Feeling Zen

 This is the first class that I am completing towards level 3 of the Altenew Educators Certification Programme (AECP)

I have been looking at zentangle from afar for ages so this Zentangle for card makers class seemed like the perfect chance to learn about it. 

I have had so much fun. I never knew there are set designs to use when zentangling known as tangles. I always thought that you just completely made them up. It was so nice to have some designs to learn and use which I could then make some of my own to go with once I felt more confident. These are some of my practice tangles based on the tangles that I learned during the course.

Some felt easier than others to me and I am sure I will get better at them all the more I do. It is fun learning 😀

For this card I used the trigonometry die set. I traced around the dies to create the shapes to tangle in. I was inspired by a card that the awesome teacher Amber Davis made in the class using the trendy circles stamp set. 

I wanted to keep the colours limited so that the tangles were the main focus. I used Altenew artist alcohol markers Frayed Leaf (G702), Forest Glade (G715),Ocean Waves (B201), Dusk (B313) and a pencil to add some shading and depth. You can get all of these Artist markers and more in the Artist Alcohol Markers set A.

 

For my tangling I used Fine liner pen set from Altenew in size 01 and for the thicker line on the main triangle I outlined the border and then used the Brush marker in the fine liner set to fill it in.

I originally traced the triangles in a formation flat on a panel and tangled on them intending to just add the whole panel to the front of the card base but changed my mind and cut them out so I could pop them up on foam pads to give extra dimension. 

I had so much fun making this card I also made a second card for this class that I wanted to show you.

For this card I again used the Altenew fine liner 01 size for my tangling but this time I left my tangles black and white. I added my shading with pencil and blended out with a blending stump. 

I started by creating the swirl on my card panel using the Illusion Twist stencil and then ink blending with Frosty Pink, Coral Berry and Ruby Red crisp dye inks. Again this card was inspired by another card created during the class and it made me look at all my stencils in a different way. 

To finish the card off I cut down the stencilled panel to just be a strip on the edge of my card and layered that on some black card. I cut a further piece of black card to heat emboss, with Wow white embossing powder, the "Thank You" sentiment from the Wonder Clusters stamp set.

Finally I added some Black board vintage nuvo drops to add a bit more texture to the card.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog.

Huge hugs

Amy xx