Diva Challenge and Zentangle Expo

This week's Diva Challenge was to tangle while in motion; in a car, on a bus, plane, swing, etc.  Since I am the primary driver at our house, don't own a horse (how cool would a horseback one have been), and I don't have any flights to exotic destinations planned, I fired up my old rocking chair and set off. 

This is a pan pastel stenciled background that I did at Zentangle Expo a couple of weekends ago. I kind of wish I hadn't wasted it on a tile I knew was going to turn out wonky, but if you squint, tilt your head sideways and view it at a distance of precisely 12.6 meters, it looks alright...sort of. It was a fun challenge to do even though I got a little motion sick!

You can see the background below among some others we tried at Zentangle Expo. The ones that looked like I blew ink around with a straw were made by... blowing ink around with a straw. The two colored ones are made with pan pastels and stencils and the black and white is a Japanese method called Notan. (click on the word for a description).

I really loved the Notan. Here is that same tile tangled. 

I also took Chris Letourneau's class on Tangled Gardens. It was really interesting to plan out your tile with a gardener's mindset with regards to height, features and accents. Chris has us make little books to keep our tangle ideas in . 

I took Connie Soba's 'Go With The Flow' class about choosing tangle patterns with common elements that make them flow one into the other. This was the tile from that class. I really need to work more on this concept. I like the feeling of this tile. 

When I got home, I made some of my own pastel backgrounds. I love the colors, but you have to be really careful and use a piece of tissue paper under your hand when you tangle them because the pastel is chalky/crayon-y and rubs off easily. You have to spray them with workable fixative before you tangle and regular fixative afterward. 

So, since Expo, I  have been a tangling fool!  This is a blended, pan pastel background I did on a while tile and tangled it with dragonflies in black, white, purple and silver. 

And this is tangled on a hand colored tile that Tess Imbogersteg did. I'm pretty sure it's ink. It was in my packet of goodies from her class. Since it was her tile, I used her 'Breakers' tangle in the lower left corner. 

Expo was an amazing experience for the third year in a row. Kudos to Katie Butler and her crew! It just gets better every year! Lots of new experiences, techniques and friends!