Stone Angel Arts

Sunning in Sanibel(le)

diane — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 20:00:59 +0000

Beginning this week, the Diva, is introducing a new feature as part of her weekly challenges. The first Monday of each month, she will be doing a new Use My Tangle (UMT) challenge. This week is the inaugural week hence the challenge name “UMT v1″. The challenge is to use the pattern Sanibelle which was created by Tricia Faraone. I love the look of this tangle and have wanted to explore it so I was excited to be “challenged” to do it. This tile was done earlier this week and I had wanted to do another but that never happened. Although a Zentangle® is not supposed to have a directional orientation, my tile definitely does in my eyes.

Patterns used: Purk, Msst, Pendrils, Sanibelle, and Black Pearls

When you see the steps for this tangle it appears to be quite simple to accomplish but I’ve come to realize that I have a much easier time with geometric tangles than more organic ones. To me, the flow of my organic tangles alway seems to be forced. I’m sure that part of it is my perception but I do think that people have a natural tendency to be drawn to one type of tangle or the other. A perfect example in my eyes are the founders of Zentangle, Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts. Maria is the one who tends to use very organic, flowing tangles whereas Rick tends to use more angular, geometric designs.

I think this is one of those areas that one just needs to practice in order to feel comfortable. I look forward to working with this tangle much more in the future. Thanks, Tricia, for sharing this wonderful tangle with us.

Challenging Challenge #56

diane — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 02:34:51 +0000

This week “the Diva” gave us the challenge to use our non-dominant hand to create a zentangle. Her name for the challenge is “Non Dominatrix* v.2″ because it is the second time she has issued this challenge (the first being challenge #13). Since I am behind with the previous challenges, this was the first time I did this. Other than being a true challenge, I learned several things:

this forces me to slow WAY down,
my natural tendency for perfectionism caused me to “thicken” my lines to take out the wobbliness,
it is much easier drawing right to left since my left hand is my non-dominant hand (not the way I typically draw),
I rotate the tile much more (although I did not allow myself to actually move the tile to do the drawing),
I used much lighter pressure on the pen, but
I had a much tighter grip on the pen.

Here is my result…

Patterns used: Mooka, Crescent Moon, Knightsbridge, Msst, Nipa and the pattern I drew first, based on a building in London known as “the Gherkin”. I’m taking my boys to England over spring break so I have been spending a lot of time looking at all things London.

Diva Challenge #55

diane — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 05:50:50 +0000

I’m back with another Diva inspired Zentangle. This weeks challenge, Weekly Challenge #55 “String Theory v. VIII: Moebius Trip” was in recognition of Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day, which was on January 24th. Laura gave us the pattern of the Moebius Syndrome Foundation logo to use as the string or we could do our own interpretation. I decided to use the logo as my string and also use the pattern Maus that I referred to in my last post. I’ve also included my steps for making the pattern. What I love about this pattern is that you can vary it in so many ways.

Patterns used: Paradox, Hibred, and Maus

Purple Rain

diane — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:42:49 +0000

This week’s Diva Challenge #54 is entitled “Purple Haze”. As much as I like Jimi Hendrix, I have always loved Prince (aka. the artist formerly known as Prince, the unpronounceable symbol known as Love Symbol #2, and many other pseudonyms) so I titled this post “Purple Rain” in his honor. Laura wanted to give us all a chance to play with some color, so she chose the color purple, which symbolizes Moebius Syndrome, an extremely rare neurological disorder, which her youngest son has. Tuesday, January 24th is Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day so show your support of her son and other people who live with this disorder by wearing purple.

I decided to take this opportunity to play with some lokta paper that I had bought awhile ago. Lokta paper is a type of hand-made paper that is made in Nepal. As it turned out, the color of the paper is more of a purple wine based on the Pantone color system. Not only did I love playing with this paper, but I got to use my silver Pentel Slicci pen along with a couple of Sakura gel pens.

Patterns Used: Paradox, Chemystry, Shattuck, Nipa, Purk, Fengle, Serpentine and Maus

The last two patterns, Serpentine and Maus, are ones that I found in my many journeys through library books that intrigue me and I do not believe that I have seen any breakdown of these designs in the past. Today’s post will include the steps to create Serpentine and an upcoming post will contain the steps for Maus (mainly because this pattern is more difficult and I’m still working on the best way to define the steps).

I find the easiest way to draw this pattern is to rotate the tile 180°between step 2 and 3 and repeat the first steps between the original marks. In case your wondering, I named this pattern Serpentine because it reminded me of a snake.

Welcoming 2012

diane — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 20:42:57 +0000

I love the start of a new year. I know you can change your life on any given day at any given moment but there is something about making changes with the start of the new year that seems to boost my confidence in making changes. Maybe it is the camaraderie of the world’s population making changes at the same time. Yes, I know that not everyone makes New Year Resolutions but there is a certain change that virtually all people make – that is changing the number whenever they write (or digitally enter) the date. This act used to be much more significant than it is today now that we live in an age where so much of our lives is driven by technology but I guess this is one of those areas in which my age shows.

One of my goals for this year is to share more of my time and talents with others. This is something that I try to do all the time but as my children have gotten older I want to find opportunities outside the realm of soccer, baseball and school. We have developed a tradition of working one of the beverage tents at the Taste of Madison that is held over Labor Day weekend. This year I am hoping to find some additional opportunities to do things as a family because I believe it is best to show the boys the importance of volunteering by giving them examples that involve them.

It is this idea of sharing that is behind the Diva Challenge #52 “give”. She asked us to give one of our Zentangles or Zentangle-inspired pieces of art to someone. Twenty years ago I gave my mother-in-law (to be) a dried flower wreath for Christmas. I noticed the last time we visited that she still had this wreath hanging in their dining room. I decided this year I would give her one of my Zentangle-inspired art pieces to her as a replacement. Since I have not mastered the art of photographing framed artwork, below is a scan of the original piece. A vote was taken when the family was together on Christmas day and it was decided that she should hang it on the diagonal (which I preferred, even though I abstained from voting).

I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday season and I wish you a calm and creative 2012.