Curves Only and Great Mail

This week's challenge from The Diva was to use only curved lines.  My favorite!  I had so much fun with this one...much better than last week.  I have done two tiles so far and may do some more this weekend on my train ride to NYC to run the MORE Magazine Women's Half Marathon in Central Park (yay!).  It will be a great way to calm my nerves, as this is only the second time I have run a half-marathon.

I also got some important mail this week...my acceptance letter for the May Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT) seminar.  The envelope was addressed so beautifully that I really hated to open it.  For those of you who don't know, Maria, the co-creator of Zentangle, is a world-renowned calligrapher.  I think it's pretty obvious who wrote this:

I am so excited to attend the training, as I'm sure that is just a tiny taste of what's to come!

The Diva's Challenge #14

I am a bit behind as I have just recently discovered this, but each Monday a new Zentangle challenge is posted here.  You can also find it with the button to the right.  I know I need to work out of my regular "box," so I tried this week's challenge.  It was to use only straight lines.  I like designs made up of straight lines, so I thought it would be a piece of cake.  Wrong.  I started 4 different tiles and only finished two of them.  I discovered that while I like tangles with straight lines, I do not like starting with strings that are straight.  (For more information on what I mean by tangles and strings, go here.)  Here are my finished tiles.  I will post the unfinished ones as well, as soon as I work on them a bit more.  

Beyond Paper

I have never been an artist.  Crafty, yes.  But able to draw more than stick figure people and mystery animals (is that a dog or an elephant?) for my kids, not so much.  That's why I love Zentangle...it is simple to do yet has a beautiful and complex result.  So far I haven't ventured much beyond the traditional paper and black pen method, but last night I went to the monthly Artini Hour at the Mystic Arts Center and the topic was metal embossing.  The metal piece we were given was a 4-inch square, so I immediately knew I had to try tangling it.  When I finished, I actually felt like something of an artist for the first time.  A trip to the craft store is in order for the weekend to further my experiment with new media.

Patterns used: Ixorus, Zander

Introduction

After the first Zentangle class that I took, I was eager to learn more, so I of course turned to the internet.  I found plenty of fantastic info and a whole community of people who love "tangling" too.  After posting photos of my work on my personal Facebook page, I have had many friends from near and far want to learn more.  With this blog I hope to provide other newbies with a list of my favorite resources.  All of my creations are posted in the Flickr Zentangle group under my user name "christyjn."  See the links to the right.