My Patterns

123 O'LEARY

I love border, or ribbon tangles, and this one seems to flow easily and works well with other tangles. Here in my example, I paired it with a combination of Dewd (official Zentangle) and Hanny Waldburger's beautiful Icantoo.  (would that be Icandewd? Dewdcantoo?) and also Kuazeela from Eni Oken.

The name of the tangle is a bit of a story.  I went to the dentist, and he thought I might be grinding my teeth (ewww..) at night.  I realized, though, it isn't at night.  I do it all day long.  Music runs through my head all the time, especially when I am working on something.  It could be Sousa marches, the Calypso song from Beetlejuice or the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves - whatever shows up in my head at the time.  Rather than hum the tunes, I just grind out the rhythm silently.  

Whenever I drew this tangle, I realized I was working through that old playground song "One, Two, Three, O'Leary" as I made the strokes. Bouncing the ball, it is one, two, bounces and the third bounce you swing your leg up and over the ball.  Here, do the first two S curves, and the third S curve continues down and around to the spiral.  

Sometimes I vary the number of S curves, as I did here, or vary the shape of the spiral into a Printemps-like spiral or open it out into more of a Mooka type end and then add some auras or echo lines there.  There is a good potential for variations, I think.

'NMESHED
Here we are with another Ogee based tangle.  I used to hate doing that grid because I couldn't ever get it perfectly proportioned and even.  That was back in the day when I was worried about tangles being "perfect".  I played with Linda Farmer's dot method for a while, but that took too much brain power!  Finally, I just practiced the curved lines until I could make a reasonably even grid.  It started to be fun, actually!  There is something so relaxing about all those undulating lines.  Also, the shape of the grid reminds me of those stretchy little bags you get when you buy certain delicate fruit.  They have such a pleasant texture, and my inner child just loves to play with them.  I always hate to throw them out, so if you have a fun use for them, let me know, please!

One of my favorite tangles to draw is 'NZepple.  When Molly described it at my CZT seminar as squeezing a hard boiled egg into the little triangular shapes, it really made me smile.  What a mental image!  I can almost taste those still warm peeled eggs being eased into an unfamiliar shape.

I had made an Ogee grid on scratch paper to do another tangle, and there were a few open spaces.  I filled them with that "egg", and decided I liked the result.  It opened up new possibilities for filling and embellishing those spaces.  So, combining the 'NZepple drawing concept with that mesh wrapper I love, here is 'NMeshed.

OYBAY
Back in 2013 when I was new to Zentangle, but already loving it, my husband asked me to do a ZIA to put in our wine bar area in the kitchen.  I took a piece of parchment look paper, printed a quote from Benjamin Franklin on it and tangled a wine bottle and glass. I burned the edges and mounted it on a really cool square plate charger from Pier One.   It is a favorite piece in our home.

I created a border using a "roller coaster" line and used a shell type motif on one side and a variety of tangles on the opposite side.  I never had a name for it, but I loved it.  Now I have named it and done a stepout to share with my Zentangle friends.  It occurred to me that the shells are like oysters in a shallow pool, so it became Oybay.  Hope you enjoy it!

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FICHY

Here is Fichy - see them swimming?  Once you master the Ogee grid (thank you, Linda Farmer), this is an easy one!

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CRESTFALLEN

 



Try this one on black tiles.  Very relaxing to draw and can look very different with variations.

 

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PARIS

 

These little towers can be a border or a fill.  Try them in a circle - spacing takes a little practice that way.


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CO2




CO2 reminds me of carbonation - light and airy. 
The main difference between drawing this and AAH! is that you draw from
 the outside toward the center rather than from a central point outward. 


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OSKIE



 

 

Inspired by the pattern on Petosky Stones found in Michigan.