Okay gang! I finally made it to day forty! This little milestone is marks nearly the end of my 42 day journey from the book One Zentangle a Day. I definitely did not create a tile every single day, but I have for the most part drawn every day since starting this quest. The in between days of my journey have been filled with learning new tangles and created many practice journal pages. I also overcame many life-altering obstacles include home responsibilities, work stress and loss of loved ones.

Through it all, I have continued on this little voyage to make it to the end of the book. I am almost there.

Today’s challenge asked me to create a tile using letters as strings. How fun! As a refresher, a ‘string’ is lightly pencil-drawn intersecting shape, usually abstract, that you use as a guide to fill in with tangles. Letters are most definitely not abstract, so this creates a very different feeling when creating a tile.

I wanted to have an inspired short saying for my tile. After a brief search on the internet, I settled on the phrase “Be Happy”. After all, an overwhelming number of people, including myself, strive to make this their number one goal in life.

I filled in each letter with some favorite tangles like Tipple, Nekton, Zander, Knightsbridge and Printemps. To complete this tile, I wanted to add a simple but fun tangled border. I was recently asked to check out a cool tangle called “Riki Tiki” that was created by follow tangler Renee King . This is fantastic geometric style tangle that was a perfect complement to this tile. This tangle was very easy to learn and was fun to use. I encourage you to try this tangle yourself. The steps to create Riki Tiki can be found on TanglePatterns.com which is a great resource for everyone that tangles their days away!

As you can see, color was a must for this tile. I used colored Sakura ink pens and created color shading with my favorite Derwent Inktense pencils. For a final touch I used my new TomBow markers to add a splash of yellow with a blender marker. Overall, I liked working with letters, but I can tell I could more practice in experimenting with different style fonts and tangles. Perhaps I will try another lettered tile in the future, but for now, I need to make it to the last day of this journey.

Until next post…