Disclosure: I am hopeless at keeping plant life alive. Before I was an almost recovered lawyer (i.e. when I was a more than full time lawyer), Mr. Excitement and I realized that our home was a living example of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Any living thing that could survive with the amount of care we were able willing to provide could stay. Apparently, flora was unable to adapt to conditions in our abode. Fortunately, our sons and the dog managed to flourish.
Notwithstanding my personal incompetence at sustaining plant life, I love other people’s gardens. My walks in our summertime New Jersey beach town, Brigantine, are slow affairs because of all my stops to admire our neighbors’ cultivations. New Jersey has a reputation for a certain post-apocalyptic, gritty vibe, but it’s car license plates proclaim it to be “The Garden State“. Based on these photos I’ve taken within its borders, you can see that’s not entirely false advertising.
And speaking of places with gritty, post-apocalyptic reputations. I’m from Philadelphia. But, even in the hardscape of Center City Philadelphia, people find ways to cultivate beauty.
During our travels, any time we can, we visit botanical gardens. One of our favorites was the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden just outside Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Hump Day Zentangle Challenge #5: Flower Power via
Organic Tangles
For today’s Hump Day Zentangle Challenge, let’s focus on so-called “organic” tangles. In TanglePatterns.com, Linda Farmer has done us the favor of using “organic” as one of her tangle classifications. You can use your own personal favorites or expand your organic tangle repertoire from Linda’s organic tangle list, complete with links to step-outs. Feel free to stick to the “pure” Zentangle method or let your inner color genie escape. (If you live in the United Kingdom or a British Commonwealth nation, that would be your inner colour genie.) I’ve done both.
Here’s my first tile without shading. I think I maybe should have stopped here. As usual, I’m not very good at knowing the names of the tangles I’ve used, except that along the left side, that’s Aloha, my own tangle. Across the bottom is Pokeleaf, one of the “official” tangles. Can anyone identify any of the others? It’s possible that I imagined them or, more likely, that they’re tangleations or amalgamations of other tangles.
Here’s the same tile after shading. I can’t say I think it’s an improvement. Do you think it makes the tile look too “busy”?
Here’s my second tile before adding color.
For this tile, I am again not sure of the names of tangles other than my own. (Embarrassing). The one that looks leafy is one version of Dinoflor.
And, here it is after I added color. At the moment, I’m separated from my favorite Prismacolor Premier colored pencils, (affiliate link) so I used some Crayola colored pencils. I find them to be overly hard and not as vibrant. I think a solid dose of using them could lead to case of carpal tunnel syndrome. (Disclosure: I am not a doctor. Nor do I play one on TV).
We’d Love to See Your Response to the Organic Tangle(s) Challenge
Please share your response to this week’s challenge with us in the Hump Day Challenge Facebook Group and/or on your Instagram or Twitter feeds. Use the hashtag #hdchallenge5 . The Facebook group is a “closed” group to discourage axe murderers. So, assuming you’re not an axe murderer, please just search for the name of the group in Facebook and submit a request to join. There are no pre-requisites to join the group — other than relatively good manners and the afore-mentioned not being an axe murderer.
We also have a Pinterest group board to share our Hump Day Challenge responses. Email me at suzanne@boomeresque.com if you’d like me to add you as a contributor to the Pinterest board or you can mention that in a comment below. (PS: The first 2 times you comment, I will have to moderate the comment. It will show up once I’ve done that.)
BTW, feel free to share your work for this challenge at any time—even next week, next month, next year, ad infinitum.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Fun, as always, Suzanne, Funnily enough, I had started a couple of tiles to practise patterns I haven’t used in a while, Featherfall being one and Zingo. So I’ll see you on FB soon,
Regards, M
Nothing different here. I am behind as usual. I spent yesterday practicing the NZeppel tangle. My efforts look stiff. I do have some tiles to photograph. I have the unwanted talent of taking blurry pictures. Confession * Distracted by Beautiful Fabric.
As you might recall, I don’t Zentangle. I just enjoy the fruits of everyone’s work! I am in love with your flower garden pictures – I miss, miss, miss my flower garden so it’s something I will install immediately once we get the house taken care of. I love your writing – it’s always sucks me in and makes me laugh!