Valentangle

"It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters."   
 Evander Holyfield

I've completed another Diva challenge. That makes three weeks in a row for me! I haven't done that in a really long time. But I have to admit, I'd already started this one when it popped up as the challenge this week... which is to do a piece with a Valentine's Day flair. 

This is the front of a card I designed for my husband. I used Tombow brush markers and white gel pen to make the heart. Bunzo, Printemps, Indyrella, and some striping completed the card.

I have to admit that I really love the way this turned out. Hope he likes it as much as I do! (Don't worry - he won't see this before Sunday)

 

Here, There and Everywhere

"Well, as you can plainly see, the possibilities are endless like meandering paths in a great big beautiful garden."    William S. Burroughs

The Diva's challenge this week is to use the newly released tangle pattern called Molygon. I had a lot of fun with this pattern and just kept wanting to try something different, so I'm sharing a number of my experiments here.

On this first one I just let my Molygon wander around, and instead of filling the segments with anything, I only shaded. Using graphite on the top section, I followed the design down with a few different colored pastel pencils for the shading. The blue part was really a little more towards the color teal, but this is the best I could get when scanning it.

Next I used a piece of Stonehenge paper that has a slightly grey tone. I added some striping to Molygon and then some Flux. Shading and white highlights finished it off.

I've seen some tanglers who tangle tiny, but that's not me. I can't work tiny -- it bothers my eyes. So I knew there wouldn't be any fill inside the following one. I just shaded and added some darker outlining to some of them to give it a little more contrast.

I drew my next Molygon larger so I'd have space to add fill.

Then I wanted to try adding some color, so using my Tombow brush markers, here is what I did. Again, the colors didn't translate as well as I would have liked, and what looks pink here is really more coral colored. Something about the colors in this one makes me happy... minus the stray marker line.

Then I said to myself, "Just one more!" In all of the above drawings my Molygon segments have a bit of space between them. I wanted to try one where they were spaced closer together. And I wanted it to be really different, so I did this one with white pen on black, and added some Printemps and Zinger. The segments are closer, but I had to concentrate on each one... for some reason my hand just wanted to leave more space. This one may be my favorite one of all. 

Molygon was such a fun tangle to play with. It's really easy to draw, and you can let it meander here and there and all over the place. Leave it empty and just shade, add tangles within, add tangles among the segments.... whatever you do, it looks great!

 

I Walk the Line

"No one ever discovered anything new by coloring inside the lines."    Thomas Vasquez

My drawings in this post are going to be a little different than my usual style. As a matter of fact, you may not even consider this true Zentangle art. But whether it is or not, I'm having a lot of fun with this. For some time I've admired other people's drawings that I would call line art, or something like that. I've wanted to try it out for awhile, but just now got around to making the time for it. 

I worked on these pieces last week, and then saw the Diva's guest challenge from Sharla Hicks, CZT, to use undulating tangles. I think what I did fits in that category pretty well. I'm sharing my first few pieces here. It took a little time to get into the groove of it, so my favorite one is the last one. 

Here's the first, completed with a Micron 01 on an official Zentangle tile. I was pretty happy with it considering it was my first. I realized after completing this that it's similar to the tangle pattern Meringue, by CZT Kelley Kelly. If I look at it that way, then it is a true Zentangle - a monotangle.

Next I worked on the one below, also on an official tile. As I drew, my hand began moving in a rhythm, and it was very relaxing. I'm not sure about those outside humps, but overall I like it. This one is not yet shaded.

Using my famous pastel pencils, I added purple coloring and then some shading and contouring with a pinkish-reddish pencil. And again, except for those humps I'm unsure of, I was happy with the way it turned out.

Then I tried a flowery design on a Zendala tile, which I colored with Tombow markers and shaded with Prismacolor pencils. Not bad, but I don't think the lines flow as well.

My last one for now ( I figured it was time to stop drawing and put these together in a post) was completed on Strathmore gray toned paper. Like I said at the beginning, this is the one I like best. I tangled with a Micron 01 pen and then added the outline with white pastel pencil. I thought of using a white gel pen but was afraid of messing it up. With the pastel pencil I knew that I could always erase it if I didn't like it (don't tell anyone I just said that!)

I found this process to be very relaxing. My pen didn't even leave the paper when completing a section. I just drew a line and then turned and went back, never lifting the pen. I will absolutely be doing lots more of these and already have ideas in my mind for changing them up a bit. So expect to see more of these type of drawings showing up here in the very near future.

Me and My Shadow

"Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts."    Robert Browning

As you all probably know by now, I love my pastel pencils. I decided to do a little (very little) experiment to see how they would work for adding shading over my Tombow brush markers. First I tangled on an official Zentangle tile (3 1/2 inches square). I added color where I wanted it, using the markers. Now I could have shaded with the markers also, either by adding more layers of the same color, or using a darker color, but I have never had great luck with having those layers blend nicely into each other. So I tried my pastel pencils. Wherever you detect shading, that's the pencils. Unfortunately, as I blended them with my smudger (tortillon), the paper had some shredding and pilling going on. And I did not need to rub hard at all to do the blending. So I wasn't too happy with that, but I actually think it turned out pretty good, and you can't really notice the shredding. Since the Tombows are water based, I did wait a couple of hours before shading....maybe I should have waited even longer.

I decided to try another one, this time on watercolor paper to see if that would work any better. I cut a square, this one 4 inches, from 90 lb. Canson watercolor paper. I should have rounded the corners before taking my photo, but forgot...the squares I cut on my own always look classier with rounded corners. In the same manner as before, I colored my tangled design with Tombows, gave it a while to dry, and added the shading with the pencils. This time there was no pilling or shredding. Maybe I waited longer before shading? But I think it was because this paper is better meant to handle the watercolor.

Would I use my pastel pencils to shade over Tombows again? Definitely! But I will remember to do it on watercolor paper.

Circles, Circles and More Circles

"Life is a circle of happiness, sadness, hard times and good times."   Unknown

This week's Diva challenge is to use the pattern Tipple as a monotangle, meaning you use Tipple and ONLY Tipple. The pattern is just circles. They could all be the same size if you want, but I think it's much more interesting to vary the size. Circles are not my favorite thing to draw... I find straight lines much more relaxing. So up until now I've only used Tipple in small areas, sometimes as a filler. 

I decided to use the words zen and tangle, put together into one word, which I got from Jenny Perruzzi (Acadia Laser Creations) when I was at Tangle U in 2014. I traced around the words to use as my string and then started filling with Tipple. That was quite a LOT of Tipple. Not as meditative as I would have liked, but once I started I had to finish. Luckily, when you look at the finished piece you don't notice how "not great" the circles are!

I thought this would look pretty colored in rainbow colors. I used my Tombow brush markers to color them using the indirect method. That means I didn't use the markers directly on my work, but instead scribbled with the markers on a non-porous surface, then used a special blender marker to pick up that color and put it onto my letters. I like doing that when I want the color to be a little less intense than when I use the markers directly. After I finished coloring them, I added a little shading around the edges of each letter using a coordinating Prismacolor colored pencil. I could have used the Tombows to add shading, but my experience in doing that is that it doesn't blend smoothly for me. 

I love the way this looks. I may use it as a sign at my classes... or in other places where a sign is called for. However, I don't think I will attempt using that much Tipple at one time again. Think I need to go draw some straight lines now! 

All Boxed Up

"Not to be boxed in, to be able to transcend boundaries: for an artist, it's essential."  Sahahzia Sikander

Back with another Diva challenge. This week it's a UMT (Use My Tangle), and the tangle is Alice Hendon's All Boxed Up. If you're not familiar with it, you can check it out here, on Alice's blog. It's a straight line tangle, and as you know from my last post, I love straight line tangles. I've been meaning to try this one for a while, so I thank the Diva for the push that made me do it. I combined three sections of All Boxed Up with a little bit of Flux. I used a Micron 01 pen to tangle but thought the Flux got a little lost in there, so I went over it with an 08 pen to make it stand out a bit more.

I decided to add just a bit of color behind the Flux to make it pop out even more. 

And then a bit more color to the centers of the "boxes". 

You probably all think I used my pastel pencils (AGAIN) to add the color, but you're wrong. This time I used two shades of green Tombow markers. I'm real happy with the way this looks, and I'm pretty confident that you'll be seeing some more of All Boxed Up in my future Zentangles. Thanks, Alice, for this simple but very interesting straight line pattern!

Stacking the Deck

"Creativity is intelligence having fun."   Albert Einstein

A few weeks ago the prompt for the journal group I belong to was to create a stacked Zentangle. A stack is "rows of tangles that go in the same direction and touch or are close enough to appear as one solid cohesive piece rather than an assemblage whose pieces could float away. These rows in the stack may be vertical, diagonal, horizontal, circular, or semi-circular." Below is the piece that I tangled for that prompt. It isn't shaded because I knew I was going to take it one step further by adding color.

Patterns Used: Baton. Emingle, Knightsbridge, Hollibaugh, Printemps, Sand Swirl, Dex, Purk, Betweed

Here it is after adding color and shading with Tombow markers. I think some sections came out better than others.

Shortly after this, two CZTs, Alice Hendon and Jane Eileen, started a Facebook group called Zentangle: Stacked and Tangled. A place to share only art work that follows the above definition (as stated in the guidelines for the FB group.) Since I had really enjoyed doing the stacks in my journal, I decided to join the group.

Here is a stack I completed on a Zentangle tile (3 1/2 inches square). I used a stencil from Acadia Laser Creations and filled the open sections between stacks with Tipple (the little circles.)

Patterns Used: Knightsbridge, Z-trik, lines, Gerwutz, Static, Shattuck, Copada

Then I used another stencil from Acadia Laser that is similar, but meant for a Zendala tile. This time I chose a Renaissance tile and used brown and black microns with graphite pencil, brown pencil, and white pencil for the shading and highlighting. The knightsbridge (checkerboard) filled the spaces in between.

Patterns Used: Footlites, Beelight, N'zeppel, Diva Dance

 
It never fails to amaze me how the tan tiles come to life with the different color pens and pencils. Stacking is fun and simple to do. Check out the Facebook group linked above and see what it's all about.

Bound for Santa Fe

"The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do."   Steve Jobs 

This past weekend I reached a huge milestone. I surpassed 100,000 views on my blog! That's a huge number. Thank you all for taking the time to stop by on a regular basis to see what I have to share here. 

As I mentioned in my last post, next week I will be on my way to Santa Fe to attend TangleU, a retreat for CZTs. It is the third year that I will be attending, and I'm eagerly looking forward to it. Those who are attending have the option to participate in a tile swap. Create a Talavera tile - in the style of the colorful clay tiles adorning building interiors and exteriors all over Santa Fe - to swap for someone else's tile. 

I decided a long time ago, when I first heard we would be doing this swap, that I would use my tangle pattern Baldosa, from my e-book, which reminds me of the tiles I saw all over Spain and Portugal when I vacationed there last year. Here is the basic pattern that I began with on my tile.

Next I added all the color that this kind of tile is famous for. I used my Tombow markers, and added some subtle shading by either applying more layers of the same color or using a slightly different shade of the color. Then my very last step was to add a touch of graphite shading in the parts that had no color.

I hope whoever ends up with my tile will like it, and I can't wait to see what tile I'll receive in exchange. Here's looking forward to another 100,000 views here!

Snowflakes Keep Falling on my Head

"Being unique is better than being perfect."    Unknown

Last week there was a new prompt for the Zentangle art journaling Facebook group I belong to. It was all about cutting a snowflake from paper using your initials as the pattern. The theme for the week was uniqueness....just like each snowflake is unique, so is each person.

I was a little intimidated by the snowflake directions, but I gave it a go.  My first problem was that when I folded my paper, it didn't work out the way it was supposed to. The directions weren't hard to follow, but something just wasn't lining up properly. So I did the best I could, and continued. Here is the snowflake that I ended up with, using my initials, CEM. See that point at the top? Well, there should have been three of those, but the other two got cut short, I can only assume because the folds hadn't lined up properly. I figured I could tweak that when I traced the snowflake and add the other two back in. But something else kept nagging me...why does my snowflake look like it has three points instead of six? Since the theme is about being unique I decided to just go with it...mine would certainly be unique!

The center part was also not very symmetrical, so I tweaked that some after tracing the snowflake into my journal. This was going to have to be spread over two pages since my journal wasn't big enough, so the line you may notice down the middle in the photos is the center of the journal pages. Once the tracing and tweaking were done, I tangled.

As I was tangling I realized that I should have done the background before tracing the snowflake on the pages, but too late for that now! I'd have to figure out how to liven up the pages in some other way. I chose to add color to the open spaces of the snowflake using my Tombow markers - two shades of green and two of blue. I was pretty happy with the way that came out (i.e. I did not mess up after all the time spent tangling!), so things were beginning to look up.

Next I chose a quote about being unique and lettered that with an 08 Micron. Then I added some color to the letters with two of the Tombows I had used before. Of course I tested the lettering on scrap paper first, as well as the color outlining. I penciled the letters on the pages before adding the ink...no room to mess up now! But I felt like the pages needed something more to finish them off. Using a Dylusions stencil and Ranger distress ink pads, I added blue and green circles/dots around the edges. 

One last finishing touch was adding some sparkle to imitate the frosty look of a snowflake. For this I used my clear Wink of Stella glitter brush over the colored sections.  I took a close up picture so you could see the shimmer better.

All in all, I must say that I'm pleased with the look of my very unique snowflake. What I anticipated being a disaster didn't turn out so bad after all.

Birds of a Feather Flock Together

"Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best."   Henry Van Dyke

I finally got around to completing my second...and third.... templates shared by Ben Kwok on the Facebook page Ornation Creation. If you missed my first one, the owl, you can see it here. I'm just picking the templates I am most drawn to (no pun intended), in no specific order. 

The second template I tangled was this hummingbird.

And the third one was this peacock. I left it unshaded because I wanted to add color.

Here it is again after adding color with Tombow markers.  Instead of coloring the "coil" frame, I just shaded it with pencil. I love how 3 dimensional it looks.

I can't make up my mind if I like the color or if I should have just shaded with pencil instead. But there's no going back, so colored it is, like it or not.

Three templates completed. Only 59 more to go. But I'll never do them all, and that's okay.

Spiraling Out of Control

"You can't use up creativity. The more you use the more you have."   Maya Angelou


How many of you remember Spirograph from when you were a kid? For those of you who may not, it's a geometric drawing toy. I just looked it up and found out it was first sold in 1965. Now I may be dating myself, but I'm sure it wasn't long after that when I played with it. I'm pretty sure the toy is still manufactured, but it's probably not as good as the original. My sister still has the one that we had in our house all those years ago.

So why am I talking about Spirograph you ask? Because not too long ago I found a miniature version of it on Etsy.  Here is the link so you can see what I mean. I had the idea to somehow combine this spiral art tool with my Zentangles. I pulled it out this week for a test run. First I practiced many times on scrap paper to make sure I could do it without messing up. Once I got a good flow going, I took out my journal and used the tool to draw the center of this zendala, which is about 4 1/2 inches square (even though it's not a square...I think you get the idea).

I used a gray Tombow marker to shade it, instead of my usual graphite pencil. It was really easy to do and came out looking pretty good!

Next I wanted to use my new tool to draw an outer border, rather than a center. So again I practiced first. Then I drew this on an 8 inch square piece of 90 lb. watercolor paper.

This one I shaded with graphite for a reason that you will understand in a minute. I was very happy with it, but the outer ring was just screaming out for some knightsbridge, so I added random rows, not trying at all to make it symmetrical. I think the result is very interesting. Usually I prefer symmetry, and that's why I love zendalas so much, but I love the asymmetrical aspect of this one.

Never satisfied to just leave things alone, I knew I wanted to add some color to the outer ring. And that, my friends, is why I didn't use my Tombow marker to shade this one, because I wanted to erase the shading on the ring before adding the color (color and pencil shading don't always mix so well). I added the color with my Tombow markers, but not before making sure I had a good picture of what I had completed...just in case. I'm happy to say that I don't think I ruined it, although a couple of small parts came out darker than I wanted.

I will be playing some more with my new toy to see if I can find other unique ways to co-mingle it with my Zentangles.

I'd be really interested to hear which version you like most - no knightsbridge, knightsbridge just black and white, or knightsbridge with color. I'm also wondering if I've inspired anyone to pull out their old Spirograph or maybe buy a little mini version like mine?

Round and Round We Go

" I don't believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process."    Oprah Winfrey

I love zendalas!  I've always known that (but sometimes seem to forget)...there's something about the symmetry in creating a round piece of Zentangle art work that really appeals to me. This past week I worked on several zendalas after receiving the mandala stencils I ordered from fellow CZT Genevieve Crabe at Amaryllis Creations. These stencils make the process of designing your own zendalas so easy.

I've done the pre-strung zendala tiles from zentangle.com, but it's so much more gratifying for me to create my own designs. With these stencils you just pencil in the dots and use them as a guide to make symmetrical lines, curves and shapes ... and voila! You have your own unique zendala! Using one stencil (you get 3 in the set), you can design an infinite number of totally different zendalas. No measuring, no need for a compass or protractor. No folding paper and punching holes as in a method I had devised.

Here's the first one I designed, on watercolor paper. This is unshaded because I knew I was going to add color. 

Then I added the color and shading using  Tombow dual brush pens.

I designed my next zendala on a tile that I colored with watercolors before tangling. That whole area tangled in Paradox started out as several different sections, but as I tangled I decided it would look cool to continue the paradox throughout, and I'm glad I did.

The last one I completed was larger, drawn on a 6 inch circle (the first two were each 4 1/2 inch circles). No color added this time.

I love the way all of these zendalas turned out. And I loved the process - after all, isn't that what Zentangle is all about? 

Paint With all the Colors of the Wind

"Colors are the smiles of nature."     Leigh Hunt

Back in April when I attended Tangle U in Maine, I bought some hand-colored tiles from fellow CZT Sue Jacobs. This first one, a blue Zendala tile, was completed using a stencil from Acadia Laser Creations, along with blue pen and colored pencil for shading.

I was very happy with the way it turned out, so I went on to do another one, this time in pink. It's okay, but I think my tangle choices could have been better. However, I was loving the whole colored pen and pencil thing.

Then I decided to try making some of my own tiles. I used several methods, including watercolor paint, Ranger distress ink pads, alcohol inks, and Tombow markers. So much fun, and the results were so interesting! Here's one I did where I tangled the green parts of the tile and left the pink parts as open space.

 

This next one in pink and purple, I decided to tangle using black pen, along with colored pencils and graphite pencil for shading. This reminds me a little bit of the trees that I've recently seen Margaret Bremner post. I like the combination of colors here.

Next is another tile that I made. I decided to try a red pen on this tile colored with orange and yellow. I love the way these colors look together.

I thought I'd share some of the other tiles I created, just waiting to be tangled.

This last picture is a group of leftover pieces of paper that I colored using various methods. They're smaller than tile size. I was just fooling around with the scraps rather than throwing them away (recycling).

Who knew working with color in this way could be so much fun!