"Floroborus"

My latest ZIA. I call it Floroborus, from flora (plant, obviously) and oroborus. Granted, a true oroborus is a snake or dragon or serpent eating its own tail, but this is a flower becoming its own stem, so it counts doesn't it? :D



Usual materials. Cardstock, micron pens (black and sepia, though the sepia doesn't show up that much on this piece) with shading done with the warm grey 50% prismacolor. Tangles used: my own design for the flower, loosely based on a wisteria; betweed; what I saw elsewhere being called "wud" (that's the wave / woodgrain pattern), sez, drupe, florez, and nipa

And an observation that surprised me. I used both a micron 005 and micron 01 pen for some of this (and an 03, but it doesn't play into this observation). The difference in size between the 005 and 01 is only .05 mm

Doesn't seem like much at all, yet I could tell a definite difference in how fine I could get the lines when doing the florez or some of the dots. Amazing how much difference .05 mm makes.

ZT as therapy

Last night was my first real use of ZT for treating depression. Had a bad night last night with some events, so pulled out the pens and some cardstock, put on some soft music, and let it flow.

Here's the result:



What really interested me was how I kept trying to add more to it, but the piece 'spoke' to me and said it was better as it was. (No, not literally saying words, but other artists will know what I mean).

I call it Seeking Balance.

Mooka this or Mooka that

Challenge 16 from the diva is to use the newly released zentangle pattern, Mooka. When I first saw mooka, I had the same reaction as some others I've seen. No way can I do that one! It's way too complex, especially as a single string! Instead, it flowed smoothly right away after seeing how it was done. It's easier than I expected. :D

This is the first challenge I've done more than two attempts for. I haven't finished my first two attempts yet, but I'll post them when I do. Both of those have a spring theme, but both are missing something.

My third attempt resulted in this one:


Let's see... drawn on cardstock, this time in a 3.5" square, using black pigma micron pens and using a 50% warm grey prismacolor pencil for shading. Tangles include mooka (obviously), fern, printemps, jetties, huggins, L, shattuck, striping, betweed, cadent, ahh, and kitties. The others, I don't know the names on. If anyone could help with identifying the others, that'd be great! The framing could be a variation on Opus. It's a case of seeing it somewhere else and liking it :D


Then I got some micron sepia pens and some Pitt pens in shades of grey, so of course I had to try them out. I saw the perfect opportunity to experiment with the white gel pen.



As usual, done on cardstock. This time a 4" square, and naturally the primary pattern is mooka. With a couple of simple spirals and curlies. I do wonder if anyone has any tips on decreasing the streaking that comes from filling in the larger areas like that...?


Finally, I got the hang of things. This one's my favorite:



Cardstock, 3.5" square, micron pigma pens, but add in the sepia tone and just a little use of a pitt grey for some of the shading and a dark umber prismacolor pencil for the rest of the shading. Patterns are squid, fescu, I guess that would be an inverted aura, mooka, ennies (filled with tipple), crescent moon, and I'm not sure what to call the pattern on the tips of the mooka buds.

My first 'Zendala'

This was done on a piece of 8.5x11 acid free cardstock using micron pigma 005 and 03 pens.

The tangles used were: Provencal, Zanella, Zingiber, Richardson, Santo, Bales, Hurry, and Hibred



This one's going to mom.

Help me identify the patterns?

I'm going back now to my past posts and trying to include the name of the patterns used on each one. Unfortunately, as I'm sure you other zentanglers are aware, looking at hundreds and hundreds of tangle patterns in the span of a week or two results in a totally different type of tangle. One in your head saying "now which one was that and where did I see it again?"

So, if anyone can help me identify some of the unidentified patterns below, I'd appreciate it :)

Tammi tangled

On the site Tangle Patterns, Linda posted a challenge to Zentangle your Name. I bent the rules a little by making it more a ZIA using my smaller size pages (about 4x6 cardstock cards), but I did use only official tangle patterns.

The ones I used were:
T - Tipple
A - Ahh
M - Meer
M - Msst
I - Ixorus

All of this was drawn with a Micron pigma black 005 pen.

Zentangle ADD?

So, how many works in progress (WIPs) do you have?

I'm currently working on an Easter cross, a flower mandala (which mom has already claimed as hers, even though it's not done), my pattern cards (I'm using artist trading cards in the bristol smooth as a way to keep track of and practice the patterns I really like), and now I've started putting together something for the VennTangle challenge posted by ptrish of Zentangles and Stuff. And, of course, the pattern cards come out every time I look at someone else's ZIA and find things I like.