Colored Tangles

Because I'm such a fan of colored pencils, I decided to try coloring a couple of my tangle projects.

I used Prismacolor pencils and put down many soft layers of pencil.

 

Here are the first three projects.

The first was an experiment with the tangle Coil.  The idea to draw a large coil and small coils behind it came from somewhere (possibly pinterest) but I can't, for the life of me, remember where.
 

 

For this next one, I was going to put simple balls amongst the Antidots, but decided to make the balls into Jetties instead. 

Below, I tried the same thing, except I added some sunflowers into the mix.

 

These were so much fun to create and color.

 

Until another time, have a happy, creative day!

 



Ring of Tangle Cards

I've seen a few other Zentangle enthusiasts out there use a large ring to store reference cards upon for a quick and easy way to view their stash of tangles.

They look so cool!  I've decided to try it too, and have been working on my set for many weekends.

 

 

  To keep costs low, I created my own tags out of cardstock.  I made a handful of 2 x 2.5 cards, then used my old corner rounder to round the top two corners, then traced around a smaller square to make the "art area".  The alphabet letters got special attention as I colored the boarder of each one a different color. 

I found the alphabet ideas on pinterest and tried really hard not to make them exactly the same because I always feel bad when I copy exactly what someone else has done.

 

 

Finally, I laminated each one using crystal clear, sticky, shelf liner.  I laminate all kinds of things with this stuff!
 

 

Then, I punch a hole in the top of the card and put them on the ring.  I only have a few cards so far but I'm adding to the pile every couple of weeks.

 

 It's just nice to have a little stack of cards to flip through when I'm stumped as to what tangle to use on my next tile.
 

 

 

That's all for today, until another time, have a happy, creative day!

 

Tangling Pens Organization and Storage

Sakura Micron pens have been a part of my life since high school.  I love them and have used them in my art for decades (good grief, that sentence made me feel old).

 

I used a rare 60% off coupon from JoAnn's Fabrics and bought a six-pack of Microns!  I'd never had a big pack before.  Right away I noticed that even though they all have a different nib size, they all look very much alike. When I would reach to grab one out of the pen pile I kept having to pick up a few before finding the right number I wanted.  I remedied that by wrapping different colored washi tapes around the end of each pen.  Now, I can tell with a glance where the pen I need is in the pen pile.  I use #01 the most (orange). 

 

But what happens when you have an old .01pen and a newer .01 pen?  How can I tell which one is the newer one and which one is the older?

 

 

I simply drew a black line around the orange tape of the older pen.  Now I use the older pen for just doodle practice, jotting things down, etc (because it's still good, just not great), and the newer one I keep for actual tangle pieces.

 

 

After I'd been tangling awhile, I realized I needed a smaller container to hold my supplies.  The large organizer I was using was too cumbersome to carry to my daughter's choir practice.  I needed something small and portable. 

I found this little craft/tackle box at Walmart.
 

 

 

The first tier of this little container holds a variety of pens, a pencil, and a smudger, the second holds blank step out cards and binder ring cards, just waiting patiently to be tangled.  The bottom, which is a little deeper, holds a small box of blank tiles, my binder ring full of tangle patterns, and a few odds and ends. 

 

 

It seems to work quite well.  We'll see how it does on trips to the lake and on vacation.

That's all for today.  Until another time, have a happy, creative day!

 

 

 

My Tangle Patterns Binder

My next few posts are going to be about Zentangle.  I'm so excited about this growing form of meditative art!  But I'll get back to posting vintage soon.

These past few weeks, I've enjoyed learning and practicing some of the tangle patterns that are out there on the web.  My darling husband even bought me a book,
The Joy of Zentangle featuring contributing artists: Suzanne McNeill, Sandy Steen Bartholomew and Marie Browning (all CZTs).  It is a treasure-trove of ZIAs (Zentangle Inspired Art) and step-by-step breakdowns of the patterns.

 

When I first started collecting tangle patterns, I was drawing the pattern step-by-steps on 5x7 pieces of cardstock and was keeping them in a small binder (see photo below).  After a couple of months I realized my little binder was quickly getting full.  With hundreds and hundreds of patterns out in the universe I would soon run out of room.  I love the 5x7 size, but it just isn't practical.

 

Some people online use ATC sized cards (artist trading cards) that are the same size as the standard baseball card to collect their pattern step-outs.  I decided to give that a try.  I drew up my own little baseball card sized tangle step-out cards, photocopied a number of them, then bought baseball card sleeves at Hobby Lobby.

 

The sleeves live in a standard sized binder and I can collect many many many tangle patterns from here and into the future.

I've been working on some alphabet cards (see in upper right of bottom photo the letter "C") that way I can keep the cards in alphabetical order. 

 

 

Many of the patterns I find are from a wonderful web site called tanglepatterns.com/.  This site is AMAZING!!

In the back of the binder, I used black cardstock and page protectors to create a gallery of Zentangle tiles that I've created.  I write the date under each tile with a silver gel pen.

Next time, we'll talk about my favorite pens and pencils and their storage container.
Until another time, have a happy, creative day!