"The way to stay inspired and motivated is by doing what you like, doing what you love." Raphael Saadiq
Happy August everyone! I don't know how the weather is by you, but it's broiling hot and humid here in Charleston, SC. No surprise there, but I'm ready for fall. So it was nice to take a vacation and get a break from the weather here. First stop was Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, for CanTangle, a 3 day retreat for CZTs. Temps there were in the 80s at their peak, but that felt comfortable compared to what I'm used to. Then for our drive down the Oregon coast the average high was 70 degrees (55 at Crater Lake!), and I loved every second of it. In my opinion, that is perfect weather for vacationing.
But let's go back to Canada and a very fun, educational, and inspiring 3 days of tangling. I got to meet and take classes from the famous Laura Harms, better known as the Diva of the weekly Diva challenges, Margaret Bremner, whose work I've admired for so long, and Lisa Heron, the wonderful and very energetic host of the event. I also took some great classes from people I had previously met - Cris Letourneau, author of Made in the Shade and co-author of Pattern Play, as well as Bette Abdu, Brenda Shaver, and Molly Hollibaugh. In addition, I met and re-met about 40 additional CZTs. So much talent and knowledge was shared. In case you're wondering about the title of my blog today, that's words from the song "Happy" by Pharrell Williams, which sort of became the theme song for the weekend.
Today I'm going to share just a little of what I created in Canada... a few of the small things. Once I complete (or should I say IF I ever complete) the larger projects, I will share them here also. First is a monotangle (one pattern) tile using the pattern Diva Dance (maybe you can figure out in whose class this was done?)
Next is a tile using Hollibaugh (maybe you can figure out whose class this was from also?) filled with N'zeppel. The tile was completed as a meditative activity, being guided only by the soothing voice of Molly (did you guess?), without any visuals.
This one is from Cris' class on pattern play, creating tangleations, or variations, of existing patterns. Auraknot with rounded points, and filled with some Tipple.
The last one is a tile I created one evening, in my hotel room, all alone. I had wanted to try out the new pattern Frost Flower since it's made from all straight lines and I love straight lines (or at least fairly straight lines). I added shading with a blue pastel pencil, and I love the way this turned out, even though I made a couple of "mistakes."
One more thing - there were TONS of door prizes given out. Among other things, I won a set of Zentangle coasters donated by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. I was going to put them out in a pile on the end table in my family room, but I had a better idea. The table has a glass top with a wood shelf underneath it. So here's what I did...
Now they're on display for everyone to see. Sorry about the quality of the photo... it's hard to take a picture of a glass table without reflections.
Now that I'm home from vacation I need to get back into the swing of things - I went a whole week without any tangling!
"Variety of mere nothings gives more pleasure than uniformity of something." Jean Paul
One of my favorite tangles is 'Nzeppel, so I was happy to see that it's the focus tangle this week on the Facebook group Square One. Right off the bat I knew I'd be creating multiple tiles for this "One." When I taught a class a few months ago all about tangleations, 'Nzeppel was one of the tangles I showcased. I had worked on several tangleations and decided to use some of them in my tiles for this focus. In case you don't already know, a tangleation is a noticeable variation of a tangle pattern. I will be showing you my tiles, as well as the step-outs for the tangleations I used.
If you aren't familiar with the tangle pattern 'Nzeppel, you can see the step-outs here. For my first tile I chose to use the random variety of the pattern, not based on a grid. This is not one of my tangleations, but one of the ways to draw 'Nzeppel introduced by Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts. First I drew Cosmo, by CZT Sonya Yencer, as my string and filled all the background with random 'Nzeppel. I didn't take a picture before shading, but believe me, the shading made such a huge difference in this tile! I only wish I could get the shading in my scanned photos to look like it does in real life!
Here is my second tile, using one of my tangleations, along with my pattern Sharmin, from my e-book Step Out in Style.
Below are the step-outs for this tangleation. Notice that the first 2 steps are what you would do for the standard form of 'Nzeppel, which I think of as squishing balloons into the triangular spaces. But then I drew auras inside each of those squished balloons. An aura is a line traced around the outside or inside of a tangle. In the last box I demonstrate two different ways this can be shaded, and used the one on the right side to shade the above tile.
Next I decided to try out the pattern Onion Drops by Shasta Garcia, which I've never used before. I added another tangleation of 'Nzeppel in the background.
Here are the step-outs I used for the tangleation shown above. After drawing my grid and an X in each square of the grid, I drew lines dividing each of the triangles into two sections, as shown. Then I added a squished balloon in each section.
For my last tile, I used a third tangleation. I created a very large 'Nzeppel in the center of the tile, surrounded by a little Tipple and a lot of Hollibaugh.
The step-outs for that tangleation are shown below. Instead of drawing an X in each square of the grid, I only drew one diagonal line, alternating the direction of the diagonal in each square. Then I added a line in each of the triangles to divide it into two sections, and squished my balloons into each one of those sections.
'Nzeppel is a pattern that you can really do a lot with. Other ideas that I've used are a really curvy grid, an offset grid, and one more that I did the step-outs for, but do not have a tile to show you.
In this one, I again started with an X in each square. Then I drew another triangle inside each triangular section (an aura), and squished a balloon into each of those triangles.
'Nzeppel isn't the only pattern you can create so many tangleations for. Try it yourself with another pattern and you might be surprised by what great variations you end up with. A wonderful way to make a pattern your own!
"Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties."
Erich Fromm
Do you ever feel like you've hit a roadblock in your tangling? Although there are thousands of tangle patterns do you find yourself using the same ones over and over again? Well that's what I felt was happening to me. There are no rules in Zentangle, I know that, but if I didn't follow the step-outs for a pattern just as they were presented, I felt like I was doing something "wrong". When I wrote my e-book Step Out in Style, I included tangleations (variations) for several of the patterns. However, I never felt right changing someone else's patterns.
That is, until a few months ago, when I received my copy of Pattern Play, a new book by Cris Letourneau and Sonya Yencer. The book is all about thinking outside the box and changing patterns to make them your own. After perusing the book my mind was really opened up, and I found my creativity soaring. If you're yearning for more creativity, I highly suggest that you run, not walk, to get this book (or you can probably stay in your seat and order it online).
Since the book was so inspiring to me, I decided to teach a class based on it. In order to plan for the class I took out a new sketchbook and started playing with patterns. Add a little of this, change a little of that, put something here, take away something there. That's the way my mind worked as I looked at pattern after pattern, and designed new tangleations; sometimes one new look, sometimes a half dozen. I had more fun planning for this class than any other one I've ever taught. My biggest problem with it was deciding which tangleations to present in class. I wish I had time to demonstrate them all, but I guess I had to leave some things to their imagination.
As part of my planning, I created several tiles. Here is a one I did just to show several tangleations I came up with for the pattern 'Nzeppel.
The next one has "Nzeppel, Hollibaugh, Cubine, and my pattern Gaudi.
Here is one with 2 tangleations of the pattern Well, along with some Printemps.
A colored tile with Fife and Keeko (that Keeko looks very different, doesn't it?).
And another one with Huggins and Cubine.
Then I had to throw in a Zendala with Cadent, Hollibaugh and Diva Dance.
This last one is an ATC tile with some variations on Paradox.
All this preparation led up to my class last weekend. There were three students, and I won't lie...I was a little disappointed that there weren't more. I gave them Bijou tiles (the new 2 inch square tiles), and had them do a tile for each tangleation. At the end of class I offered each of them a hole punch to punch a hole in the corner of each Bijou, and a metal ring to hold all the tangleations. Here is just a small sample of the tiles they created.
I hope that my enthusiasm wore off on them and they will continue to come up with many of their own tangleations. As for me, the book Pattern Play, and the time that I spent preparing for this class, have opened up a whole new world of tangling opportunities. I am much more inclined now to not follow the (nonexistent) rules and to go where my imagination leads me. And I think that's a good thing!
