), Ping (Yu. Ru Chen), Discolea (Tina Akua Hunziker), Ta-Da (Margaret McKerrihan) and Kassandra (my own pattern). I used string 99.