Nice giveaway

Interested in pens and stuff? This seems like a nice giveaway

http://asiantreasurehunt.blogspot.com/2011/05/free-eco-leather-pen-case-gift-from-us.htm

A thanks to our troops

In the US, today is Memorial Day -- a day we remember those who have fought and died for our freedom.



In honor of Memorial Day, I did this tangle in red, white, and blue and using stripes for the background string and patterns that suggested stars. Done in micron sigma pens using the patterns tink, swags, versa, whirls, chard, and buttercup. Drawn on the small rhodia dot pad.

String Theory II -- Stripes

The Diva's challenge for week 24 is to use only stripes for a string. I may go back and do one that is stripes radiating from a central point like a sun, or stripes straight across, but you know me. I have to try to think within the guide but outside of the lines...

So, I thought, hey... Hollibaugh is a bunch of stripes. Sure, they overlap, but they're stripes. And I remembered where someone (unfortunately, don't remember *who* and can't find it again) had used Hollibaugh as their string. Perfect time to do that!

But that's not enough... I further decided I'd try to find only patterns that *used* stripes in order to fill the stripes of hollibaugh. And of course, hollibaugh can't be one of them.

This is what I ended up with:



It scanned larger than it actually is.

This one was done in my moleskine pocket journal, using the micron sigma graphic 1 pen for the fill and some of the lines, and micron sigma 01 and 02 for the rest of the lines. I also used my gellyroll white for a bit of the highlight and an HB pencil for shading. Patterns used were hollibaugh, what could be considered either btl joos minus the curlies or striping with shading, bitten, a variation on plaid, sugar cane, navajo border, braze, and vega

Carmel Tangle

I started this piece while on vacation in Carmel, but only got around to finishing it tonight. It's inspired by the door to the Tuck Box and all of the flowers around town.



The cottages in Carmel are absolutely adorable, so much like a Disneyland for grown ups who like art. (Granted, I love the Disney parks, too...)



This was drawn on a watercolor paper ATC, done in black micron pens and using an HB pencil to shade.

Beginning of a new project

I got inspired by tanglepatterns, alpha tangle, and by Mafe's great tangle mosaic (which she's got available as a booklet, too), and decided to do my own twist on the idea. I found that moleskine has a 'japanese journal' in which the pages fold out to make one long sheet. Drawing patterns yet again is indeed more work, but it's drawing more patterns :D. And for some insane reason, I have fun organizing my patterns, almost as much fun as I have using them in projects.

So, here's the first page of my new reference journal.



Each square is just under an inch square, probably about 3/4 of an inch, and my intent is just to put enough in to get the idea for the pattern. I have more detail on my pattern cards, where I draw the pattern (and sometimes steps) in a 2 inch square on an ATC. I'll eventually get some of those posted just for kicks.

Patterns from a Plane

My recent trip to Carmel and Monterey (pictures here, if anyone's interested) was absolutely filled with patterns. My mom, who is just getting started in this, was helping me spot them, too. I've got several dozen in mind, but only have the first three done.

All three of these came about from the trip from Houston to San Jose, California. The first, "Countem", is based on a design I saw on a lady's bag in one airport. The second, "Skyview", could perhaps be seen as a variation on the already-existing pattern "Wired", but it's not meant to be. What it's meant to be is what I saw from the plane as we were flying over residential areas. The third, "Tred", is -- of all things -- based on the tred on a moving walkway in the Phoenix airport. Just goes to show you can find patterns in even the most mundane of things. :D

Enjoy! I'll post more as I get them worked out, of course.

String Theory

This week's challenge was for everyone to use the same string posted by the Diva. She let chance dictate her pattern choices, and I thought that sounded like a pretty good idea. But I have so many patterns between my pattern cards and print outs and books, I had to cut them down a bit more. So, I decided to limit them to tangles from Sandy Bartholomew's Alphatangle (great little reference book). I used a random number generator to dictate the page, and somewhat used it to decide the patterns from that page, though didn't keep entirely to that. So the selection wasn't *entirely* random. But at least it took my choices down from several hundred to four or five at most.

I left the list of tangles used on my scan.



Done with micron pigma in black and sepia, using an HB pencil to shade and just a little bit of white stabilo pencil for a little subtle highlighting. Unfortunately, it didn't show up in the scan, and the shading is once again better than it shows in the scan. I drew this in my small rhodia dotpad.

Vitruvius is a new one for me, and this is only the second or third time I've even tried hollibaugh or umble. I also tried my hand at letting the patterns play from one segment into the next. Didn't work as well as I've seen some that were done, but it's a start. :)

Vacation tangle

So I got that new dotpad that I just had to try out. How else do you try out new paper but to tangle? :D



Done in my medium rhodia notepad (pages tear out, and it comes in at 4 sizes. The previous challenge was on the smallest one at about 3.5" x 4.5". This pad is 6" x 8.25"), using black micron. Couldn't decide how to shade, so I may still go back and do that later.

Tangles used include cadent, a variation on bales, onamato, knase, paisley, avreal, ixorus, hollibaugh, meer, a hurry variation, marasu, umble, and sanibelle (plus 3 more, gonna have to look up their names again when I can find which book they're in...)

With a little help

This week's challenge by the Diva was to have a friend draw the string. I had my mom do the string, since we were on vacation together. I've gotten her started in tangling just a bit, and am showing her some of the basics. Yet somehow, I hadn't gotten the concept of a string across. One of the first things you do, and instead we've been focusing on the different patterns and the finished product. Oops. (Well, I'm neither a CZT nor an art teacher, nor do I claim to be one. LOL!)

I had her draw the string in brown, and I tangled the rest in black then shaded only the portion she had done. She opted to create a few abstract shapes. And since the flowers on our trip were great, I stuck mainly with flower patterns.

Here's the finished product:


This was done on a brand new paper, which I absolutely adore. We were in Carmel, California and there's a pen and stationary shop there. They had a different type of graph paper than I've seen before, called a 'dotpad' by Rhodia. It is 80 lb vellum that is absolutely exquisite to work on -- if you like smooth. Which is my preference, and my mom's, for pen and ink. I may not have liked working on the bristol vellum ATCs, and it took a bit for me to get used to the vellum in moleskines, but now that I have... YUM. Anyway, you can see the dots on the outskirts of the page, but they do pretty much disappear in the finished piece. Especially if viewed from more than 2 feet away.

As for materials: black and brown micron pens and shaded with pencil. I used way, way too many tangles to name. I can't even keep track of all of them. ;)

Oof challenge

(On vacation, no write-up yet. I'll add details when I get home)

Mom's Day

A little late getting this posted, but here's what I put together for mom for Mother's Day. Her cat, Figaro, loves to bring her roses when she gets them in floral arrangements or if he can find them in potpourri.

Westminster Wedding

So, did you watch the Royal Wedding? I didn't expect to, but it was rather hard to escape. And by the time it was on, I was excited for it. I didn't stay up, but I did record it. And though I haven't watched all of it yet (like the part at Buckingham), I've seen enough to see it was absolutely beautiful.

So by the time the Diva's challenge came around, to do a ZIA inspired by the royal wedding, I'd already been thinking of doing one.

It just took me all week because I found one pattern in Westminster that I obsessed over.

But, finally, it's done! :D



Done in micron pens on the usual cardstock, but this time I used an HB pencil to shade. Which, of course, didn't show up too well in the scan. Oops. There is shading there, really...

Tangles: Nightbridge, my new pattern Quirepine, a variation on Opus, sanibelle, sundoo, and chambray. Anything else was just pattern as it came, not a conscious use of anything named. (Though the lace around William's window is similar to 'lace')


And, the result of a week of failed attempts at deconstruction, persistence paid off. Here's my new pattern Quirepine, based on the white-on-blue pattern in the windows of the choir area. Or, as they spell it at Westminster, 'quire'. The largest motif reminded me of the pineapple, hence the name.

Organizing your patterns

I'm curious to know how some of you organize your patterns. For me, I've been drawing each pattern onto an ATC to make it easier to handle them one at a time, and to mix and match and see how things might just look if I use these two patterns together. But now I'm getting up to enough patterns on cards that I need to divide them into "classes", with each class stored in its own trading card deck box (I use the ones for baseball cards). So far, I've got them separated into "official patterns", "grids" (so anything that makes a regular grid-like pattern), and "motifs" (like most of the flower patterns, or the more 'organic' designs that don't rely on the square or triangular grid for their placement). The next branching I'll need to do will be to "bands and borders".

Mafê Mavromati over on Tangle Brasil has posted a printable version of her Great Mosaic of Tangle Patterns. The portable, printable version is a fantastic reference and a great complement to Linda Farmer's TanglePatterns.com

For those patterns that I have saved from people who have shared them, I print a copy out that I carry with me until I have made the card for that pattern. Then the steps get filed away for future reference (since the steps aren't on the pattern cards for me)

In addition, I have Sandy Bartholomew's Totally Tangled, Yoga for your Brain, and Alpha Tangle books and I enjoy flipping through those for inspiration as well.

So, how do you organize your gallery of patterns?

A Texan Tangle (Well, ZIA)

And this is what I was creating the patterns for. I ended up only using four in the piece, but until I really got started, I didn't know which ones I wanted to use. :) This will be a gift to a UT fan.



Materials: done on 4.5 x 6.5 inch cardstock using black micron pens. Colored with orange, burnt ochre, and pumpkin orange to get something close to the UT burnt orange color, and warm grey 50% to shade. Tangles used were clay tiles by Lori Howe, my patterns GRG-UT, BTLD-UT, ENS-UT, and Littlefield-UT. The longhorn silhouette is the official Longhorn logo of the University of Texas at Austin, named Bevo. I traced him with a lightbox.

If you're interested in some of the process, I have two pictures of the pattern in progress here: Longhorn WIP 1 and Longhorn WIP 2

The rest of the UT series

And here are the last three from the University of Texas series. Or, rather, the last three I've done so far. I may make more in the future. :D