Tangled Tile II

This one is also an early attempt at a ZenTangle tile. I tried to break free of the boundaries a little bit. I think I was less successful. The string of beads coming down the bottom just looks weird and out of place.

Tangled Tiles I

One of my first Tangled pieces. Of everything here, my hands down favorite part is the upper left corner. That section reminds me of dragon scales, but also of an ear of corn. Don't ask. It's a weird place in my brain.

Vertigogh Tangle

I never really considered this one done, but I can't really think of what I want to add to it. So it's simple, but I like it as it is. Maybe someday I'll add more, but for now it's fine. It was mostly created so I could learn how to do the tangle in the middle, the fern-like pine needle thing, called Vertigogh. Actually, if you're not familiar with ZenTangle, each pattern has a name. The rock to the right is called "Yin Cut", the mossy thing around the stone is called "Fescu" and the berries at the bottom are "Pokeroot" but I keep calling it Pokeberries.

Tombstone

My dad is a civil war historian. That seems like an odd way to start talking about a doodle I did, until you understand that he spends a decent amount of time in cemeteries looking for headstones of certain soldiers. Sometimes I come with. There is a lot of beautiful art to be found on monuments in a cemetery. This one is a combinations of a few I saw this past year. To be honest tho, my favorite thing about this picture is the circle of the moon and the tree behind the stone. I've been working on ways to artfully break out of the lines that border my doodles, and this one worked rather well.

Jack-o-Lantern

Another Halloween Tangle I did. Shading really made this one pop! I was afraid of doing the same tangle over the whole pumpkin, that it might loose definition, but the shading really helped emphasize the shape. I do think you loose the vines at the top tho. A learning experience, to be sure. After seeing this one, a friend asked me why I wasn't doing coloring pages. Now there is an idea! Coloring is hot right now. Maybe I can do something for the girls for Christmas this year. Hmm....

Black Cat

Going thru my sketch book the other day, I realized that I have a lot of work that I haven't posted. So here is a black cat I made for Halloween this year. I think I'm going to have to come up with a better way to photograph my work, this seems kind of dark. I'll figure something out. I hope.

Because Bobcats

A blogger I follow and adore, The Bloggess, just recently revealed that she does art that closely resembles ZenTangle. I love her work! Inspired by a recent post she made about a bobcat visiting her house, I made this picture and Tweeted it to her. Not sure she'll see it, she's on book tour right now.

NaNo, the end.

So you're all probably wondering how NaNoWriMo went for me. Well for my first year I'm proud to say I wrote nearly every day up until the last week. Just not on the story I wanted to write for NaNo. I started a story just for the month of November, but it just didn't want to be written. I got about 5,000 words in and stalled out. Instead I spent some time writing my fan fictions. Over all, for the month I wrote about 10-12k words. Just not on what I was supposed to write. *sigh* Then, about 3 days before Thanksgiving, I got my hand slammed in a car door. I didn't break my finger, but I was sidelined for a long time. I'm just now getting back to blogging.

Despite not finishing, I still think it was a cool thing to do. Maybe I'll be more involved next year. Or maybe I'll have decided this isn't the thing for me. Either way, for now I'll still be writing, just maybe not a massive novel. I'll happily stick to my short stories for now.


Warning, gross finger picture after the break. Don't click on "Read More" if you're easily grossed out.

Star Ornament

I love my library. Its big and so beautiful. And they have some pretty cool classes. They recently had what they called a "ZenDoodle" class. The name ZenTangle is a registered and trademarked name, so they can't officially call it that, but who cares. The teacher does some wicked cool art and I love to learn from her. The classes are more of an intro to ZenDoodling tho. I hope she teaches some more advanced techniques someday. So far the lib had one class in October for "Halloween ZenDoodle" and one just last week for "Holiday ZenDoodle." In each class we go over basics, work on some greeting cards, and make a project. For Halloween it was a bookmark. For the Holiday class we did a simple ornament. Here is the star I made. Simple because we only have a limited amount of time to work on it, but I'm happy with it.