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1. Adj.: Describing a person born between 1 Jan. 1946 and 31 Dec. 1964
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HUMP DAY (WEDNESDAY) ZENTANGLE® CHALLENGE #6: Hotter Than H-ll Edition

by Suzanne Fluhr on July 24, 2019 · 2 comments

Tangled Zentangle Tile using N'zeppel as a string

Much of the United States, and indeed, the northern hemisphere in general, sizzled last week through the weekend. After a stormy night, the extreme heat finally broke.

Dino (our ancient cockapoo) and I have been pretty much confined indoors as we enjoy a rainy, cool-ish day “down the shore” in Brigantine, New Jersey. However, we’re not complaining, having endured a week of stifling temperatures, with heat indices close to or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.3777º Celsius), even next to the ocean in a Mid-Atlantic state.

Sleeping dog

Dino knows what to do on a rainy day. Make a nest out of the couch pillows and snooze.

I was going to title this week’s Hump Day Zentangle® challenge, “A Paradox”, asking tanglers to use Rick Robert’s Paradox, one of the early much-loved “official” Zentangle tangles as a string. Of course, this started the words to a song, A Paradox, from the Pirates of Penzance, a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, playing like a loop in my apparently very suggestible brain. I sang in the chorus for a performance of this operetta at the Lighthouse Arts and Music Camp in about 1966! Obviously, it carved a deep neural pathway in my then young, impressionable cerebellum. Without going into the plot of the operetta which has something to do with being born on February 29th, the repeated chorus is:

A paradox, a paradox,
A most ingenious paradox.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
This paradox.

Alas (oh dear, now I’m writing in 19th century English comic opera), the tile I did using Paradox as a string, IMHO, came out looking very overdone and lacking in artistic nuance:

This was the string:

Zentangle Tangle paradox as a string
And this was the tile after I added tangles:

Zentangle Paradox string with tangles

The tangles I used were Sand Swirl (Karry Heun), Cubine (Maria Thomas), Printemps (Maria Thomas), Cadent (original tangle by Rick and Maria),  (paradoxically) Paradox (Rick Roberts), Betweed (Maria and Rick), Arrowheads (Linda Farmer, CZT), and what I call reverse N’Zeppel (Maria and Rick)

These are all fine tangles, but this tile just seems, well, blah. So it was back to the proverbial drawing board.

Next, I tried using Hollibaugh by Molly Hollibaugh, CZT as my string:

Zentangle tangle Hollibaugh as a string
Once again, I think the tile is too “busy”. I might have liked the result better had I stuck to one or 2 tangles that automatically provide depth. For example, the tangle Fassett by Lynn Mead, CZT, and maybe Sand Swirl.

Tangled Hollibaugh string

In addition to the tangles I used in my prior tile and Fassett, here I used a tangle by yours truly, Phirst, for several of the Hollibaugh “planks”, and Diva Dance (up in the left corner)(Maria Thomas).

So, finally, I decided the best plan for this week’s Hump Day Zentangle Challenge #6, is to leave it up to each participant to choose whatever tangle they wish to use for their string. So, without further ado…..

Hump Day Zentangle Challenge #6:

Pick a Tangle To Use As Your String

(If you stumbled over here by accident and are wondering what this is all about, read my post What Is Zentangle® and Is It Habit Forming? )

I must not be busy enough because after deciding I didn’t like my first 2 attempts at MY OWN CHALLENGE, I turned off the cable news, and decided that maybe N’Zeppel would be a good tangle to use as a string.

Zentangle tangle N'zeppel as a string
By this point, between the constant rain outside and only black ink being used on my dense tiles, I was yearning for some color, so I pulled out my Prismacolor Premier colored pencils (affiliate link) and gems appeared. I might have also realized some of my pencils were disappearing from being sharpened many times, and I might have ordered some new colored pencils via Amazon. (N.B.: I did not discuss this purchase with Mr. Excitement who frequently wonders aloud how many colored pencils one person needs. So, if you happen to run into him and it comes up in conversation, you can explain that it only seems that I have a lot of colored pencils, but that all colored pencils are not created equal and there was some trial and error and pencil buying before I found the kind I like.)

I still think it’s a bit busy, but I have to stop somewhere and I don’t want to prove Mr. Excitement right. He has predicted the weekly Hump Day Zentangle® Challenges could become one of my an obsession.

Tangled Zentangle Tile using N'zeppel as a string

You know how there are no mistakes in the Zentangle method? Please pretend I have all the highlights for a consistently located light source.

Share Your Hump Day Zentangle® Challenge Creations!

Please share your response to this week’s challenge with us in the Hump Day Challenge Facebook Group and/or on your Instagram, Twitter  or Flickr feeds. Use the hashtag #hdchallenge6 .

Note: The Hump Day Zentangle Challenge 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. I can’t invite you to join unless we’re already FB friends, but you can request to join and other group members who are your  FB friends can invite you.

There are other ways to share your work: 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 with your Pinterest name below. (PS: The first 2 times you comment, I will have to moderate the comment. After your first two comments on Boomeresque, your comments will appear without moderation.)

If you have your own blog and are posting your challenge responses there, leave the URL to your blog in a comment below so people can paste it into their browser and find your post.

BTW, feel free to share your work for this or any challenge at any time—even next week, next month, next year, ad infinitum.

I’ve really enjoyed seeing the creations everyone has shared on our Facebook group page, and I am especially glad to see there are some participating who are new to the Zentangle method.

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Carmen Clayton July 24, 2019 at 7:27 pm

I’d be very happy to let Mr Excitment that you (we) need every clolor pencil set you(we) can get you(our) hands on! After all how else can you produce that awesome art work of yours!

Reply

Nan September 5, 2019 at 11:03 pm

I’ve missed you so finally have a bit of time to catch up on ALL the posts I’ve missed. I think this is the oldest – we’ll see. I love the colors – to me they look like pieces of delish fruit – but that’s probably just my old laptop!

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