String Challenge #161 and Traveling Tangles

Adele Bruno's "It's a String Thing" Challenge #161

patterns: "Rain" and "Hibred"

A brand spankin' new sketchbook seems to demand attention. I love all of the white space. I also love that on my new cell phone I can access the Mosaic app at Zentangle HQ. It's chock-full of inspiration. I like to fill several early pages in a new sketchbook with ideas I can access later when I want to disconnect from the distraction of the internet. I do a lot of my drawing at the cafe so tiles and binders are at home. I liked some versions of Hibred I'd seen here and there so I want to keep this handy.

These are the Travelling Tangles I finished this week:

The fabulous Margaret Bremner sent me this little bundle of happiness

The "gem" is blue foil from a roll of Mentos glued onto a tea stained tile. Margaret had created a series of tea stain tiles using little mementos from a train trip. The ATC is an applique of original artwork. The illustrated note card is Margaret's art.

I had a lot of fun finishing these once I got the nerve to start;-)

This gorgeous bunch of beauties came from the lovely Simone Menzel in Germany

The hand drawn note card is a shimmering Macintosh Rose

Simone's line work is so precise and clean. It really forced me to slow down.

This lovely bit of "Happy Mail" arrived from Patricia Gellon in Wexford, Ireland

Patricia included a super pretty marbled tile done with shaving cream and ink. I must investigate this process.

I had fun finishing this one as I happened to come across a pattern called "Gayte" 

This was the starting tile I sent to Simone:

This was how she finished it:

Isn't this fantastic?!? If you haven't already, check out the Travelling Tangle Project on Facebook. There's some amazing stuff going on there. If you're still lurking, I really encourage you to jump in a give it a go. You can start with me;-) Send me a PM on Facebook and we can arrange a swap. 

It can be a little scary, taking your pen to someone else's art, but it all starts with one stroke and its amazing what you can learn. If you really want to develop your art, this is one of the best ways to do it. It sure makes opening the mail box a lot of fun;-)

Thanks so much for visiting my blog. Your thoughtful and generous comments delight and inspire me.