DIVA Challenge DC#382-Ratoon

This week we celebrate the new official tangle "Ratoon" by Zentangle HQ.

As if I knew that I drew this Zendala tile with Ratoon at Sunday.

This one I finished today.

I love Ratoon in combination with some color and a Zengem... actually this is a good preparation for my next Zengem Class in February (23th) in Dresden....

If anyone is interested... can find the details on my website

DC#382 "Stripes o plenty", Renaissance class and some colors

DC#382 "Stripes o Plenty"

This week's challenge is to use a string of stripes.

I chose three border tangles - Zenith (Zentangle, above) / Copada (Margaret Bremner, below) and MySwing (my own , in the middle)

What a lovely challenge, thank you., Laura!

Renaissance Zentangle Class in Dresden

Today I run a Renaissance class with 9 students.

I prepared some tiles which I did not use in classes before and we had a very inspiring time together.
Three hours are rather short for two tiles but we got it with a little overtime ;-)

my teaching tile (I am happy to have a document camera for teaching)

class mosaic tile 1

my teaching tile- Dingsplatz!

Class mosaic of Dingsplatz

Sometimes I love colors...

These two tiles I created last week, during my "color days" ;-)
The first one a tangle filled Hollibaugh with red background (Ecoline Brush Pen):

A Zendala with MySwing in a circle and some green stripes in the center.

DC#381, two Fullmoonmosaics and my new tangle "Sinko"

Diva Challenge DC#381

The DIVA challenge is very interesting this week: create something with a new medium.

My new medium is black acrylic gesso.

I did it yesterday - so I assume it is appropriate to use it for this week's challenge? ;-)
I wanted to try a technique which the German CZT Jörg Richter presented during the European CZT meeting in Ireland last September:

I cut white Fabriano Tiepolo paper in 16x16cm size and masked a rectangular shape. After that I dyed the tile with black acrylic gesso. It was an interesting procedure to get a very smooth black surface. After drying I removed the masking tape and had a very interesting black/ white tile to tangle on with black micron and white gellyroll with a hint of gold gellyroll.

DIVA Challenge #381 : white tile partially dyed with black gesso
the tangle in the center is called "Sinko" - explanation see below!

Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the above tile before tangling, but I prepared a second one the same way which I have not tangled yet. I am not sure when I will have the time to finish this one.
I am going to show it here later...

Here is the example of the technique. I am sure there are much more possibilities for the creation of black/ white tiles, the problem is to find a way that the black gesso does not bleed into the white...
It needed some testing and exercise...

second tile partially dyed with black gesso, not tangled yet

Hanny Nuras Fullmoonmosaic

Hanny runs a monthly Challenge on Instagram, called "fullmoonmosaic"

Attached you find the link to the last fullmoonmosaic of 2018 

This is a Zenadala with the tangles "fullmoon" by Tomas Padros and "Sistar" by Hanny Nura:

Here is the link to the first fullmoonmosaic of 2019:
The string is the YinYang symbol on a Zendala tile. The task is to create a Duotangle with "African Artist" by Tina Hunziker and another tangle of our choice.
I added MySwing as second tangle.

SINKO - my new tangle...

By the way, I would like to introduce to you my new tangle which I have already a while in my mind.

Once I saw a pattern on a wallpaper and fell in love immediately... I needed some approaches to deconstruct it, but finally found an easy stepout. The shape reminds me to a Gingko leaf so I called it Sinko...

I realized, that this tangle has similarities with some other tangles like "Abeko" by Lynn Mead (she wrote me that she likes this cousin of Abeko ;-), as well as "Fanclub" (by Sonya Yencer) and "Zeihryt" (Annette Plaga-Lodde) "Palmetta" (Sydney Kalpinos) ....

Nevertheless I think Sinko has enough own details to give it a try as a sister of the others....

Look at the Stepout and have fun, if you like it!
(Another version of Sinko in the DIVA Challenge tile above, in the center.)

DIVA Challenge#380 - I am a bit color addicted...

During the last days I had some more time for tangling than usual and I used it well!
According to the grey January days this is a very colorful blogpost- I just needed it a little bit.

I discovered the possibilities of my "spin art machine" (in German it is called Farbenschleuder ;-), which is a very simple toy for children (without any batteries and so), and realized what a lot of variations there are possible to spread color on the paper tiles.
I used liquid Ecoline water colours and played around with them.

What a surprise, that the DIVA challenges us this week to draw a "Spundala" which is exact made this way...

By the way:
Congratulations to Laura to eight years of running that incredible blog! I LOVE this blog and the  DIVA challenge and I have not missed many of them since 2015 (my own start of the Zentangle journey!). So I realized just now, that I have been tangling for four years now, and Lauras blog has been accompanying me all the time!!

Today I bought a Faber Castell pitt artist pen in cobalt green and this is my first tile with this pen, together with black micron and watercolor in cobalt green.

This tile was my very first real "Spundala" with watercolor and black microns:

And this tile I created with the spin art machine as well, but spreading all the color in a real crazy way. Used this as the string and filled with several tangles. It is a bit busy, isn't it?

Attached some samples of prepared tiles before tangling. I love what happened, sometimes unintended...
I am looking forward to tangle these tiles next time (or later ;-)

Here are some more examples of my "experiments" with watercolor last weekend. I created some reticula with watercolor and filled with fragments:

Fullmoon-mosaic Nov18, DIVA Challenge #379, Zentangle Project#04 and HAPPY NEW YEAR !

Hello everyone, this is my first blogpost in 2019, showing you my recent Zentangle activities from the last year ;-)

1. Hanny Nuras Fullmoonmosaic of last November:

Duotangle of "Madama" by Marguerite Samama and "A-Dalfa" by Bunny Wright

This was my very first contribution to Hanny Nuras challenge. I must say that I love it.

2. DIVA Challenge #379 "Holidaze"

The challenge was to create a holiday tile.

I have been drawing Christmas cards and stars since mid of November - so see my bundle of holiday tiles here 

In December, my hubby and me spent a long weekend at the Baltic Sea on the Darß peninsula.

It was such a relaxing, calming time there.

In a craft shop in Ahrenshoop I found a paper mobile made of seven white /grey and black paper stars. Its a Danish Design. I instantly saw the possibility to tangle the stars and so I bought it and .... look and see some examples - I love this mobile so much!

Star mobile in my living room

this was our Christmas tree

...and this one at the beach... romantic!! 

3.Zentangle Project#04 - 12 days of Zentangle

In December the Zentangle family started a new 12 days of Zentangle project. 

They created a "spinner" filled with 54 Original Zentangle patterns. 

I created my project on an Opus tile, because I wanted to frame the tile. 

I finished the tile by End of December, adding four extra Original ZT patterns in the corners and personalized it with my SimTangle logo (MySwing) in the center.

I added the names of all used tangles as a border around the big circle- so I can find the names easily, if necessary...

I had a lot of fun with this project and love the result. Thank you, Maria, Rick, Molly and Martha, for this inspiration !

4. Square One- Purely Zentangle: Focus pattern "OTM" by  CZT Cari Samarra

The New Year started with a tangle whichcwas new to me- it was the focus pattern in the Square One Facebook group. I love OTM - it has lots of possibilities for variations!

These three tile are very similar drawn, but with different color styles.

As I am in preparation of my next Zentangle Classes this helped me to focus on Renaissance ;-)

Last but not least: For the celebration of New Years eve my dear friend Sabrina Stein (CZT from Berlin) visited us together with her husband in our home town Dresden.
We spent a very lovely time together, with a crazy Geocaching tour at night (in the wood ;-)) , eating, drinking, chattering, laughing... and realized once more that time is running too fast!

Sabrina and me in front of the Dresden Opera "Semperoper"

We wish all of you a very successful and Happy New Year!