Helen's Journey G - Gotcha (variation)

Helen Williams has restarted her Journey through the alphabet, where to date we are at G.

G for Gotcha by Karin Godyns.

As is so typical of Helen she made a fantastic floral interpretation of this tangle. I on the other hand looked at it and wondered whether there will ever be a tile from me because I, too, wanted to draw Gotcha a little different to the original. I kid not, but I sat with paper and pencil for hours and sketched all kinds of Gotcha variations on the paper until around 2 this morning I had a solution. Indeed, I had my two variations I planned to execute.

Here the first Gotcha variation. I drew a wonky grid (hey, it is a Helen inspired tile; it needs a wonky grid) and the cross in the middle of the rectangles are S lines. With the shading I changed the center focus to be the corners. The rest is as per Gotcha. Oh, the added tipple came about because I made a mistake. No, I am not going to tell you which and you can look your eyes out, you will not find it anymore.

Tangle Patterns: Gotcha variation

Variation two of Gotcha. This is a bit more Gotcha abstract, but when you look at the step outs below, it is still Gotcha.

Tangle Patterns: Gotcha variation

I made photos while sketching Gotcha variation two in case somebody wonders. I started with a wonky grid and the cross in the middle is finely outlined with pencil only. In the end, only one line of the cross will be inked while the other is missing the middle part of the line.

Circle 1 - First "Gotcha" line reaches from corner across middle point
Circle 2 - 3rd line touches middle line, while the 2nd line reaches half way between line 1 and 3.
Circle 3 - I did this only on 2 opposing sides.

Gotcha variation stepout 1

Circle 4 - First line I drew on the center cross line touching the 2nd line. I added 3 more lines as shown. The last 2 lines are touching the other center line.
Circle 5 - Repeat on the other side. = Now we have all for sides and the only thing missing are the extensions  as per original Gotcha. Hope this helps.

Gotcha variation stepout 2

Just before Helen published her Gotcha tiles, she introduced us to her new tangle Spiral Rose. I included spiral rose in my Joey challenge #204 tile and made another one just for fun with Toodles.

Tangle Patterns: Spiral Rose with Toodles.

Animal Happy Day

The cat who adopted the fire brigade crew. It is so cute how a stray cat walks into a fire station, hunkers down, wraps every tough guy at the station around her left paw, and gets to stay to be spoiled rotten.

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DIVA Challenge 352 - Nested Hearts

For a full week I had no idea what to draw for this week's DIVA challenge, #352 - Nested Hearts. Maybe because of all the HEARTS we drew this February I started to hate all words starting with "H". Well, human organs starting with "H". Then I woke up Sunday morning and it hit me. I drew some balls in anticipation of the Olympic Rings a few weeks back, but never used them. So I thought what if I apply on 3 ..earts what I applied on the 3 balls?

Nested Hearts

And here the balls..

Patterns: Florz, Nzeppel, Beadlines

Then I also suffered from nostalgia. I read every once in while how tanglers go back in time to visit their first tiles and see the progress they made. So I wanted that "YEAH!!!" feeling, too, and visited my zentangle journal #1 (I glue all my tangle tiles into books). I started with Zen-tangling end of December 2015, so below some of my March 2016 tiles. Honestly, I don't think I made progress at all; in the contrary!!!! Doc, what do I do wrong?

Note the white glue mark. I progressed to using a different glue today!!!

Animal Happy Day

OK guys, so you didn't like cutey Lucas with 4 eyeballs (oO-Oo) from the previous post. You thought he was real? 

Nooooooouuuu! 

He is a very clever computer animation intended to star in a movie that helps people with Arachnophobia, irrational fear of spiders. Well, if you want to have another go at it, click here, else, click on the video below if you'd rather see a woman, oops, sorry, no more 'man' words, a woperson gets clawed lovingly painful, but she loves it and laughs!!!!!!

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Joey's Weekly Challenge 204 & IAST 231

Luckily I checked back on Joey's weekly challenge # 204 before posting, else I would be in the bog again. Clearly, it is written: "Finish My Tile" and not "Draw any bands you like"!

Back to the drawing board.

So this week I have 2 tiles again, but not because I didn't like the first tile as stated in my last post, but because I can't read.

Joey tile #2, the correct version, first. I drew the string as close to hers as I could, but the no framing makes me wonder. This 6 weeks of "Ribbons and Curls" journey...is it a continuity like a mosaic? Or is each tile an individual that has absolutely nothing to do with the previous or next tiles? ??? Hm..., Monday will tell!

Patterns: Hibred, ???, ZedBra, Flux, Dragonair, Flux, Nzeppel,
water bubbles, unfinished Nzeppel, Tipple, the new Helen William tangle
Spiral Rose (still need refinement. Mine! Not Helen's!), a divider, Hibred again

Joey tile #1, the misfit. Told you. Don't draw a second tile if the first one pleases your eyes. This is an excellent example. But in this case.... Dear oh dear!

Patterns: Hibred, Tipple, Printemps and February Hearts

On the Tickled to Tangle website IAST challenge #231 we celebrate the Olympics more discretely: we use 3 tangles that start with the letters G, S, and B for Gold, Silver, and Bronze. Having missed the last entry, I hurried to get his one done asap, which was still pathetically slow in this case: I finished a day before deadline. Huff! Puff!

Now don't ask where on earth is Gold? And where is Bronze? Well, there are 3 Gold (Golven), 15 Silver (Sand Swirl) and 2 Bronze (Barley) 'medals' in this tile. And one got 2 'medals'.

Patterns: Golven, Sand Swirl, Barley

Animal Happy Day

Wanna bet?
Wanna bet that if you hate spiders this spider you won't? Don't dooooo it!! You will loO-Oose!!

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IAST Challenge 230 - and the Case of Elektra!

♫ Oh, no-no-no-no-no. It's too late,
Baby, it's too late, now darlin' it's too l-a-t-e.... ♪

It is Carol King's old song that always jumps to mind when I am too late for anything. And so it was for last week's IAST challenge #230. I had a sketch of my entry on some scrap paper when the deadline put a stop to my attempt, or maybe I also wasn't too convinced to send anything in. Once again I had distorted the tangles...indeed, they look anything but the real thing, not even Knightsbridge is recognizable as such. So, this piece of 'malpracticed' art is banned to my webpage only! (Ria note, it is layered)

Patterns: Skelter, Funsin, Knichtsbridge

And here one tile I did a while back. Dewd on balls. I think it was for a Dewd challenge in January I also missed out.

Pattern: Dewd

Animal Help Line

I love Viktor. Viktor is a vet in Spain. He and his team are doing amazing jobs in the field of animal rescues. Their motto seems to be: Every life is precious...especially animal lives. Their dedication ends in tons of successes, but then you have that day - that one day - when you end up crying.

Electra! 

Electra was a street cat, no beauty by any standards, but somebody thought it was a great idea to push a small stick through her mouth into her spin to render her paralyzed. Viktor and his team discussed her case and general consensus was that the stick, which had broken in two, had to be removed. BUT! Opinions differed concerning the outcome. Instant death on the table or live-long paralyzes. I followed Elektra's hospitalization through Viktor's video series. I almost thought I was right there, in Spain, with the team, having a voice, too: "Hey guys, the stick has to come out! Take the risk!" They did. OP was successful, we could even see her making a mini sprint on the examination table. All looked promising. Then it happened. They had an emergency case from a cat rescue group, stringent hospital rules were dropped and Electra died a few hours later - the emergency case was infected with the feline distemper illness PANLEUKOPENIA.

Now, why do I write about this case? Besides my warning to all cat owners to make sure their cats are inoculated against panleukopenia I also feel greatly for Viktor and his team. This case had tested their abilities, pushed their limits, they won, just to be belly kicked by a tiny, but persistent virus, that isn't even all that common anymore. But it is still around. Viktor and Jorge, the vets who performed the extremely delicate OP, are devastated!!! Literally!!! Their grief is contagious all the way to Thailand.

Now they fight to keep the other infected patient, Maria, alive. Maria needs urgent surgery. Broken hip and leg, but is too weak to go under.

Maria!

If you would like to know more about Viktor, or know more about Elektra and her case...click here.

Pet owners, you may want to give your pet a kiss and a hug right now.

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DIVA Challenge 351 - Olympics

This week's DIVA Challenge is celebrating the winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, using the Olympics 5 rings as the string (or hearts if you prefer). I honored the event with TWO tiles....eh....here a little secret if you haven't already guessed. Mostly, when I draw more than one tile it is because I don't like the result(s). I mean, if my first tile pleases my eyes, why would I risk drawing another that might spoil the joy? However, if I stop after two tiles, by no means does that mean I am happy now! More likely I have just given up. When it doesn't go your way, it doesn't go your way!

So this post has TWO tiles....

Tile #2: The rings with Dublin. I saw Dublin the first time on one of Anita's wonderful tiles and was instantly in love with it. At first I thought it was rather complex, but once I drew it a few times, my cramped up brain relaxed and I was able to just enjoy drawing it zzzzzen-like style. Thanks Chris Titus for this wonderful tangle, and thanks Anita for making me aware of it.

Pattern: Dublin

Tile #1: The rings with a new tangle I call Growing Hearts. It is just like Hamail (by Tina-Akua Hunziker), but made of hearts. The background are all hearts in some sort of a florz style. (Now you know why I drew the Dublin tile.)

Patterns: Growing Hearts

Ahhhh, the florz-style hearts background should have been more like this:

Florz-Hearts with a PS flare

Some more Growing Hearts

Patterns: Growing Hearts with Seaweed and Servring

...as a bookmark

Patterns: Growing Hearts, Tipple, Fescu, Sez

Finally, the step-out (as if needed)

Patterns: Growing Hearts step-out

Animal Happy Day

If you are an avid follower of The Dodo you saw this amazing pig story. If not, here is your chance.

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Joey's Weekly Challenge 203 - Eddyper

This week at Joey's we have Eddyper to play with and a string of opposing hearts, joined at the tips. Just a day before I visited Margarete's latest blog post where she introduced her new heart tangle 'Herzlich'. Not too wild on the heart string I paid more attention to Herzlich...when suddenly the light switch came on: use Herzlich on Joey's string. Voila!

Patterns: Eddyper, Herzlich, Heartrooty, Heartfescu, Toodles

The background for above tile was a feeble attempt of Marta's watercolor video. Instead of circles I experimented with hearts. I have got to watch that video again!!!!


Joey's tile turned out OK, but I liked my own Herzlich fun tile better. In case you are visiting...here, this is for you, Margarete! I think I did a better job this time around than for your star string.

Patterns: Herzlich, Dublin, Fescue, Toodles, Tipple and some Balls

Following some more Herzlich samples and Dublin tiles. I do like Dublin and probably overdid it in the last few days.

Patterns: "Herzliches"

Patterns: my first sketch of Herzlich

Patterns: Dublin practice doing it the kind way

Patterns: Dublin practice doing it the wonky way

I did some more Dublin for DIVA #351, but that has to wait for later as it is getting dark once again and I am late for watering the gardens...


However, I still have time for a quick....

....Animal Happy Day!!

If you haven't had your laugh today....click!

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DIVA Challenge 350 - Rimana

On DIVA this week it was challenge #350 and because it is February, the month of love, it was a heart string - according to your heart - and Rimana, a tangle bestowed on us by Nadine Roller. I took the heart string to heart and made more than just one heart and, while at it, made more than just one tile (subconsciously I must be looking for love??). Although there is some disguise I think the string and the tangle are well recognizable.

Patterns: Rimana, Tipple, Dublin, Flux, Printemps
and Photoshop put a faint golden spell on the tile

Patterns: Rimana and some fillers
Thanks Photoshop for dirtying the edges and corners!

I have cacti and recently one of them bloomed for the first time. Isn't this just an amazing flower??!!

Animal Happy Day

They say our pets do not appreciate us. Well, a) I believe they do and b) if they don't and act like spoiled little brats (some of them actually are), so be it! They are not sent to us to appreciate us, but for us to love them unconditionally!!!

My words for the month of love.

Having said the above, here a video showing animals that are very happy when we lent a helping hand.

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Joey's Weekly Challenge 202

This week's Joey Challenge (#202) requires us to use the tangle Knightsbridge and the string 091. Sorry for the skinny contribution, but my brain just wasn't wired correctly for this really easy challenge. The late upload confirms that.

Patterns: Kngihtsbridge and Nzeppel

No Animal Happy Day today. It is getting dark and I still haven't watered the gardens yet. You guessed it, I am in a hurry!!! So off you go you little skinny page....

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Inspired by... Mistura

Every once in a while a tangle is introduced I get a special  liking to and I start playing around with it. This time it is Ria Matheussen's Mistura. You can find her step-out here.

This first  one is my favorite Mistura tile...

Patterns: Mistura, Crux, Henna Drum, Tipple

...closely followed by this flowery version.

Patterns: Mistura and Hollibaugh

Here I made a very simple one because I wanted to put it into Photoshop and play around with it.

Patterns: Mistura

The next tile is/was my super ugly blue one (now desaturated so we can look at it!!). As so many times, we have an idea which turns flat, but this time I insisted. So after the blue ugly tile was finished I started over and this time I can at least accept the result.

Here the ugly duckling...

Patterns: Mistura, Chaist, Elfhat

...and here its revised version.

Patterns:  Mistura, Jester, Elfhat

And a pink one just for fun.

Pattern: Mistura

Thanks, Ria! It took me some time to finish these tiles, one month to be more precise, but I had a lot of fun with your Mistura tangle.

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