"It's a String Thing" #43 Tiles

Happy Monday!  This week's challenge appealed to most tanglers because of its symmetry and the patterns were old friends of many.

I managed to complete a tile before opening any of my emails which took great discipline.  Each week I eagerly await the entries and pour over your tangles and notes.  To discipline myself to do my own work before seeing yours was much like having to wait to open Christmas presents.

I did hear echoes of your messages and artistic styles as I tangled away and I am grateful for the community that we've established here - supportive and educational and oh so much fun!  I trust you feel the same way as you complete your tiles.

Let's take a look at what this week's challenge inspired ~

This is mine ~

By extending the string lines, they became my Hollibaugh.  I filled them in with Huggins and Hibred and used a single Hypnotic in each remaining space.  The tile needed a bit of weight, so I added the dots from Hypnotic to each of the four string lines that formed a point.

Carmela sent in the next tile ~

Her light and dark tangles compliment each other and accent the lines of Hibred and Hypnotic.  She also posted her tile here on her blog.

Cathy Cusson wrote:

Here you go! I love this string. It is one of my favorites. I also love the tangle choices. I have to slow down and super-concentrate when I do Huggins, but I am getting better.

She left the center space open and slipped Hypnotic into Hallibaugh - what fun!

Jocelyn from Quebec said that this was yet another challenge where she has a lot of fun ~

She created great depth with her choice of tangles for the spaces - along with wonderful shading.

Sharyn Penna wrote ~

This prompt was filled with fun! I should name this tile Hollibaugh Happens because Hollibaugh came through both intended and not. Hypnotic jumped into the Hollibaugh. The string gave me a chance to try out Jane Monk's curved tangleation of Hollibaugh.

That is so playful - especially to think that Hypnotic just jumped in where it wanted to and Hollibaugh lead its own way.  Sharyn also darkened in alternating lines of Hypnotic with a touch of sparkle.  

Kia wrote, "I thought this one was going to be hard, but it actually went quite smoothly. I actually used all four of the suggested tangles."

Along with her pretty tile, Kia captured in her note that feeling of surprise and satisfaction when a tile is completed.

Eden Hunt said that she is a "sucker for symmetry" ~

It is a wonderfully symmetrical tile - elegant and bold.  She extended two of her string lines and added Hibred in a clever way.  She also posted it here on her blog.  

Charlotte Carpentier - just a few weeks away from becoming a CZT - sent in this ~

She wrote, "I got some new pens, and being that I could not pick which one I wanted to use, I used them all."  

That is a party of color - great fun, especially the multi-colored Hollibaugh.

Henrike Bratz sent greetings from "rainy Germany" ~

Hibred filled Hollibaugh string lines - just gorgeous.  And the dots of Huggins and Hypnotic work so well together.   Henrike also posted her tile here on her blog.  

Ragged Ray wrote ~

As much as I like the random loopy strings there is something that draws me into these more symmetrical ones. I like the balance you can achieve in the finished piece.
Hibred was a new tangle for me, I love it - but it's a real one for reminding us of the need to turn our tile! I used it with a bit of colour on the four arcs. Then I popped a few Hypnotics in the spaces formed by the Hollibaugh lines. The finished tile makes me think of those old colonial era adventure stories - people lost deep in the jungle, heat fever and snake bites and all manner of strange hallucinations!
Thanks for encouraging us to roam off the beaten track!

Yes, I can feel the childhood fear of quicksand that those movies instilled in me as a child!  This tile is not frightening though :)  It is inviting to look at - especially the variation in weight of her inner string lines, Hollibaugh lines that seem to never end, and Hypnotic peeking through.  

Claudia (Beewatch) wrote ~

I couldn't get the in-and-out look of Huggins as I wished. It looks a bit plain.
It's not quite how I had it in mind, but it was as always fun to draw and experiment with my pens.

 It looks like it was great fun!  She also posted her tile here on her blog.

Joan Delony - also a soon-to-be CZT ! - said,"I love using Hypnotic. It's hypnotizing!"

Joan managed to create a monotangle and with so many variations to take in - it is truly is hypnotizing and happy.

Lucy Banta sent her tile in with a note full of good news.  She is signed up to be a CZT in the fall - and she started a blog.
About her tile, she writes, "Attached is my creation for this week. I really enjoyed the string and the tangles, all seemed to work together very nicely. I do tend to find myself not venturing too far from the lines."

Congratulations all around!  Click here to view Lucy's pretty tile on her new blog.

Brenda Urbanik said, "Thank you for this week's challenge, certainly an interesting string and wonderful tangles, I loved each one so used them all."

Brenda achieved an amazing look to this string with her use of a darkened Hypnotic and a light and airy Hollibaugh.  She said that she shaded behind the tangle with a Fabrico marker and it appears almost like a hole in the tile that Hollibaugh stretches across.  She covered her background in Huggins with an accent of Hibred in the middle space - very, very lovely.   Brenda posted it here on her blog as well.

From Lily Moon ~

Her string lines disappeared into the beautiful tangles and the dark background on either side seems to hold her tangles together like arms giving a hug.  She posted her tile here on her blog too.

Sal wrote, "Ooh, symmetry – goody goody! From the centre, my tangles are hurry, hexachain, huggie and H₂O lilly."

That is a beautiful piece!

From Colette Horsburgh ~

~ a bold Hollibaugh string lines with lighter Hibred surroundings - very nice.

A very warm welcome to Efie van Rekum-Derksen~

Efie added a rainbow of color to her string line, using the tangles in her remaining spaces.  You can view her tile here on her blog - and learn some Dutch while you visit!

A very warm welcome to Debby Yabczanka - a friend of regular contributor, Cheryl Anne Day-Swallow.  Debby completed two tiles - one black and white, one color.

How dramatic to see them together - and they are dramatic in such different ways.  Of note is how Debby created a layered feel to her sections with well defined shading.  Lots of loveliness to take in here.

Peggy Kohrmann said:

So this week everything went on fast mode. I love Huggins because it is a weave so learning it was fun and quick. Hypnotic and Hibred are literally " one stroke at a time" so the challenge was to make them evenly spaced. Hollibaugh and Huggins are shading challenges so I tried to see how others do it and here are my two tiles. No real background on the first one.
The fun comes when I feel like I understand the tangle enough to give it justice and can "see" what it might look like finished. Can't wait to finally take a class to learn more about embellishments.
Thank you so much for the additional step outs and variations for some of the tangles. It gets my creative thought going!

 Peggy gives us all a fabulous idea in her first tile.  She tangled only the inner string lines, leaving the outside spaces white.  By also leaving the background of Hollibaugh white, she created the illusion of a floating tangle.  That is masterful!

Cheryl Anne Day-Swallow wrote,

I think I got carried away, I filled up my area, before I could use the other two nice designs.
Hibred was used to create the succulent
Hypnotic was used to create the dirt

She added:

I named this piece: 

The Happy Succulent 

The little succulent lying the dirt
got right up and said
let me Zentangle, and no one gets hurt

Ah, to be carried away as you tangle is such a gift - as is this tile and poem.  Cheryl's white highlights make give her tangle a glossy glow.  

From Holly Dodson ~

Holly created a bold mix of line and color to create her festive tile.

Ingrid Coventon said that she really liked this string and tangles ~

Ingrid's bold lines compliment her shading and the lighter Hypnotic center adds a bit of whimsy to her wonderful work.

Juul wrote, "Bonjour Adèle.  Here is my tile. I really liked this string,because of the "symetricality ". (I'm afraid thats a word I just invented?)"  

Invented or not, that is a great way to describe this string, isn't it?!

Ragged Ray once described a tile as a "dark beauty" and that phrase comes to mind again with Juul's tile.  She uses dark spaces to give her work a floating feel.  It is beautiful.

Leslie Dauer-Creek wrote ~

I really, really enjoyed this particular one with the combination of string and patterns. Hibred looks like an Escher walkway around the Hypnotic with a Huggins "garden" on the side hovering over the Hollibaugh abyss. Things really flowed well for me with this.

 Yes, to all of the above - very well done!

From Sherrill Herron ~

Sherrill packed a lot into her string by using a variety of tangles in her main string sections and filling in her Hollibaugh spaces with Hypnotic variations.

Margaret Bremner said , "I decided I didn't want the string to be too obvious, so I flowed some tangles into the next one."

Oh my goodness, that is an understatement!  Hollibaugh weaves and wends its way up, around, through and into Huggins...and look at her line work on Huggins.  By adding the one center line, Margaret split the tangle into a two lined weave - that is fabulous.

From Victoria, this detailed delight~

It is interesting to note that she also "split" Huggins by adding the lines as she did - especially when she carried them out and into Hollibaugh.  She created a Mak-rah-mee feel to it.  Her detail is so pleasing to look at - along with the wonderful balance of white and black space - yum!!


CZT Kate Ahrens wrote:

Greetings Adele, It was one of those weeks for me. The last full week before school is out, so I had all the final projects coming in to grade. Lots of after school grading! I needed a break so went to my book bag to grab a tile and a pen, to start on the string thing challenge. The tiles were no problem, but no pens.... I always have my pens, but on this day not! The only one that I could unearth in the bottom of my bag was a blue micron, so blue it was for this one. I used two out of the three and had some fun with it anyway. the tangling saved my sanity again this week. 

That makes for a smile, both in why it is blue and that it saved her sanity.  Hypnotic as the total backdrop - and darkened in rows is a terrific idea.  Kate also posted it here on her blog.

Sue Jacobs said:

I enjoyed doing this one even though I only used two of the tangles.The string made me think of a whirling star that a hypnotist might use in the movies "You are getting very sleepy." Hypnotic is a fun tangle to use so I put it in the background. Staying with the Hypnotic/optical illusion theme I added in Hibred and shaded it to add to the illusion.

It is all that she describes - and I would add that it is crisp and clean in line as well.  It is wonderful!

Jane Glotzer wrote:

Here's my submission for this week...it was definitely a fun bunch of tangles to play with. I had to hand draw the string this week because your sample printed too large to trace, which is what I have been doing, so it is a bit wonky, but all's good in Zentangle, as we know... :)

Hollibaugh is a favorite, go-to pattern for me, so I started with that in the middle...and as much as I love the woven designs, my Huggins got a bit messed up when I reached the string, hence the dark border and pieces ending in the middle of nowhere there! Oh well...no dwelling on that this week for me...I did the Hypnotic variations first but since I tend not to have too many light areas in my ZIAs (as you've probably noticed) I left Hibred pure and simple. That left one more area to tangle, and since Hypnotic is, well, hypnotic, I used it again, but this time also left it pure and simple. Shading helped convey some depth--always so amazing how that happens! I look back now at my earlier stuff and they are so flat without any shading. I guess I should try to explore highlighting, too--:) Always more to learn...

Thanks for the weekly encouragement!

 Jane brings up a great reminder about string lines, particularly about drawing them.  By design, they are suggestions, so please do pencil them onto your tile.  The string - even though someone else's design - then becomes your own.  More Zentangle magic!

Speaking of magic, look at Jane's variations of Hypnotic - very nice.

Sue Agnew said:

I love W2 but have never done Huggins, and using it reminded me of how much I love Mi2. Now I want to play with it.
My perfectionist side makes me want to do this over, but I already feel crosseyed trying to keep track of "overs and unders" while I shaded. It's a good thing, how you feel when you've been concentrating deeply.

Light and lovely, isn't it?  From the double lines of Huggins to the simple lines of Hollibaugh, to the way the tangles seem to emerge from the edges of the tile - so very pretty.

Deanna Spence treated us to two tiles this week ~

~each very different, yet each so dimensional as she tangled them.  Just a bit of Hibred on Hollibaugh is lovely and Hypnotic peeking through Hollibaugh is too.

From Jackie Becker ~

Jackie turned her string lines into Hollibaugh and note how she used Hibred - leaving a white space to view the tangles below.  It lends a whole new look to the string, doesn't it?

Suzanne Wilka sent in her tile and she also posted it here on her blog.

Suzanne's Hibred is wonderful with perf borders and shading where the alternating lines meet and offset with a dark Hollibaugh.


And now - the tile for honors this week was created by
Linda Bladen who hails from the UK (as best I can tell from her blog :)

This is the very first time Linda submitted a tile to "It's a String Thing", so a very warm welcome to her and congratulations!

Linda wrote:

I've been following your blog for a while now but this is the first time that I've had a go at the challenge. Thanks for the great tangling tips and for collating all the challenge entries. It never ceases to amaze me how differently everyone interprets the challenge.
I've used Huggins and Hibred a great deal and really enjoy tangling with them. The other two were both new to me but I'll be using Hypnotic a lot now because I really enjoyed it. Much as I love to use colours on my work I'm not fond of tangles which have a lot of areas coloured in black so the small area of Hollibaugh was ok for this but I wouldn't want to use it for a larger area.

                                      

The black of Hollibaugh is just the right touch to pull the eye to the center and then back out to enjoy all the pretty detail of Linda's work.  In additions to the irregular grid for Hypnotic, note how she shaded it - in a line from the center dot and varied it from space to space - a GREAT tip for us all.
Linda posted this here on her blog as well.

I'll be sending a little something in the mail to you, Linda.

Many thanks to the talented tanglers for sending in your tiles this week.

Thank you to the creative minds behind the string and tangles used in the challenge -

Sandy Hunter via Linda Farmer for TanglePatterns String 037

Hypnotic by Elena Hadzijaneva

and three official Zentangle® patterns
Hibred
Hollibaugh 
Huggins

Stop back tomorrow for "It's a String Thing" #44!