First Half October 2017 Refreshers

It was sometime last month when I realized - calculated - that at the rate I am going on my personal Zentangle challenge it will take me another 2-3 years to catch up with all the refreshers on the tanglepatterns.com site with each month two new ones being published. In order to get a big jump ahead, I sacrificed the month of October to my own personal theme: "31 October Days; 31 Zentangle Refresher Tiles!".

... and I did it!!!!

Here the first lot from October 1-15

October 1 - Refresher #54

Patterns: Keeko, Angelfish, Flourish, Cack, Girlande

October 2 - Refresher #55

Patterns: Auraknot, Sunflower, Shing, Knyt, Hypnotic

October 3 - Refreshers #56 and #112

Patterns: Nzeppel, Verve, DooLeeDo, CandleGlow, Pop-Cloud

Patterns: Florz, Chi, MaryHill, Xplore, Sprigs

October 4 - Refresher #81

Patterns: Auraknot, Maelstrom, Arundel, Good Joss, Fiore

October 5 - Refresher #134

Patterns: Assunta, Signalz, Pea-Fea, JJ, Pand

October 6 - Refreshers #58 and #87

Patterns: IX, Lanie, Cruffle, D-Vine, Capell

Patterns: Well, Spyz, Zanzee, Crusade, Chime

October 7 - Refresher 111

Patterns: Fife, Dio Sea, Yah, Ballace, Dutch Diamonds

October 8 - Refresher #128 and #164

Patterns: Cyme, Lolo, Kozy, Phroz, AcrossTick

Patterns: Cathedral, Aloha, 3D-Room, Litbee, Huggins

October 9 - Refresher #61

Patterns: Betweed, Botie, Cayke, Stained Glass, Sparkle

October 10 - Refresher # 62

Patterns: Bunzo, Funlz, Paizel, Chordin, Snood

October 13 - Refresher #63

Patterns: Ixorus, Eddy, Lace Curtains, Waft, Pouf

October 14 - Refreshers #91, #65 and #92

Patterns: Printemps, Pozer, Creznt, Undling, Seminole Patchwork

Patterns: Purk, Bugles, Tracery, Confettus, Via

Patterns: Punzel, Bumpkenz, Panthe, Amoeba, Up n Down

By October 14th I had 17 refreshers done and was ahead of the game!


A collection of all my Refreshers is in this flickr album,

...continues on next blog

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9er Mosaic Bicycle Tour Along the River Danube

Finally, I made it. The last three tiles are done and so is this particular challenge - and I am extremely happy about it - I mean, the fact that it is finished, and done. Don't get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the challenge per say, but I started it on the wrong foot. Too many tangles, too crowded, too many colors...it is not me.

Anyway, here is Finish My tile (FMT) 184 with emphasis on N'zeppel...

Patterns: N'zeppel, Lolo (broken),  Ballace and some Split Balls
and a sail and bicycle

...FMT 185 with emphasis on Printemps...

Patterns: Printemps, Companion, Sprigs, Knightsbridge,
Fiore, Split Balls, Kinggo
and still more sail tips

...and the last in the series, the center piece, or FMT 186 with emphasis on Pokeleaf.

Patterns: Pokeleaf, Hamsix tangleation, and some tangles
peaking in from the surrounding 8 tiles
and sails with fish

The final and complete Bicycle Tour Along the River Danube with a bike, two sailing boats, a sun, and two fish.

I haven't been at all active in the challenges as of late. Well, that is not quiet right, I have been very active with my own personal challenge: to do all the refreshers and catch up to the present number of 164 asap. Last month I finished a total of 12, which is more in one month than ever before. October is looking even better already; managed 16 thus far and counting... My goal for October is to draw at least one refresher tile a day. Unfortunately, this leaves me no time to do other challenges nor visiting other tangler's websites. Please forgive me. Goal for next month? Will see...

Each end of month I upload the new refreshers to my flickr album. 

Animal Happy Day

Very clever...very clever doggy indeed!

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9er Mosaic FMT 181 to 183

You have no idea how much I wished my friend Hubert and his son had done a Camel Safari through the Gobi Desert (!!!) instead this Bicycle Tour along the vegetation-rich Danube, which I have taken as my theme for this mosaic. Alas, such is not the case and my 'suffering' through Joey's mosaic challenge continues. ("Hubert! We need to talk!")

However, and at last, I was able to collect and convince myself to stay in the game and thus I finished the missing last three weeks' tiles, bringing me up-to-date with the rest of the braves in this challenge. The good news is: only three more tiles/weeks to go.

Here my tile to the Finish My Tile challenge 181 with the tangle Breach...

Patterns: Breach, Zinger, Gottago, Jib

.....and the tangle Muscari for FMT 182...

Patterns: Muscari, Pokeroot, Pokeleaf, Eyehook

...and this week's FMT 183 featuring the tangle Ginili.

Patterns: Ginili, Cyme, Pomcoco

Bicycle Ride Along the Danube thus far. I thought it was a good idea to draw the tiles in a spiral with the crescendo in the middle. I mean, why make it simple when you can make it complicated?

6 out of 9; 3 more to go

Animal Happy Day

Finally! Here we see how very dangerous Pit-bulls are!

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DIVA Challenge 332 - 2 Squares

I was sure I was going to give DIVA Challenge #332 - 2 Squares a miss because I still have other challenges I urgently need to catch up with, namely my friend's "Bike Ride Along the Danube", or better known as Joey's Mosaic challenge. I have done but 3 tiles and tomorrow she has week 6 live. Ouch, that hurts.

My 2 squares are ZingZing, a new tangle for me, and the rest is silly decoration. Silly as in silly decoration, not silly as in dumb. Silly decoration. If I keep writing it...

Patterns: ZingZing, Mooka, Fazzy Wazzy, Tipple and 1 single Fescu

Animal Help Line

Why you shouldn't visit circuses with animals shows.

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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)

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Helen's Journey D - Diva Dance

I am no Diva Dance tangler. I love to see other people's Diva Dance and some of them are captivating to say the least, but no matter what I do, I am never remotely 'captivated' by my versions. However, to have Diva Dance representing the letter D in Helen Williams' journey through the alphabet is and was Helen's decision alone (gr**!!!). Needless to say, hers is brilliant; it has so much depth!!!! It would take me forever to get to that point. Have a look.

So here my version of Diva Dance as per Helen's Journey and - thank heavens - let it be done with.

Patterns: Diva Dance with some Fescu and Tipple

Another Sirds image? Easy one - you can almost see that it must be a subject out of Game of Thrones. Good luck!

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New Tangle: Kinggo & Black Mountain

My new tangle: Kinggo

I drew it a few times and never knew what to call it. Now I have finally made it 'official' in my Zentangle life: the new tangle I named Kinggo.

Kinggo is a leaf drawing depicted from the Ginkgo or Maidenhair tree. It may look complicated but is rather simple. I like to draw Kinggo showing transparency which gives a nice effect when leaves overlap. It can be drawn as single leaves or in clusters and is a great space filler.

Click to see Ginkgo leaves on Pinterest

I am aware there are already two tangles out based on Ginkgo: Kogin (I don't know by whom) and Gobi by Nadine Roller, CZT.

Here my step out (the square is only meant as a guide):

Samples:

For DIVA #329

Kinggo in a square grid

 

For IAST #207

and here Kinggo with....

My new tangle: Black Mountain

I needed a tangle as a background filler for the DIVA #330 challenge and I thought it would be good if the tangle had a black tip. Instead of looking for one, I made my own and started drawing "Black Mountain".

Here the step out:

...and some samples:

Black Mountain in circles

Black Mountain variations

Black Mountain with my border tangle Lapin

Animal Very Polite Day

Naughty kids could learn from this dog!

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Helen's Journey E - Eddyper

Helen's Journey through A-Z has reached letter E and she chose the tangle Eddyper. No, she did not choose Easter Lily (I almost bet all my snails in my garden she would) and not EEB either, which was my second guess, but I am sooo glad it wasn't Ellish. Not that I don't like Ellish. In the contrary. I saw some awesome tiles of Ellish, the threads weaving in and out, over and under, it made my eyes spin and my admiration for these tanglers jump way into the stratosphere. Just google it and you see what I mean.

Anyway, it is Eddyper, a tangle I hadn't done yet, so I did some warm up exercises with it. All of a sudden I had something in front of me that reminded me of that awful stinking beautiful flower that only recently had been in the news again for its flowering. It is called Amorphophallus Titanum, blooms very rarely, I mean something like every 4-7 years, and when it does bloom, it releases such a bad smell, people inconspicuously look around trying to find the corpse.

So my version of Eddyper is a mix of some wavy Eddyper and some Amorphophallus Titanum Eddyper.

Pattern: Eddyper

Here an image of a Amorphophallus Titanum. It has a striking similarity with mine above, doesn't it.

This images is taken from the Wikipedia website

Helen's Journey A-Z D for Diva Dance is still in the works...in case you are wondering.

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DIVA Challenge 331 - Petoskey Stones

DIVA #331, by guest tangler Jane Reiter, introduced us to her local fossil stones Petoskey. At first, I didn’t quite understand what I was supposed to do in this challenge, but then I remembered that I shouldn’t just speed scroll down the page, but actually read it.

So this is not a new tangle, but we have to draw our own interpretation of a Petoskey stone design. Ha! I can do that, yes mam, I certainly can. And so I did - not just one, but two Petoskey stone tiles.

My first tile is drawn on a page I tore out of the Bangkok Post’s weekly ‘guru’ magazine from December 25-31, 2015. I drew my own Petoskey version and extended some of its lines to make tentacles; added Tipple to give the illusion Petoskey is actually a tangle; and then made the whole thing look weird by adding some flowy things to hold it all together. Don't they look like aliens from another planet?

Pattern: Tipple, and simulation of the Petoskey stone pattern

In the second tile I used the same Petoskey version as above, but used each single hexagons as a Stepping Stones bridge across something yucky you don’t want to put your foot into. This time I emphasized the extension lines and used the Petoskey Stepping Stones as the diving bridge between light and darkness, good and bad, ying and yang…you decide, or all of the above.

WARNING! If you go across this Petoskey Stepping Stones bridge to reach the other side make sure you put your feet right smack on top of each yellow dot. If not, you will fall into the ‘something yucky you didn't want to put your foot into’ in the first place.

Pattern: N'zeppel, and simulation of Petoskey stone pattern

Animal Rare Day

I used to be a PADI scuba diving instructor, probably influenced by all those early underwater documentaries by Jacques Cousteau my father insisted on watching when I was a kid. Like most instructors, I, too, had a bucket list of u/w creatures I wanted to meet. I was able to hook off the likes of mud puppies, bottom dwellers, lead weights, and aquaholics, but I never ever came across a Sunfish. What a pleasure it would have been to meet one of those!!!

SIRDS again

Whoever read my previous 9er Mosaic FMT 179 & 180 post and tried to 'see'/learn to 'see' SIRDS images, here is another image.

If you still can't see the 3D object I recommend a glass of vine or two or more. Or look at the 2 dots at the bottom with your nose pressed against the monitor screen (almost), look behind the image as if the monitor was transparent, move slowly away from the monitor while watching those blurred dots become....THREE! (STILL NOT FOCUSING AT THE IMAGE!!!), and then move your eyes up into the grey zone. There it is!!!! It is a propeller airplane! (Now who wouldn't move earth to see THAT?)

Click image to enlarge!!!

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