Today’s happiness is brought to you by receiving the very first present for my upcoming 48th birthday! No, I didn’t open it… I was warned that it was coming and instructed to leave it until January 1st, so I’ve tucked it away and will try to forget about it until then. But just receiving it made me happy – there’s nothing quite like the anticipation of opening a gift to make you feel like an excited kid again!
100 Happy Days – Day 88
There’s only a few weeks to go until the big day. I can wait that long, right?!
→ The 100 Happy Days web site
→ My 100 Happy Days posts
Now for some tangling goodness, as it’s Tangled Tuesday!
Tangling Goodies
A few weeks ago, hungry for new tangle patterns to learn after finishing the last of the Zentangle®1 books in my possession (which happened to be AlphaTangle: A Truly Tangled Alphabet by Sandy Steen Bartholomew), I went on an internet hunt and came across a treasure trove of inspiration sketchbooks on Etsy from the same artist. I purchased The Tangles of Kells to start with, and have tucked a reminder about the others in the back of my mind for when I’m ready for more. Fun stuff!
New Tangles
This week I learned Arukas, Pozer, and Butter, all from TanglePatterns.com. I also learned Stix, Arball, Quill, and Roller, all from The Tangles of Kells.
Tangling-in-Progress
You know, I actually ended up putting aside the 8″ x 10″ ZIA I started a few weeks ago (there’s an in-progress picture in this post, in case you missed it), as I just wasn’t feeling it. I’m not sure why, exactly, but perhaps I’ll have more success when I return to it at some future point.
In the meantime, though, I started a new 8″ x 10″ ZIA which is really clicking with me, and which I’m having a tough time NOT working on in every spare minute (leading to complaints about my oh-so-stiff neck)! Here are a few in-progress photos (no shading yet) so you can get an idea of how it’s developing so far.
ZIA – WIP 1
ZIA – WIP 2
ZIA – WIP 3
No idea why this piece is working out for me better than the last one did, but I suppose that’s art for you!
Finished Projects
The Diva’s Challenge this week focused on the new Arukas tangle. Rather convenient for me, since I just learned it a few days ago!
When I learned Arukas, I only did one stand-alone design in each practice box, so for the challenge I decided to try including multiple designs on one tile. Here is the result:
Zentangle 80, for The Diva’s Weekly Challenge #197
As always, it was a valuable exercise. Though it didn’t turn out quite the way I’d hoped it would, it was great to play around with this particular tangle pattern, as I realized several missteps that I wouldn’t do again when combining multiple designs on one piece.
P.S.
Previous posts in this series are all tagged Tangled Tuesday.
For background on how I discovered and got involved in Zentangle, and links to further information and resources, check out my blog post For the love of tangling.
You can browse my entire tangle gallery at Ten Thousand Tangles.
And, if you’re interested in having a little piece of my art for yourself, please click on the GoFundMe button below for more information and also visit my Ten Thousand Tangles shops on Society6 and Zazzle. (Pssst… links to my international Ten Thousand Tangles shops on Zazzle are in the Alphabet Salad sidebar – just click on the appropriate flag and you’ll get to the place you need to be!)
So… what made you happy today?
Please share!
1The Zentangle® Method was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas and is copyrighted. Zentangle® is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.
