DIVA Challenge 318

This week's DIVA Challenge (#318) made us draw a Diptych tile. Honestly, I had to google it as I had never heard of "Diptych" and this  is what I found:

1. a painting, especially an altarpiece, on two hinged wooden panels that may be closed like a book.
2. an ancient writing tablet consisting of two hinged leaves with waxed inner sides.

Aha! Exactly what we were asked to draw. Wait. Altarpiece? Wasn't there somebody who drew a papel hat? A Mitre? Yes, at Tinkered Art Studio. Perfect.

I hate it when I have to pick my own tangles. So I just used the one we recently used in the IAST 197 challenge - Tint. Yeap, you guessed it, 'lots of ideas' or 'creativity' is not my middle name.

So here my 'Diptych' tangle tile in a setting...

Patterns: Tint, Henna Drum, Tipple

...and here the Diptych flat and open and big enough to detect all the 'mirror' mistakes.

Patterns: Tint, Henna Drum, Tipple

Thai Elephant Happy Day

There is a special place in my heart for elephants. In my IAST challenge 197 page I went a bit further and explained the why and introduced the vet Soraida Salwala. A remarkable vet and my hero, who left an imprint in my head since 1993 when she and Honey, a baby elephant, were in the news.

In this video, however, the ending is a good one when an orphaned baby elephant arrives at a Thai elephant sanctuary in the north after it had been cared for by Soraida's founded first elephant hospital in the whole world - Friends of the Asia Elephant.

Who is Soraida and Honey's story - part 1
Who is Soraida and Honey's story - part 2

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IAST Challenge 197

This week, It's A String Thing (IAST #197) introduced us to a new tangle called Tint. I fell instantly in love with it - I adore these kinds of tangles. Organic, free of restraints (speak grid), and enough variation possibilities for the tangle never to get boring. Thank you so very much, Henrike Bratz!

For this challenge I used my left-over coffee stain tile from the DIVA challenge #312 - finally it found its good use - and the tangle Tint is accompanied by Bales (took it out of its grid) and Antidots as per 'requirement'.

Patterns: Tint, Bales, Antidots

I couldn't resist and made a Tint monotile. Actually it is the Tint warm-up before attempting the IAST tile, I drew it with pencil on a white scrap of paper to be discarded at the end of the day (YES! I can really say "at the end of the day" here). However, the next day the warm-up was still on my desk. So I thought I use my brown Micron, which I bought some time ago and never used, to trace the pencil lines - again, a warm-up before attempting the real stuff. When the tracing was done I applied some color. Pink to brown strokes???!!! Where's my head??? Luckily this is still just a warm-up for the real thing, of course.

But then, it didn't turn out all that bad (I thought), Maybe a little tweak to compliment the main tile color scheme once that was done? (I had time to play.) So I applied a bit of Photoshop magic and now it looks very much OK (in my eyes!).

Here the PS tweak...

Pattern: Tint

...and here the original.

Pattern: Tint

Elephant Happy Day

This is a story that has a very special place in my heart. It is Mosha's story. A Thai elephant who lost its leg when he stepped onto a landmine at the border to Myanmar. He is being cared for by the only elephant hospital in Thailand, if not the whole of Asia, that was founded by a Thai veterinarian.

Soraida Salwala, founder of FAE's Elephant Hospital,
soothes Baby Honey in 1993.

I first heard about Soraida Salwala in the early 1990s when she was in the news here in Thailand and abroad because she wanted to help a baby elephant called Honey that got hit by a truck on a road in Bangkok and broke its hip. When the baby elephant was denied help and a few months later died, Soraida, who stayed with Honey the whole time, swore, no more elephants have to die because help is too expensive or unattainable...so she founded the world's first elephant hospital under the foundation Friends of the Asian Elephant.

Honey's story - part 1
Honey's story - part 2






Here a video that shows the affections elephants display towards people they love.

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May 2017 Refreshers

I was able to do five more refresher tiles this May. While in the same month two more refresher tangle combinations came out on Linda Farmer's website, #153 and #154, I only progressed by three files. In other words, if I ever want to catch up to all refresher combinations published, I need to step up my game.

I choose the freshers randomly, but try to finish older ones first. However, sometimes there is that new one that teases my imagination and I can't resist. Hence, the new #154 below.

Refresher #28

Patterns: Tripoli, Asian Fans, Mumsy, Beadlines, Afterglo

Refresher #100

Patterns: Rixty, Hurray, Pop't, Gutz, Qian-Long

Refresher #101

Patterns: Eye-Wa, Tootle, Lazy Eights, Snag, Jawz

Refresher #27

Patterns: Pokeleaf, Wigwam, Brayd, Dutch Hourglass, Longwood

Refresher #154

Patterns: Ixorus, Marnie, Win-Zetta, Hua, Contacted

Click on the image below to visit all the Refreshers I have done thus far in my flickr album.

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Alphabet Challenge Letter V

Countdown Z - Y - X - W - V #167 and four more to go to #171. We are ever so close to closing the letter challenge 2017. Am I looking forward to it? You bet!

We avid letter tanglers can all be happy we are using the Latin alphabet and not Chinese or Thai. The Chinese has over 3000 characters. It's a no brainer: never a Chinese alphabet. The Thai alphabet has 44 consonants and 28 vowels. I learnt them a long time ago and still today can read stuff. However, I then have to ask a Thai what it means, duh! But I am good at street signs, you are never lost in the boonies when you can read where to go to hit the main road. Anybody bicycling?

However, I am forever grateful to the old, no-nonsense teacher I had who explained the pronunciation rules and tone marks and made a chart for me. Finally the up and down sing-song sounds were no longer a mystery to me. Thank you, my teacher!

V & v

This week Joey's alphabet challenge is the letter V and the tangle that goes with it is Vano. I really enjoyed drawing Vano; it placed me right into the Zen zone. Now I understand Trudi who draws 120+ Molygons and tons of Tipple. Zen...zen...zen...(∪｡∪)｡｡｡zzz

Oops!

V capital is a bit spiky and Vano not round. Vorago is not as should be either, but looks like it could be. So many wrongs make it right again, says me.

Patterns: Vano, Vorago, Ving

The low-case v tile is more my style. Veezy is a tangle I did before so I chose the Vine Thanks tangle to accommodate my rule that with each letter tile I draw one tangle I hadn't drawn before. Maybe not the best choice, but then...it could be worse.

Patterns: Vano, Veezy, Vine Thanks

Animal Happy Day

You are not allowed to laugh when you see this video.




I had to place yet another video. This one kept me sitting at the edge of my chair while I watched. But as it runs under the heading "Animal Happy Day" it has a happy ending. Thanks heaven - and the farmers(!) - for that!





Link to next Alphabet Letter Challenge: W
Link to previous Alphabet Letter Challenge: U

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Inspired by... May 2017

The Starfish Tangle Family
The main focus on this month's Inspired by... was definitely the Starfish tangle family by Nicole Dreyer. All of a sudden there were all these slightly different Starfish tangle step-outs released and I was hooked. They are organic, they are fun, and they are undeniably beautiful!

Starfish Flower with Mooka

Patterns: Starfish Flower with some Mooka

Starfish-Too with Lapin

Patterns: Starfish-Too with my own tangle Lapin

Starfish Flowerbarrel with Joki

Patterns: Starfish Flowerbarrel with Joki

Starfish Flower on a loop string

Pattern: Starfish Flower on a loop string

Patterns: Loop string for above Starfish Flower

Starfish Double Barrel, Starfish Barrel with Henna Drum, Starfish Flowerbarrel with Cattails and Tipple

Patterns: Top: Starfish Double Barrel,
Middle: Starfish Barrel with Henna Drum,
Bottom: Starfish Flowerbarrel with Cattails and Tipple

There is one more in the Starfish family I missed out thus far: Starfish Ribbon. Maybe one of these days....


Ta-Da! 
(by Margaret McKerihan) I had to put this pillow on the net. It was my exercise tile to the letter challenge T. Undoubtedly, the training tile came out better.

Pattern: Tada

Pop't
Training Tile for my Refresher tile #100. Pop't (by Sadelle A. Wiltshire), like its name, is a real cutey.

Pattern: Pop't

Afterglo
If you didn't recognize it as Afterglo by Carole Ohl, I don't blame you. I have seen better ones, too, but I own it. Exercise tile for refresher # 28.

Pattern: Afterglo with some ends hanging off it

Molygon Coin Collection
This is a belated tile to DIVA's Molygon Study. I hadn't finished enough coins by the time I uploaded the DIVA's Molygon Study page. Better late than never.

Pattern: Molygon

Dutch Hourglass and Longwood
These two tangles are a part of the Refresher #27. Fine, you are not impressed with this tile and wonder why on earth did she waste the place and put it up at all. I agree, I am not impressed with it either. However, sometimes we place a tile because it jiggles happy memories. Yes, I fully enjoyed drawing these two tangles. Longwood (by Jjla Barbera) reminds me a bit of checkers. Dutch Hourglass is by Magaret Bremner.

Patterns: Top left: Dutch Hourglass, bottom right: Longwood

Tamisolo
Again a tangle that I drew for the letter challenge T. Tamisolo (by Hanni Nura) was the pattern Joey gave us. Here I mixed Tamisolo (in black) with Flux inside of Wirlz.

Patterns: Tamisolo, Flux inside of Wirlz

Win-Zetta
Beautiful Win-Zetta (by Loretta West). What can I say. Organic tangle = I love it. This resulted from yet another refresher combination published by Linda Farmer on her website Tanglepatterns: Refresher #154.

Pattern: Win-Zetta

One more Win-Zetta Tile. Here I mixed with other tangles, but I forgot their names. In my sketchbook I remarkt: No Electricity!  On the day I drew this we had no electricity from 9 am to about 5 in the afternoon. Perfect day for drawing and, if you have a gas cooker, you still get your coffee, too. What else does a tangler need?

Patterns: Win-Zetta and other tangles

Hua and Contacted
The band is Hua (by Damy) and the other two areas are Contacted (by A. M. Johnston). Have you ever tried to draw Contacted? It is a headache. And because I like headaches, I drew two areas of it. Both of these tangles are also on the listing for Refresher #154.

Patterns: Hua and Contacted

Faux Weave, U-Bend, Wirrl
This tile didn't come out so well, but I like Faux Weave by Helen Williams (did a whole study on it), U-Bend (by Lizzie Mayne) and Wirrl (by Karin Frank), which reminds me a bit of Narwal. Have a look at Wirrl on this step-out. I bet you want to start drawing it right away.

Patterns: Faux Weave, U-Bend, Wirrl

And the final tangle...

Uncorked
I loved to draw Uncorked (by Adele Bruno or IAST). I chose it for the letter challenge U, the blue tile, but only drew a few lines. I would like to explore it  more, in fact, there are so many tangles I'd like to explore more in depth, but it would take centuries to get them all done. Unfortunately, that much time is just not available to me anymore, hence, this Uncorked is likely it. Unless, of course, Adele decides to chose it for one of her weekly challenges!

Pattern: Uncorked

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IAST Challenge 196

This week's "It's A String Thing" (IAST #196) challenge is to be a monotangle using a new pattern called Plingh and a simple string of just 3 curved lines. I love drawing monotangles. I can just draw the same pattern over and over again which lulls me pleasantly into the desired Zen stage of being here and now. I was so zenned, I drew four tiles before reality set in and put a stop to it. Reality being Saturday equals deadline.

So, now I have these four tiles and the big question arises: which to send to Adele Bruno. So I decided to make this webpage first, look at them all in a combined setting and then decide. So here we go:

The blue one

Pattern: Plingh and Plingh only

The red one

Pattern: Plingh...and maybe some extra Tipple

The white one

Pattern: Plingh...in a wonky grid - respecting Adele's string though

The recycled paper one - there is a reason why this is last. I had some space free in my sketchbook and thought, still in my Plingh Zen stage, I needed some more Plingh tiles. This is a quicky and the string is a round circle in a bigger oval circle. So it does not count.

Patterns: You guessed it, pure Plingh

I looked and looked and can't make up my mind. Red or blue. Red. No blue. Yes, blue it is. But then red.... OK. Simple. I send red AND blue and let Adele decide. Ahhhh! Now that was easy.



Here the Adele's string

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DIVA Challenge 317

In this week's DIVA challenge we get to pick a photo or cut an image out of a magazine, glue it to a tile and tangle around it. Sort of use it as a string. I decided to make two tiles, one where I sketch a model and the other from a photo.

The first is my model sketch (in case you haven't noticed) and the tangles Finery, Wirrl, Mooka, Nouvart, Printemps, and a few others.

Patterns: Finery, Wirrl, Mooka, Nouvart, Printemps

The second tile is with a photo. This tile I made in Photoshop. Cut the background off and added two of my tiles as background. The tangles on the background are Win-Zetta, Starfish Barrel with Henna Drum, Starfish Double Barrel, Starfish Flowerbarrel with Cattails and Tipple.

Patterns: Win-Zetta, Starfish Barrel with Henna Drum, Starfish Double Barrel,
Starfish Flowerbarrel with Cattails and Tipple

Animal Happy Day

This time it is not a dog and not a cat, but a bear girl who went through too much misery in her life. However, because tons of people signed a petition, this handicapped girl is now happy and enjoying her freedom for the rest of her life. So don't think petitions don't work.

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Alphabet Challenge Letter U

Z - Y - X - W - V - U This is my personal countdown to the end of the weekly 'Finish My Tile' alphabet letter challenge. This is #166 which would make Z 171. Aren't you looking forward to the end when you can say YOU DID IT!!! (?). When I started with A in the first week of January I pledged to finish all the letters in the alphabet with at least two tiles, one for the capital letter and the other lowercase. Up to this week's U I was able to keep that pledge and there are just 5 more weeks to go --> it looks promising.

So this week's U comes with Joey's chosen tangle Unme. I have no idea what 'unme' means...unmelt? Undo-me? Who cares! Unme it is and I was able to find a few U named tangles I actually liked although the choice is limited. So here my plea:

Dear tanglers, please! make a few more U named tangles. With your next new tangle just pick a name and place a 'U' in front of it...e.g.: instead of Rope, call it Urope or instead of Taurus, call it Utaurus. 

So here my skinny capital U with Unme and the added tangles of Up In Smoke, U-Bend and Upholstered.

Patterns: Unme, Up in Smoke, U-Bend, Upholstered

And here a blue tile for my more fleshy little u. It is complimented with the obligatory Unme and my chosen Undling and Uncorked tangles.

Patterns: Unme, Uncorked, Undling

I usually don't point out which tile I prefer, but this time I do simply because I think the blue one does not have that 'deja vu' effect...it doesn't look like many of my other tiles. So I opt for the blue u - and blue is my color (jeez, that makes a lot of sense).

Animal Help Line

This is Amy. I felt compelled to place this video on my page because no matter how good we treat our 'best friends', there are tons of millions of them out there that would bet with you, that there is no such thing as 'human's best friends' from their experiences with us.

This is a Viktor Larkhill video, another of my deeply admired people who do so much good for animals. Click here or on the link at the bottom of this video if you want to see more of the selfless good he and his hospital team do. I rest my case.

Link to next Alphabet Letter Challenge: V
Link to previous Alphabet Letter Challenge: T

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IAST Challenge 195

This week's IAST challenge starts with a string of 3 circles within each other and the tangles Strutz, Tessell and good ol' Printemps. Strutz looks weird to me, but it can certainly give a tile that interesting extra umph...it turned my tile into an umph Mars capsule.

Patterns: Strutz, Tessell, Printemps, Tipple

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Alphabet Challenge Letter T

Joey's alphabet challenge has reached letter T and that means we are now way closer to Z than A, or closer to the end than the beginning. Yes, I figured this out all by myself, which was easier than figuring out what on earth am I going to do for the letter T. In the end, after all the thinking and the headaches I came up with a blue T and a yellow t.

The lowercase t is on yellow and believe me, if I had another 10 years to work on it, I doubt it would get any better, blame it on the t. But what I did like to draw was the tangle Ta-Da. Honestly, are you always the proud owner of all your tiles?

Patterns: Tamisolo, Ta-Da, T

Next the blue tile or the T tile. Here my favorite tangle is Tipple...no, Twirl...or maybe Trigue. Yes, most certainly Trigue!...and Twirl, yes, Twirl...Trique? ... Twirl? ...  Well, a brain wired like this explains the result of the tiles.

Patterns: Tamisolo, Twirl, Trigue, Tipple,
and some little diamond shapes I stole from the tangle Trimond

Animal Happy Day

I just saw this video from my favorite dog rescuer Eldad. I thought I share it with you because if you have a lousy day this will cheer you up. I had a silly smile on my face the whole 5 and a half minutes. Yes, mam.

Link to next Alphabet Letter Challenge: U
Link to previous Alphabet Letter Challenge: S

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