IAST 260, DIVA 367, and FB's Ready, Set, Anything Goes challenge

♻️ 'Nzeppel, or Crazy 'Nzeppel, is the featured tangle in DIVA #367. Am not sure what "Crazy 'Nzeppel" really is, but figured it must be different to the normal one. So I made my own "different" 'Nzeppel, the "Pointy 'Nzeppel", short for "Any 1-Corner Pointed 'Nzeppel", and added Klabue. Tile is my favorite packaging material.

Tangle Patterns: Pointy 'Nzeppel, Klabue

We all love 'Nzeppel, so I had to do it again: My 2018 'Nzeppel study. I recall DIVA having an 'Nzeppel challenge running in July last year where I also made a study, even with an update. This 2018 'Nzeppel study is about a string. I used this string in all the tiles more than once:

The String

First 'Nzeppel tile with a shadow; 2nd tile the same string twice, at 90' to each other and beadlines; 3rd tile the same string twice, at 45' and moved down an inch; last tile the same string 3x with Pointy 'Nzeppel.

Tangle Patterns: 'Nzeppel, Beadlines, Heart Beat, Poiny 'Nzeppel.

A new challenge called "Ready, Set, Anything Goes" has arisen on Facebook and the 2nd challenge runs under the title "Alphabet Soup". The good thing, no string and no preset tangles...as it says: Anything Goes. My tile is called Double D, not as in bra size, but for Dagobert Duck.

Thanks, Meridiana, for emailing the info.

Tangle Patterns: Sprigs, Farling

In case you do not believe me...Dagobert's Duck Safe

Adele from TickledToTangle has her 5th IAST (It is a String Thing) challenge anniversary with her 260th edition. 5 candles on the tile are deservedly so, decorated with the tangles Kitl, Prestwood, O (for Oscar - one of her own tangles), and Knightsbridge, a classic tangle. I tried to do better for this occasion than last year and will actually stay with the string Adele provided. But it wasn't to be; it didn't work out for me. I tried real hard, made several attempts, but never succeeded for the tile to look pleasing to anyone's eye. So I gave up and almost gave up on the challenge itself, too. However, Sunday morning came along and I chastised myself for being so stupid. "Just draw 5 candles, dah! How difficult can that be? And show a bit more gratitude, woman!"

And so I did.

Dear Adele, thanks so much for all the fantastic challenges (and some are real challenges) you entertained us throughout the last 5 years. I may not always send in my tiles, but I do hop over to your site every Wednesday morning as if the day is stenciled into my DNA. A very Happy 5th Anniversary, Adele!

PS: if you see a 6th candle...totally unintended!

Tangle Patterns: Kitl, Prestwood, O, Knightsbridge

IAST #259 with tangles Hollibaugh, 7Keys, Sling-Slang, Diamonte. Am I the only tangler in the whole world who didn't get last week's IAST challenge? Or is my whole being so averted to ribbons that my brain never registered the string was all about ribbons?

Tangle Patterns: Hollibaugh, 7Keys, Sling-Slang, Diamonte

And now a little something different...

Quiz part 1 of 2

Quiz part 1 is the question, part 2 the answer. It will be revealed in my next week's post. So....
What is this?
Hint: it might not be the obvious. Good luck.

....and now to some....

....Animal Happy Day

Duck's on the menu this week. Even if you do not like duck, you will love this one!

Wishing you a great week and stay out of the bad weather.

---

DIVA 361, Joey's 214, Helen's H and few other Loose Ends

DIVA Challenge #361 this week honors Earth Day and wants us to use a tile from recycled paper. I have been using recycled paper a few times before and I intend to keep using it occasionally. I made two tiles because one is actually not really 'drawn directly on recycled paper', but rather 'glued onto recycled paper', the cover of a Thai Mosquito coil box, which I have water-colored whitened to dampen the strong print. The other tile is drawn directly on... yes, have you ever given a toilet roll credit? I did!

Tangle Pattern: 'Nmeshed on a Toilet Paper Roll

Tangle Pattern: Leafpod on the cover of a Mosquito Coil box

Helen's A-Z journal - H for Hepmee. WOW! Well, if you haven't yet seen Helen Williams' fantastic version of the rather plain tangle Hepmee, by all means, click here and see for yourself. I promise, you will looooove Hepmee. She turned this tangle into a stand-out stand-alone beauty! Give me Hepmee any day.

I have been following Helen's journey through the alphabet ever since letter A and haven't missed a beat. My first reaction to seeing Hepmee was: big eyes, open mouth, chin down to the floor, and electrical wires raging havoc in my brain (if you know Hepmee that would have been your reaction, too!). What a clever double effect! I must say, very impressive! Then, once the initial surprise ebbed a bit it was my turn.

I started by drawing an uneven number of rays off the center circle, then adopted Helen's curved Hepmee lines, but instead of linking each ray, I connected every other ray and kept going until I reached the tip of the rays or had enough layers.

So this is my result.

Tangle Pattern: Hepmee

With #1140 I did my very first tile for Ela's daily challenges. The inspiration came from Margarete Gilge's tile she drew for Ela. Her Tupi at the bottom, despite the leafy look, reminded me of water spills. That explains my Tupi to be in blue.

Tangle Patterns: Tupi, Bladz, Jul and a bit of added Tipple

I wasn't really satisfied with my Helen's Hepmee version. So I did some more... and now it looks like silly Jesters.

Tangle Pattern: Hepmee

Then on Artzyfartzy's youTube channel I found these 2 new tangles: Leafpod and Rosepod. Rosepod is probably not all that new or unique, but I do like her Leafpod.

Mini tile with tangle Patterns: Leafpod and Rosepod

My Helen's Hepmee lacked the flowery aspect. So another go at it was in order.

Tangle Pattern: Hepmee

For this week Joey's challenge #214 has the tangle Spoken in the "Front and Center" theme we are following presently. Undoubtedly, my Spoken is in the Center...

Tangle Pattern: Spoken

...but I knew I had to do better with the 'F'-part of 'Front and Center'.

Tangle Pattern: Spoken

But this was my first tile - so totally un-me!

Tangle Patterns:

Ah! Finally I got my leaves for Helen's H for Hepmee and it was all just a shading matter. I confess, my Hepmee version is a version of Helen's Hepmee's version of Hepmee and thus very alien to the real Hepmee. But it was fun to draw.

Tangle Pattern: Hepmee

My last tile is a tangle I learned while drawing Ela's #1140 challenge: Jul. Although Jul has nothing to do with Tripoli, its triangle shape suits the Tripoli style perfectly.

Monotangle Pattern: Jul a la Tripoli style

Animal Very Happy Day

If you followed my post you noticed that I often place animal rescue videos published on youTube by Viktor Larkhill from Spain. He is the one who takes on animal abuse cases where others would throw the towel. Viktor never gives up on animals. What you may not know is that Spain has very loose-to-no animal laws. Viktor, now, has taken on the task to change that. What made me place this video is not so much the fact of the announcement, although that alone would be worth it, but how people reacted to it.

"That's it Folks!" Thanks for visiting and have a splendid week.

---

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.

---

Helen's Journey F - Fickle

I am getting somewhere...caught up with Helen's Journey A-Z where she has reached letter F - for Fickle. Fickle is a tangle derived from her tangle Faux Weave. I am glad she didn't choose the true Faux Weave because I have already dedicated an "Inspired by..." post to this tangle in April. I, too, tried a few variations, but never would I have thought of this beautiful "Fickle" version. It looks definitely different and I had to figure out how she drew it. It looks simple, but, as so many times with her tangles, it was a bit tricky.

I drew two drawings...one that looks similar to Helen's and one that doesn't look so similar to Helen's. So let's start with the 'not-so-similar-to-Helen's'.

I drew 4 rings and placed one Fickle eye onto each ring string. The rest developed by itself. The coloring happened in Photoshop (two adjustment layers: overlay and dissolve)

Pattern: Fickle

Here the version that looks more like Helen's. I have to confess, I had to give it several tries and still haven't really found out how she did hers. Anyway, this is my feeble attempt to Fickle.

Pattern: Fickle - coloring with Photoshop

Here both tiles in their original state

Animal Happy Days

Cute! Cute! Cute! (0:47)

---

DIVA Challenge 326 - Nzeppel

I think I made a study out of Nzeppel for this week's DIVA Challenge #326, launched by guest challenger Elisa Murphy. But this just gets to show that I do love Nzeppel, I had to physically restrain myself from drawing more and more, so here my post (written wearing handcuffs) and my study results:

This was not my first, but my best, at least from the point of what I was thinking  at the time I drew it. I thought of sails and the song "Islands in the Stream" by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. ".....sail away with me, to another world...". Jeez, I get the shivers down my spine just thinking of the song!

If you are too young to know the song, click on the video at the bottom of this post.

Pattern: Nzeppel

These two are also Nzeppel although it might not look like it. They even are from the same base structure, but look different - maybe due to the coloring? The second tile is drawn on rice paper.

Pattern: Nzeppel in both tiles

Here is the base structure for the above tiles in 3 squares. All I did was move one of the lines in the squares a bit.

Pattern: Nzeppel

One does not always have to fill  in all fields. The sparkle on the 'eggs' is nail polish with glitter.

Pattern: Nzeppel

Here I made a mistake in the original drawing. I had loops on the outside of the vertical 2 outside lines and it looked ugly. First I wanted to cut the middle part out = nope, no want to do! Then I played with the idea of copying and transferring the good part onto another piece of paper = really? Do everything over and then over again? NO!

So I decided to just copy/keep. And that is what I did.

Pattern: Nzeppel

Now here is my first tile I drew and I like this one a lot. I know, I shouldn't say that, but, well, I do and if you don't, that is totally OK with me. On the Internet I recently saw a modern statue depicting a woman. Although my sketch looks anything but that statue (the middle part turned out to be a bit too voluminous), but there is just that ever so slight resemblance. Can you see her?

Pattern: totally Nzeppel

And that is the end of my Nzeppel study. It was fun and tons of thanks go to Elisa Murphy for this beautiful challenge.

Animal Happy Day

Bird rescue,

After mean people did this to a bird....





Island in the Stream.... Click and enjoy!

---

Alphabet Challenge Letter Z

We did it! Joey's alphabet challenge 2017 has come to an end with #171, letter Z and tangle Zonked. I am really proud I kept going throughout the 6 months - or half of this year - it took us to get all 26 letters in. I pledged to do capital and lowercase tiles for each letter and today I can hook that off as "done", too. A big thank you goes to Joey, for sure. I enjoyed the challenge tremendously, but without her I wouldn't even have started something like this.

The small z I kept real simple (this is the simplest tile I did in this challenge). Zonked only and a z that Zorror would have engraved on walls and cheeks had he had a ruler.

Pattern: Zonked

My ending tile to the challenge is the big Z and because as soon as this is uploaded I get myself the wheat beer I was talking about in the Y page. I made this tile a Party Zelebration tile.

Now, let the beer flow!

Patterns: Zonked, Zurli, Zenplosion Folds, Zinger, Zonic Boom

Animal Happy Day

Police escort. When did you last enjoy one?





And because the above video is a bit short, here a fight between a Corgi and a Chicken, who brought along his secret weapon.

Link to previous Alphabet Letter Challenge: Y

---

Alphabet Challenge Letter Y

Countdown Z - Y. This week's alphabet challenge at Joey's site is the letter Y, or #170, or the second last letter in the alphabet, or only two more tiles to go. In other words, two more tiles and I have actually finished a "Finish My Tile" theme in its completeness. I am not an avid beer drinker, but occasionally drink one in the evening to relax. A friend of mine came over yesterday and brought two bottles of wheat beer. I marked one of the bottles to lose its seal right after the very last stroke is done on my very last Z-tile in celebrations. I can hardly wait.

Here my lowercase y. Not one of my best weeks, but then I had several of these in the past and I start accepting the fact that we all have good and bad days and I should not be so critical.

I tried to be loyal to Yuma. I practiced it again and again and it never turned out 'right'. So I decided to go for Yuma tangelations on both tiles. I also tried my hand on gems. Here, too, I am still practicing those.

Patterns: Yuma, Yang, Y-Chain

The capital Y tile got a bit out of bounds. Although I like the Yuma tangelation better on this tile, it is clear like water that the tangles are just plastered on the tile without giving a thought. Plus, the Y has lost some of its Yew-Dee altered tiles and is falling apart. So while the whole thing looks a mess, life goes on.

Patterns: Yuma, Yew-Dee, Yoga

My exercise Yuma tangelation tile.

Pattern: Yuma tangelation

Animal Happy Day

I love to watch rescue videos by Animal Aid Unlimited in India. They are doing an incredible job rescuing all kinds of animals including donkeys. In this video they rescue a baby donkey with a hole in its head from certain death. Well done, guys!




Link to next Alphabet Letter Challenge: Z
Link to previous Alphabet Letter Challenge: X

---

Alphabet Challenge Letter X

Countdown Z - Y - X . This week is Joey's alphabet letter challenge #169 - X with the tangle pattern Xs and Orbs and I have done my two entries. I actually liked the X challenge. I didn't suffer the headache I felt with some - or many - of the other letters. Eh...let me rephrase the above: replace 'headache' with 'challenge' and it sounds a lot less painful and a lot more artsy.

So here we have my capital X (obviously!!!). The tangle Xs and Orbs I placed exactly where Joey wanted to have it. So I am proud I can finally call this tile 'halfway' (X is wrong) "Finish my Tile" as is her theme throughout all her challenges and which I at times misdrew. I added xTracto, drawn a bit like half-dragonair and Xav, a simple but great looking tangle.

Patterns: Xs and Orbs, xTracto, Xav

My small x tile has three x's and I replaced the lines in Xs and Orbs with X-ess. Then there is another very interesting tangle, xPerope, that I drew in a circle. I drew a warm-up tile and I have to say, like with Xav above, I really felt in the Zentangle zone, relaxed and without a qualm in the world.

Patterns: Xs and Orbs, X-ess, xPerope

My training tiles

Patterns: xPerope and Xav.

Animal HOTT Zone

I am well aware that my blog is about drawing tangles and being in the zen zone. However, there is another side of me, the one that stands against animal abuse. There are no ZEN zones (or save spaces) for the chicken we eat, the fur animal we wear, and the dancing bear we find entertaining. Their zones are called Animal HOTT Zones (Hell of Thousand Tortures). Watching this video I was ashamed for mankind. They are all LOSERS!!!

Imagine you were one of these chicks...

Animal Happy Day

I had to end my post on a happier note, so here a complete different side of mankind. If only we were all wired like these heroes.






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

---

Alphabet Challenge Letter W

Countdown Z - Y - X - W Joey's alphabet letter challenge #168 - W - or in other words: three more to go to #171 - the last letter. For W Joey chose the pattern W2, a tangle I already had a hard time with for IAST #186. I still don't feel comfy with it.

I am glad I got W in. I didn't tangle on Sunday. It was my big window cleaning day and I am glad that is done. On Monday I only tried a few strokes and I could feel it wasn't my day. I was not in the Zentangle Zen-zone. I noticed a few times already that when I skip tangling a day or two I have difficulties getting the juices flowing again. And when you 'have to' work with a tangle you are on a warpath...guess what the result will  be.

So, here my..., eh, xxxx capital DOUBLE U...

Patterns: W2, Wist, Watermelon Seedz, Windmolentjes

...and my low-c double u.

If you think it looks cramped...Yes, it is.
If you think it looks like I had no idea what I wanted to draw...Yes, correct.
If you think the tile looks messy...Bingo! You hit the nail on the head.
If you ask yourself why did I draw it at all and waste good note paper...Right you are again, I am asking this myself, 2. 

BUT!!!...the pressure is on. Only SIX more tiles in this challenge and I will actually be able to pound my chest as I will have completed Joey's alphabet challenge 2017 without missing a letter in both capital as well as lowercase characters. If you think, well, what's the big deal?...

Patterns: W2, Wisket, Wyoming

Animal Happy Day

Well, this is a sight for sore eyes. If you have kids, you wished you had this bunch to teach them a thing or two.

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

---

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

---

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

---