Wednesday 16 July 2014

Diva's challenge 176: B.Y.O.B.

This week's guest challenger  at I Am The Diva has asked us to B.Y.O.B. - Bring Your Own Beverage.  I drink neither tea, nor coffee, nor at the point in m life, wine.  My beverage of choice is Coca-Cola.  Well.  I don't advise using Coke as the basis for a tangle.  No matter how long you let it dry, it remains sticky and really mucks up you pens.  So, I thought, what to do?  Then the bell rang.  I have a coffee-fiend of a friend for whom I bought a coffee maker and coffee for when he comes a-visiting.  There it was in the freezer - coffee.  Now I wasn't about to find the coffee maker buried somewhere in the back of a cupboard, so I put water on watercolour paper (sketching paper which I usually use was another problem) and sprinkled coffee over it.  It worked beautifully. 

Now my problem was I kept seeing figures in the splotches and with these in mind it was hard to get away from the true Zen of tangling.  I'm also not very good yet at thinking outside that box.  So here is what I came up with.

The first one didn't get his picture taken before I started tangling because I couldn't help but see a dinosaur and obligingly tangled him some primeval plants.

 
 
 
My imagination got the best of me again and my second try turned out to be a frog playing hockey (I do live in Canada, after all).  Can anyone else see it?  He's got his back leg up off the ice as he takes a step forward.  Or it could be a cat.  Ok, it's just weird.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 There's a third one, but it looks like a person stretched out on the ground complete with shadow, so I quit!
 
I learned a lot from this challenge and I'm glad I didn't give up, which I nearly did.  I usually post much earlier in the week than this.  Hope you like them.
 
 
 


16 comments:

  1. Gosh your splotches really do look like 'things'.....but I thought the second one was a kangaroo! lol

    ReplyDelete
  2. They're both really neat. I understand the "trap" of seeing something and not being able to get away from it - although I don't think this is something you have to necessarily "get away from". I mean, let's take the dinosaur. If I hadn't read that you were seeing a dinosaur I honestly would only have seen a refreshingly original piece of abstract art. And as for the second one - I really love it. I love how there is just one small irregular splotch of color in the middle that is tangled. Like a fragment of something, a torn piece of ancient art. See, we all start "seeing" things - which is to me one of the appeals of abstract art - everyone can see something different.

    ReplyDelete
  3. They both are fun tiles and it was fun to see a splotch tangled and one that was not. I thought the top one looked like a moose grazing in the field! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I really liked them both! When I do colors I usually put them on when shading and with water colors I sometimes see an image before I draw and I think that is part of where your inspiration comes from. It doesn't happen every time but when it does it always makes it interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great Imagination, Kia. Wonderful stains to work with, and I love the concept of a Hocky Frog. That gave me a big smile. Thanks. Good work and interesting write up. I liked how you drew your tangles all inside one stain, and all outside the other.

    ReplyDelete
  6. cool! it's like tangling a mini roscharch (sp?) test!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I see fantastic dinosaurs!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ok, I just have to say that, after reading your post, I had to read every bodies comments. They all gave me a chuckle!! Funny thing is, I saw exactly what Kate saw in the first one. A moose grazing in the fields. Then after you mentioned the from ing the next one, I did see that. Kinda like clouds. But the great thing about Zentangle is,.......you can turn your tile. So it can get rid of that picture, if you don't want it there!! In any case, I think they are both beautiful!! The 2nd one is my favorite. It just pops out!! Don't be too hard on yourself!! :0) Share Humanity

    ReplyDelete
  9. Funny ideas. It reminds me of cloud watching as a child. I think they're great fun!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I love the last one. How fun!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I have the opposite problem in that I can look at it and not see anything other than a splotch of color. On the second one you did a good job of not being overly influenced by what you saw. Was enjoyable reading about your process though.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I do like what you did with this challenge a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  13. oh, I love these! hahahaha! whimsical and so much fun! :)

    I had the same problem, but my stains never quite took on the firm shape like yours did...I still only wanted to outline them and leave the string as the star of the show.

    ReplyDelete
  14. How fun! good to see you went with your instincts even though you tried to shy away from them - the dino is cute :) can just imagine the cola as some areas of my coffee stains stuck as well - and I didn't even use a sweetener haha

    ReplyDelete
  15. I completely agree that the splotches have personality. I see a dinosaur and another dinosaur (the two legged version, like T-rex). The end result is very interesting. I like the effect in the first, where you simply left the splotch "As is". And I like the pattern you used in the second. Very nicely done

    ReplyDelete
  16. Indeed you can see things in your splotches and you did well tangling it. The froggie is cute, it looks like he is hopping behind a ball. Using this technique is different but fun to do.

    ReplyDelete