Mi2

This challenge set by Laura back in July, was to use Mimi Lempart's new tangle, Mi2.

Mi2
with Flux, Sanibelle and Fescu

I'm really pleased with how this turned out. Quite often my natural instinct is to fill the entire tile, and it's a battle to stop myself from overdoing it. So I'm REALLY pleased with myself (mental high-five)!

What do you find difficult in the world of Zentangle???
Happy tangling...
Claire

Beads of Courage

Laura's challenge this week was set to celebrate her son's birthday (Happy Birthday!) and draw our attention to a children's charity that operates in hospitals all over the world, Beads of Courage.

In creating their own strings of beads, where every bead represents a procedure that the sick child has undergone, it allows them to gain ownership of their story and power over their illness.

So here is my string of beads:

Beads of Courage
Tangles: Pooma; Corkin; Nzeppel; Allium; Arc Flower;
Vitruvius; Strircles; Beelight, Auraknot

I kept it nice and simple, and enjoyed trying some tangles I've not used before. Auraknot was a perfect tangle for my star shaped beads, unfortunately the top one didn't come out quite as intended, but in the spirit of Zentangle, there are no mistakes!

I'm looking forward to seeing how everyone else interpreted this challenge.

Happy tangling...
Claire

OoF

This is an old challenge from Laura which coincided with the launch of the official tangle, OoF (Out of Focus).

OoF is not a tangle I've used before, so this was exciting for me. I found it quite a nice tangle to use, and I chose to pair it with only one other tangle (and one of my favourites!) Nzeppel.

So here's my tile:

OoF
with a little Nzeppel

I'm really happy with how this turned out.

As you can see, I've been practicing my shading. The recent shading clinic posts on TanglePatterns have been a great help. Marizaan van Beek and Sandy Steen Bartholomew both tangle so beautifully and their tips on shading are really useful. Read Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.

I hope you find them as interesting and useful as I did.

Happy tangling...
Claire

FMS Photo-A-Day Challenge - October Week 2

And it's been a lovely, and extremely busy, week!
I went out of town for a few days - for business not pleasure, unfortunately. I've got multiple projects on the go at work... and on the homefront, MoH has hurt his foot.
With all the other stuff going on, I didn't get time to blog until Saturday arrived. But I did still take part in Fat Mum Slim's Photo-A-Day challenge.

This week's photo prompts were:
Day 8: Angle
Day 9: Red
Day 10: Emotion
Day 11: Something Close-Up
Day 12: On the Table
Day 13: Landscape
Day 14: Makes you Laugh

Some were easier than others. Some I took only one photo, others I took many!
And here's what I turned out:

Top Row: Angles
Bottow Row: Red & Emotion (Curiosity?) 

Top Row: Close-Up of light fitting in my hotel room in Pune, Close-Up of my journal
Bottom Row: Close-Up, On the Table... a potato lovingly delivered by Coco!

Top Row: On the Table (well desk really)... a much needed coffee; Landscape
Bottom Row: Landscape, Makes me Laugh (Coco-nut and her coconut!)

If you missed last week's entries you can check them out here.
If you want to join in, then check out FMS's blog for more details.

Happy snapping...
Claire

Zendala Dare 26 - Halloween

So I'm late again for my second dare entry, but I'm OK with that because I'm over the moon with my zendala!

So the challenge (Zendala Dare 26) was a first week of the month challenge, and that means it not just the template that's given, but further conditions too. And this one was to create a Halloween Zendala.

Zendala Dare 26 Template

I was completely confused at first and didn't know where to start, but then I saw the 'mouths' that I could fill with vampire teeth... and we were off!

Teeth, Scales, Eyeballs, Cobwebs, Bones, and a Snake

And then I had a play with my watercolour pencils!

Halloween
Tangles: Reticulated, Rounded Flukes, Antidots, Web, IX

I had sooooo much fun with this :D

I'm hoping to post the next one on time! Do you think I'll manage?

Happy tangling...
Claire

FMS Photo-A-Day Challenge - October Week 1

I've been on Instagram for quite some time (... @clairewarner77 if you're interested), and at the end of September one of my fellow tanglers, Susi, posted this pic:

...and I was immediately intrigued!

So off I went to find out more. Fat Mum Slim (FMS) is the name of Chantelle's blog, and is her Instagram handle too (@fatmumslim).

It is super easy to play along - there are no rules except those that you impose on yourself! You can use any camera, do any of the prompts you like and leave the ones you don't, keep your pictures for yourself or post them for the world to see.

If you do want to share your pics, Chantelle explains: The photo a day community is shared across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Flickr, Blogs, Tumbr and more.
See this page at FMS for more details of how to join in and play along.

So let's get down to business... the objective of this post was for me to share my first week's photos!

Big pic: Day 1. Where I stood - in the hall at home
 Top Right: Day 2. Lunchtime - dal makhani
Middle Right: Day 2. Lunchtime - Coco wants food too!
Bottom row, left to right: Day 3. This happened today - 7 comments on my blog
post - first time ever!!!; Day 4. What I read - NLP book on language, the papers,
a timely email from a friend; Day 5. Shadow - Office Dino getting in on the act

Top Row, left to right: Day 7. Light - this bulb blew in the earlier hours of the morning;
Day 7. Light - spots of light streaming in to the lobby;
Bottom Row, left to right: Day 7. Light - making a cool pattern on the floor;
Day 6. I'm thankful for... - Zentangle; Day 5. Shadow - Eye shadow (that's me, that is!)

My favourite pics so far have been Office Dino and the light bulb. I'll post more soon, as we've nearly finished the second week too.

I hope you join in!

Happy snapping...

Claire

String Theory 13 - TanglePatterns String 001

After the difficulty of the last few challenges, I was really pleased Laura had given us free-rein to choose all our favourite tangles in this week's challenge.

I'll fess-up; Strings are my weakness and I often turn to pre-drawn strings and templates to get me started... so this wasn't really a challenge at all. It was a pleasure!

So to make it more of a challenge, I combined it with my Photo-a-day challenge from Fat Mum Slim. Tuesday's challenge (day 9) was Red.

I've been meaning to explore colour in my tangling, so what better way to combine two of my favourite challenges... so here is Red String 001:

Red String 001
Tangles: Paradox, Sedgling, Sparkle, Vanity

So although I drew this on Tuesday and posted it on Instagram, I wasn't able to blog about it as I've been in Pune for a few days for work. Finally, now the weekend is here, I have some time to catch up!

I think I'll have to practice some more with shading in colour. Also I need to invest in a brush, as the pencils I've used are watercolour pencils. I've had them for more than 6 years, and barely used them. When I moved to India they got left behind so when I visited my folks a year ago, I found them out and brought them back with me, where they've sat unused for the past year!

Whilst I was in Pune I had a little time on my hands, so started a second tangle, which I finished last night:

TanglePatterns String 001
Tangles: Atorm, Veezley, Shattuck,
 Khirkee, Hypnotic, Fescu

I've used my tangle again in this one. It's called Khirkee, and you can find my step-out for it here.

Both of these drawings were based on this string from Linda's collection at TanglePatterns:

I'm off now to practice with my lovely coloured pencils...

Happy tangling...
Claire