colours of the week

  Let's kick off this week's post with some tiles from Travelling Tangles Project...

  Firstly, here's a tile from Janet Shillam-Day sent to me in October 2017. She drew the tangles in white: Abundies, My Swing, and N’zeppel.

  I played around with the idea of extending N’zeppel to other areas of the tile, but ended up doing a watercolour wash of blue and then adding Fassett to the area. Shading was added using Derwent’s Coloursoft coloured pencils.

  Here’s a 3Z tile from Lin Laidler. I tried to make my Diva Dance sort of weave in and out between the other tangles.

Before....

  And here's the after. No matter how many 3Z tiles I complete, I’m always so surprised by how small they really are. They get completed so quickly!

This was a tile from Barb Mavraganis sent to me in APRIL LAST YEAR (!) How quickly time flies. Yesterday morning, it spoke to me and I finally got around to completing it. It's the orange tile in this picture.

I added extra colours using Derwent’s Art Bar, and Coloursoft coloured pencils. The white is from a Uni-Ball Signo Broad pen.

  Onwards, here are my tiles for this week's weekly challenges. Diva's challenge for Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day, featuring the colour purple.

  And a tile for Joey's challenge, featuring String #165 and the tangle Exeter.

  And a couple more tiles, just for fun. I found a new way to use Inktense blocks and Art Bars, so I'll probably be making a video tutorial soon. :)

Featuring Mooka, and my tangle, Naida.

Paradox-y thing, with Flux.

And to finish the week off, a tile featuring my simplified version of Diva Dance.

  Thanks for popping by. I'll see you next week!

heARTland project

  We had our last workshop for Bukit Batok East Community Centre. The idea is that over three workshops, residents from Bukit Batok East would come together to create a large 4m by 1m (13 feet by 3 feet) community art work to be displayed at an art fiesta happening in July. The event is called "heARTland" (how cute) and will be held near Toh Guan Park RC. 

  Here's the last workshop: 

I'm really tall cause' I'm standing on a chair.

If you'd like to see close-ups of each of the canvases, you can do so on Everything Is Art's Facebook page right here.

  In other news; I'm part of an eight teacher team that will be teaching an online journal course. In my video, I will teaching you how to merge tangles together. Here's the final outcome that you'll get.

  There's an early bird special if you sign up before 1st of July 2017. If this sounds like something that you'll be interested in, click on this link to find out more: bit.ly/stephaniejournal

  On to weekly challenges... Joey's tangle for this week was "Yuma", so here's my tile for it.

  So I decided to use the same tangle to complete Diva's challenge: drawing with your opposite hand. I wasn't really nervous... Didn't really have any expectations on how things would turn out... I have never drawn with my non-dominant hand, though, so this was new. I just went with the flow. I did this tile first before the one for Joey's challenge. Doing this made me understand what some people whom I teach Zentangle workshops to mean when they say "my hand isn't listening to my brain". I don't feel terrible about the outcome. It was a good experience. I think when you let go of any expectations of what your drawing should look like, you'll have fun no matter what. :)

Finally, here's a personal project that I just completed. I made all the tiles entirely using Tombow markers (from the backgrounds, to the tangles, to the shading). If you're located in Singapore, you can buy Tombow markers from here.

  Thanks for dropping by. I hope I inspired you somehow. ^-^

drawing outside the tile

  If you dropped by last week, then hello again~ Remember I created two watercolour flowers? I completed the pink one this week.

With some Tripoli in pink and purple. I'm not sure whether I should fill the entire paper with Tripolis or leave it as it is... Any thoughts on the matter? Let me know in the comments section below. :)

  In other news, I also posted new videos onto my YouTube channel. You can view my channel via this link.

  For Diva's challenge, I did a tile in my sketchbook.

  Here's how the full page looks like. I'm trying out this new thing where I extend the tangles out of their "tiles", and also try to connect different "tiles" together by entwining their tangles together. It takes some planning, but it's lots of fun.

I've discovered that one of my tangles, Naida, works really well as a leaf.
Step-outs to it via this link.

  Here's another page in my sketchbook. It's a W2 labyrinth. The idea is by Staub Korn. I shaded it with three different purple coloured pencils.

  And here's my submission for Joey's challenge.

  Lastly, here are some tiles I completed for Travelling Tangles.

June Dalde sent in all these pretty things. 

  And I finished the first tile. I actually really like that fern thing. It reminds me of Verdigogh, but without all the layering (although I'm quite sure if you had the patience, you definitely could layer the fern's leaves too). I added some colours to it with Prismacolor coloured pencils.

  And here's another tile... This one was sent from Franciose Lip. Unfortunately, I don't have a "before" picture. She did the pretty pink background, and the Flux on the bottom right; I added the Flux at the top left, and CC in the background.

The tangle "CC" is really starting to grow on me. I've used it in four different works just this week alone... I might have to teach it in one of my classes soon.

  As always, thank you for dropping by. Reading comments really brings a smile to my face, and suggestions are always appreciated. Until next week... Keep tangling!

Joey's 100th Challenge

  I didn't get time to post my submission for Joey's Challenge last week! Congratulations, Joey, on 100 wonderful weekly Zentangle challenges. ^-^ Here's my tile with the "100" string:

Derwent Inktense on Canson paper.
It was a very *very* loose interpretation of the "100" string.

  Onwards to other tiles!

Fassett and Bales done during a class.

Flux flower with Diva Dance. I really liked this tile.

Notice a trend? Hovering tangles with another tangle for the background. Simple but very effective.
Here's Hamadox and Mumsy. Looking at it on screen, I would've probably added more weight to the outlines of all the Hamadoxes.

  And here's a tile Joni and I did for Travelling Tangles:

A Zendala for a change!
Shimmery acrylic as a base.... Joni, of course, did the Diva Dance.

  And two tiles that I'm sending to other artists...

  And here's a tile Joni did with Debbie New (another CZT based in Singapore) :

Joni did the Flux Flower.

  And that's all I have for you for now. Till' next time, keep tangling~

the start of something new

  As always, I've been creating lots in the past week.   ^-^

My version of Mooka. You can view my step-outs to it via this link.
Initially, I wanted to add Tipple or SharlaRella to the background, but I settled on keeping it really simple.

Moving on to something more complex.
Abundies, Fleavy, Printemps, SharlaRella, and Mooka (at the top left corner).

I used lots of SharlaRella this week, didn't I?
Paired with Zengems and my very own tangle, Singapore Sling. You can see step-outs to Singapore Sling via this link.

  Unfortunately, I didn't take part in many challenges because none of them really spoke to me. I did, however, participate in Adele's "It's a String Thing #128". Here's my submission for the challenge:

We used String #129, with Paradox and Hypnotic.
I decided to do a monotangle. I love the string, though, and I had so many ideas that I wanted to try... Definitely going to use the string again soon.

I have trypophobia- the fear of holes, and this tile triggered it a little... I had to set it aside once or twice when I would overthink things.... I'm happy with how it turned out, though.

More Zengems! Paired it with Flux and Crescent Moon.

With this one, I was trying out Chainging. Did the gem in the centre, and then thought a simple background would look better.

  Here's the something new that I mentioned in the title of this post:

  I'm starting a tangle-a-day project. I know that Carole Ohl sells her own tangle-a-day calendar, but I was looking for something smaller... Just a small square for each day that I could complete within ten minutes as a warm up. I created this calendar that is printable in A4 format and I'm sharing the template with all of you for your own personal use. I also give permission to all CZTs to share this with their students in class. Please do not sell the template, or upload it elsewhere. You can download the calendar page from this link. I hope you have fun with it, and enjoy using it as much as I have had so far. I'll also be uploading February's calendar a few days before the month starts. So look out for that in a future post. :)

  Class things:

Kristen, a student of mine, brought in her daughter, Bella, for a class. I had to think of a way to introduce the Zentangle method to Bella whilst still teaching Kristen new patterns. I think the class went superbly well because Bella has decided to join future classes. Woohoo!

Here's a white tile that I messed up and painted over with black acrylic.
I love the tile now. And it's not a mistake if no one sees it, right? The Zentangle idea of "No mistakes; only opportunities." is very very true here. hehehe

Finally, an original tile with another pretty gem on it.
I like how the yellow and green leaves look neon in colour.

  That's about all I have for this week. I hope I've inspired you to try something new. Don't forget to try the tangle-a-day calendar. I love all the comments all of you leave, and I'm thankful for each and every one of them. Until next week, keep tangling~

too many choices equals to not doing anything

  I really did try to think of tangles/strings to use for this week's Diva Challenge... But I just felt so overwhelmed by choices. Does that happen to you, too? I'm like a kid at a candy store... If I can do anything... Then there's so much to do! Gosh. Where do I start?? So, unfortunately, I don't have a submission for the challenge. If I do get around to doing it, I'll be posting it in another post.

  My mother, however, did complete the challenge. Here's Joni's tile for this week's Diva Challenge: Back to Basics...

I love the way "Hollibaugh" grows out from "SeZ".

  I did complete my tile for Joey's challenge, though. This week featured Knightsbridge. Here's Joni's tile:

  And here's mine:

  Onwards to other tiles that I did.

Molygon with a gemstone.

Molygon again. Giving credit to Lynn Shelton Mead. She did a tile with this shading idea and I loved it so much I had to try it out for myself. I'll definitely be doing different patterns with this method in the future.

This week, I taught my students how to create this beautiful flower thing with Flux.
All of them loved it.

A tile I did for a promotional video for my Zentangle classes. You can watch the video below.

A tile featuring a new tangle I learnt: "Mumsy", with some soapstone and charcoal highlights.
I don't like how the black tile literally drink all of the ink up, and I'm probably going to be layering my tiles with black acrylic paint from now on to make them more enjoyable to work on...

This was a white tile that I painted black with acrylic paint. Look how much brighter the whites are.
I shouldn't have used "Pebble Flowers" on the inside of the circle... But we move on.

Here's a commission I'm currently working on.
Nine jewels to represent abundance. Four birds to represent the number of members in their family.

Mooka! Want to know how I drew this version of it? Link to step-outs is right here.
I'm still trying to figure out whether I should add "Roxi" or "Tipple" in it... Or use "SharlaRella" instead. What do you think?

Lastly, a pretty Zendala that I did.
There's "Reticulated", "Yuma", "SeZ", "Betweed", "Inapod", "Crescent Moon", and a Zengem.

  I hope you're having a good week so far. Stay inspired, and keep tangling! ^-^