Monday, February 16, 2015

I Dare You!

"To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself."    Soren Kierkegaard

I was so happy to see the Zendala Dare return last week after Erin Koetz Olson, CZT had taken a hiatus from creating the dare for a while. But time got away from me and I didn't get a chance to do the dare last week. This week I did. I decided to do something a little different... moonlight gelly roll pens on black paper. It was a pleasure to use the new moonlight pens (06) which make thinner lines than the originals. I've had them for a while but had not done much with them. The finer tip made it much easier to draw lines without them blobbing (that's the technical word) together. I did use the fatter pen to fill in the pink triangles in the center. I love the contrast between the bright colors and the black background.




I couldn't decide what to do for shading. If I used colored pencils that match the pens, I knew that they would muddy up the pen lines. And the same thing would happen with the white charcoal pencil. So I decided to try the Zenstone (available from zentangle.com or a CZT.) It adds very subtle shading, with a smoky look. As a matter of fact, it's so subtle that I don't know if you can really distinguish it in the following picture, but I thought I'd share the final piece here anyway. I enjoyed using the Zenstone and liked that it didn't cover up any of the pen lines. 



So happy to see you back with the dare, Erin!


9 comments:

  1. Like the fluorescent ink of the moolight tiles. Nice line work.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Donald. The finer tip pens made the line work so much easier!

      Delete
  2. the zenstone worked great - i love how the whole thing turned out. your colors are vibrant (you know how i am about color) and the tangles you picked are geometric and awesome!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Alice. I also like bright colors much better than muted ones, although soft colors can be very soothing.

      Delete
  3. Love the effect you got with the zenstone! such a lovely glow.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Sue. I'm glad you could see the shading. Wasn't so sure how well it came across in the picture. Glow is a good word to describe it.

      Delete
  4. Absolutely gorgeous zendala! Beautiful colours in the black paper and wonderful shading with the zenstone!

    ReplyDelete
  5. You did a great job. Always nice to see how different things become on black!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lovely Zendala and nice shading with the Zenstone.

    ReplyDelete