From time to time, we feature guest artists who present their unique techniques and designs. Melissa Hoopes presents her Zentangle® work followed by a bit of tangle work by Karen. We hope you enjoy their work.

As the owner of a rubber stamp and paper arts store for over 17 years, it's obvious that I'm a big fan of art stamping. It was immediate infatuation when I first saw Karen's stamps - dresses made from vegetables? Love it! I enjoy Karen's whimsical designs, the stamp size (not too big) and how well they work together, plus, they're fun to color. That's why I chose to carry the full line of Lockhart stamps when I closed my brick and mortar shop and opened Stampassion.com as an online paper arts store and creative resource.

In between doing those two things, I became a Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT). I had stumbled across Zentangle® several years ago and was quite intrigued, but didn't follow up until last year, when I was lucky enough to take a class with the founders, Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. This led to certification and I've been tangling ever since. Zentangle® is a fun, easy to learn method of pattern drawing that is geared for everyone, and most exciting, it's especially for those who feel they "can't draw". And, happily for us, it's a natural with art stamps, paper arts and mixed media projects. Karen's open images, lend themselves beautifully to tangling...so I did.

Melissa Hoopes

For this version of Perfect Pears, I chose to partially fill the three pears with different tangle patterns, from left to right: Bales, Printemps and Shattuck. Each tangle pattern is named because it gives us a common vocabulary, making communication easier. There are 108 official Zentangle tangles, with many more having been created by fellow CZT's and Zentangle enthusiasts around the world.

Because I love to color, in this version I used color pencils on the pears and tangled the background. The tangle, called Huggins, is one of my favorite woven grid patterns. Notice the shading, which gives the pattern lots of dimension.

Perfect Apples provides another great canvas for tangling. I used four different tangles here, from left to right: Scarabou, Florz (background), Ambler (band) and Floo. All drawn with a black Micron .01 pen, after stamping. I whipped up the gatefold card, using my Scor-It board, and layered the card with lovely Brioche papers from Memory Box. The addition of some Clear Stardust Pen here and there, adds shimmer.

Although this post was supposed to be about Zentangle and art stamps, while working with the pretty Brioche papers, I couldn't help but notice how nice they would look on Karen's Perfect Apples. After all, who said there couldn't be blue patterned apples?

For this card, I stamped the image on three different Brioche papers, layered it with Brioche dot print and some Bazzill yellow on a True Red card. A trio of Enamel Accent dots adds a touch of extra dimension.

Would you like to learn more about Zentangle and the products used to make these cards? Please visit us at http://www.stampassion.com/stamptangle.php.

Please also visit the Zentangle web site at: http://www.zentangle.com/index.php

My friend, Jane Knickerbocker, from Seattle, first introduced me to the world of Zentangle, when I saw her notebook of original "Jane" tangles. I admired her work and she tore a tangle out of her book and gave it to me! Back home, it hung on my bulletin board day-after-day, tempting me to give it a try. One tangle later, and I was hooked. Then, my pal, Melissa Hoopes, from Stampassion, posted her Zentangle experiences. Melissa is as wacky for Zentangle's as Jane and I are. Below are a few samples of my Perfect Pears embellished with tangles. Let us know what you think...

Karen