Diva 97 challenge

Sooooo... do something without a string!   But I do most of mine without a string...easy peasy.   I had slowly found myself not using strings as I increased my stash of patterns to tangle.  I'm inclined to pick a focus tangle and then work around it.  And I also do a lot of the mandala patterns, which in a way is a string.   The round of a plate lends itself to the roundness of a mandala.

Therefore here is my stringless tangle for the diva...

I started with that bundle of string in the middle.  Then added the scallops, and chicken wire fence pattern.  Got brave and tried a bit of the kknit pattern (only a LITTLE bit) as that one drives me crazy but I love to knit and it is a great idea for a pattern.   So I had one angle of the paper covered.  Decided to put  the 'lumber' at another angle and then drip the beaded diamonds off of that.  Put some leafy vines on the wire and floated some shells in the air at the bottom with a few spirals to fill in.

I'm sorry to say I remember very little of the names of the tangles.  My memory has been terrible for years and the older I get the worse it is still getting.  I remember what I see fairly well, so slowly my brain is storing the tangles, but the names seem to float away.

Just to emphasize my non-use of strings, the tangle the diva asked for a while back with bunzo (I remember that one!!!) was started with the bunzo tangle in the center and the rest piled on accordingly.  And later I decided I really wanted to add more....  so it kinda qualifies as a second tangle for this challenge.

 This the first way I did it...

Then I added some more to fill in the empty spaces...so does this qualify as number 2???

Zendala 32 and Diva challenge

Been concentrating on plates for the last few days.  I made a fun trip to Goodwill, a store that takes donations and puts folks to work selling the products to help those who need help.  I love shopping there because of the variety, and because I'm re-cycling, and because it helps others at the same time. Win, Win, Win. 
Got a bunch of clothes and a whole bunch of pretty dishes to draw on.  Here are the first few I worked on. 

This last one fits the
Diva's challenge as there are a few zingers I added to the cluster of black lace tied up.  I thought they looked enough like tassels that they fit, and they filled in that space with a light look

 I also did the Zendala challenge with the Zingers included.  I thought it looked a bit flat so I went further and added color and shading to the brown ink pattern.  

This is what it looked like without the added color.  I especially was bothered by the white ovals.  I knew I didn't want to put anything in there, but it was too stark.   The soft shading of the brown pencil did the trick.  The pen was a brown micron 5, and the pencils were prismacolor in all the golds and browns. 

Zendala 31 and other goodies

Behind on the challenges because of these extra works. 

 Did this plate in green, 'cause I started in purple and realized I used the wrong type of pen.  I went over the rest of the lines with green but left that little bit in the center and on one outside aura. 

 Stuck with red for this one and used the right pen!!!

 This is my first try on watercolor paper.  Did the painting first and then used my charge card for the 'string'  and lots and lots of patterns to tangle it up. The very edges are missing cause I put it thru the scanner and it is 9"x12"

This also has the same problem with the edges as it is another big one.  My granddaughter asked for a sun and moon and gave me a simple graphic to start with.  I put the large circles around the two faces and then went to work.  As I didn't think she would turn it in any other direction I used gravity to direct things DOWN dripping off the sides.   She loved it and said it was waaaaay more than she expected, so I did good...

THEN I finally got to the challenge.  This time tried that blue pen I used on a plate, only this was on paper.  Whew, I think I'm caught up on challenges. 

Zendala 30...VERY late

I should be working on 31 and I just finished 30.  I'm not sure I like it.  I used red just to be different and had to add some black because it looked too 'lite' somehow...Tried some patterns I hadn't used before with the 'P' 'I' 'E'  deal.  Didn't use them before because I couldn't 'get' them, ya know what I mean???  So I struggled to continue the patterns I started and at least I'm done!!!

Working on a special project

This one is for my granddaughter who wanted a 'sun' and 'moon' subject to be zentangled.  I started with a simple pic she had given me.

I traced out the sun and moon and then added a large circle around each to give me a 'string' to work with, as the sun and moon were rather small to do a lot of patterns in, and needed some kind of expansion.  Because I had left the faces in, I felt she would probably hang it in one direction only, so I let gravity work for me.  Let things 'drip' off and down.  She liked it without color so I shaded it and called it finished. 

Because I scanned it, some of the edges are missing, but the detail is better with scan, over camera.

Snow and Lace

The nor'easter we were expecting was supposed to be lots of wind and rain in our area, but it seems to have shifted and we have over an inch of snow, and very little wind, so far.  I'm delighted to say our power is still with us, and it gave me a chance to scan a zendala I worked on a couple days ago. 

I used the brown pen for a sepia look and it did give a nice soft look. 

Celtic challenge 12

This one took some doing.  First I did the frame, which took time to get all those leaves and squiggles all the way around the frame.  Then I took a break and after lunch decided to add a picture to the frame.

I had downloaded a little instruction book on how to make cute fantasy birds, so I thought I'd give that a try and then surrounded him with fanciful plant-like zentangle patterns.  So here is the finished product.

Plates and the newest challenge 29..late!

Finally got around to taking pics of the two plates I had finished .  The zentangles usually fit into the scanner and that is so much easier than digging out the camera and then transferring over to the computer.  So large objects take a while to make it to the blog.

 I decided to fill the first plate all the way out to the edges and my daughter loved it.  So I did the same with the second.  The blue one was done while Storm Sandy was trying to do it's worst.  My little table I work on is in the south side of the house and gets the best light, so I could keep on working while it poured and blew outside and ripped down the power lines.

I like working on plates because they have such a finished solid feel... no frames and they sit anywhere in an easel or hang on the wall if you have one of those plate hanger things.

The blue is as close as I could get to the cobalt blue of soooooo many dish patterns.  That way this plate can blend right in!!

Then I finally got to doing my challenge for Bright Owl.  I hope she is catching her breath and able to play a bit real soon.  That new job is enough challenge for the moment, eh???

I worked some purple in with the black...actually quite a LOT of purple and a touch of black.  This time I started on the very outside pointy part, rather than starting with the middle and working my way out as I usually do.  I couldn't figure out what to do with this one.  But that little pointy thing said 'onion' to me so I dug in from that point.

And I love putting a pattern alllll the way around to pull it all together, and this one stumped me on that too.  So I started with a simple line and darned if I didn't stop right there!!!   That seemed to be just enough.

Found out I could push the colored pencil shading in the same way as a black pencil.  Didn't know if the color was soft enough to smudge, and got a nice surprise to see that it did.  Took a bit more push, but it worked.

Diva 93...on the late side this time.

Just got back onto the internet this morning, so I am late with my challenges.  We were without power from Mon to late Wen night.  And the internet didn't come on til Thurs late.  Not bad compared to the two bad storms last year.  One kept us out 6 days, the other 7.  REALLY miss my power when it's not here!!!! 
So. On to the Bonzo challenge.  This one is kinda squishy looking so I wanted to put it with similar soft edge patterns.  Hope this did the trick.  I also used my gray pen along with the black to give a new contrast that I haven't tried before.  I think I like it.  The grey goes with the softer look to make that black really stand out but not be blinding to the eye.

I did this on a 5 x 7 as I usually do.  I can't seem to see the little tiles as well since the cataract surgery is only half done.  (other half November 29)  Thought I'd mention it, as this one certainly doesn't look square......lol  My 70 year-old eyes really prefer the larger sizes anyway.  And I have more room to play!!