Cruze - A New Pattern

"The whole is more than the sum of its parts."   Aristotle

Last month my husband and I went on a cruise to Norway. We've been on several cruises in the past, so I knew that the ship would be a mecca of patterns, and I wasn't disappointed. Patterns on walls, floors, furniture, lights. In other words, everywhere you looked there were patterns, even on the water in the North Sea. Walking through the ship taking pictures of walls and floors and furniture....I can only imagine what the other passengers must have thought! It took a few weeks, but finally I got around to deconstructing some of those patterns to come up with the step-outs for new tangle patterns.

But before I get to that, I wanted to share a few of the patterns I saw that I did not try to pick apart. This first one is a light hanging from the ceiling of one of the lounges. Does anyone else see Mooka in there?

Here are two more - the one on the left was on a wall, and the one on the right was a floor which reminds me of Dex. 

This one is an etched glass door with a wall of different colored lights behind it. Zendala?

The next one was a fabric covered wall (with metal strips dividing it into a grid, just like a tangle pattern).

These two were taken in a store in the town of Bergen.

      

When I took the following photo I wasn't really focusing on the water, but once I put it on my computer I was immediately drawn to the pattern that the water made in the wake of the boat going by.

And I couldn't resist taking a picture of the roof on this building next to where our ship docked in Eidfjord.

Last, but not least, is this photo of a tiled border going around the pool deck on the ship. This is the first one that I have deconstructed (at least a part of it). 

 

I have named the pattern "Cruze" in honor of where it came from. 

You start with "blocks" of 5 lines forming a diagonal. At first I tried very hard to get the lines to form a square block, but realized it really doesn't matter if they are squares or rectangles, or whether each one is the same size as the next one. Once you get the flow of the curved lines connecting those blocks, it really isn't hard. You go down one side (step 4) then turn and go back up the other side (step 5). On the last step you cap off the two ends. 

I enjoyed playing around with this pattern, but got really excited about it when I created the following variation. If you place the blocks of lines in a skewed manner like shown below, you get a really interesting variation that has a lot of movement. The top section is unshaded and the bottom one is shaded. 

On the following Zentangle I used the original pattern, but added a little bit of black fill, and really think it makes the pattern pop. I turned the picture 45 degrees to post it here because as I was looking at it I tilted my head and liked what I saw. It looks to me like a hanging basket of flowers.

Then I used the Cruze variation to design the following piece. I just LOVE the way this one turned out. This is definitely one of my favorite Zentangles ever.

Stay tuned for more new patterns coming soon. Maybe one will be called Norway.

Try Something New

"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."
Walt Disney

A new month, a new season, and some new supplies. Today was a day for trying out new things. For my blog post last week I used Auraknot as a string for my Zentangle. Today I used a tangleation of Auraknot as the centerpiece of my tile.

In addition to using a new tangleation, I created this Zentangle on an apprentice tile rather than a regular Zentangle tile or a page of my journal. It was my first time using the larger 4 1/2 inch tile which is made from Canson XL Bristol paper, rather than the "100% cotton, heavy-weight fine artists' paper with a beautiful vellum surface finish" (words taken from Zentangle.com) that the regular 3 1/2 inch tiles are made from. Also using the Pigma Pen 05 (that comes with the Apprentice kit) for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the pen and tile. The tile is a little brighter white, and the pen moved effortlessly across the tile's surface which is smoother than the regular Zentangle tile. It's sometimes nice to have a little bigger area to tangle on. 

One more new toy I played with today was a gold Wink of Stella brush. You can see a little bit of the glittery shimmer in this picture, but it's much more obvious in person. 

I also have a clear Wink of Stella brush which applies the glittery look on top of any color you paint it on. I love the effect of these brushes, especially the fact that they are so glittery without the mess of glitter, so I just placed my order for several more colors. They should be great for making holiday cards. I'll let you know how that goes.

Circles and Squares

"The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet."
Andy Warhol

This week's Diva challenge was to do a duotangle (a Zentangle using two tangle patterns), with Knightsbridge (checkerboard) and Tipple (circles). A study in opposites, squares and circles. 

My first try was a traditional Zentangle with some variations of Knightsbridge along with Tipple interspersed between the squares. But it was much too busy looking and just didn't live up to my expectations.

So I decided to give it another try using a totally different approach. I began with the Auraknot pattern as my string and filled the bands with alternating rows of Knightsbridge and Tipple. After adding a little extra Tipple and some shading I was finished, and much more satisfied with this tile.

Color my World

“Mere color ... can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.”
Oscar Wilde

I haven't posted in a while because I just returned home from a vacation cruising Norway.  A cruise ship is a great place for pattern inspiration - everywhere you go on the ship there are patterns. So in addition to beautiful photos of scenery, I have lots of pictures of patterns - not typical of most vacationers. I'm hoping to recreate some of them as tangle patterns, but that will have to wait a little while since I'm busy with many other things right now. 

When I saw the Diva's challenge this week was to add color, I was thrilled, knowing that I'd be able to post a couple of entries to the challenge right away. One of the things keeping me busy right now is preparing to teach a class on Zendalas, so I am working on lots of samples. Here is one that I probably would not have added color to had it not been for the challenge. I used Twinkling H₂Os in colors that remind me of autumn since it technically begins in a few days, although here in SC fall doesn't pay much attention to what the calendar says.

Here is another zendala where I started by painting a random watercolor wash for the background using my Koi watercolor set. The background was painted before I left on my cruise - based on these colors I must have had the ocean on my mind.

Although I do love the traditional black and white Zentangles, I must say that adding a little color now and then brightens things up.

Takin' Care of Business

“The best way to predict your future is to create it”

Peter F. Drucker  

Last week I attended a marketing retreat in Dallas for CZTs, led by CZT Angie Vangalis. It was an amazing three days filled with information and inspiration for moving my Zentangle business forward. In addition to the business information shared, we worked on several fun projects, some of which will turn into new classes that I'll be offering in the near future. I'm sharing photos of a few of those projects here. 

This first one is an illuminated letter that I tangled on the front cover of a journal. The glimmer in the letter "C" is not clearly visible in the picture, but was the result of using Fine Tec paints in one of the golds found in the pearl colors set. A white charcoal pencil was used to create the white highlights.

Here is a picture showing an interesting way to use a tangle pattern as the string for other tangles. To begin, I drew W² and then used a few other tangles (Hypnotic, Printemps, Dex, and Jalousie) to fill the spaces formed by W². I also used one misplaced Hybrid which doesn't belong there, but there are no mistakes in Zentangle so I just went with it!

This last picture shows some tangling on a background made with random watercolor paint strokes. It's such a fun, simple way to add a little color to your designs.

I was happy with the way all three of these projects turned out. And happy with my whole experience in Dallas. I hope to get to see my new CZT friends, who came from all over the country, again soon.