Zenduo #6

"Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it."     
 Robert Motherwell

Happy New Year one and all! Hope you are having a great start to 2018. Here in the Charleston, SC area we had 5 inches of snow (on top of a layer of ice)! A very rare occurrence, and since there are no plows here, we just sit and wait for it to disappear on its own. So I've been stuck in the house with lots of time for tangling.

I'm here with the 6th Zenduo in my series. It's been a while since I did one because I got sidetracked and have been spending a lot of time on another Zentangle project. I hope to be able to share that with you in the next week or so. The next two patterns in my collection are Archer by Christine Gerstner and Arukas, a pattern from Zentangle headquarters. I used an official Zentangle tile with a black Micron PN pen. Here is what it looked like before shading.

I drew Archer inside some of the rings of Arukas. I'm not really loving it, but as always, it looks better after shading. 

 

I wrote 2018 for the first time when I signed the tile. It will take a while getting used to it! 

Once I finish the other project I'm working on, I hope to move a little quicker with my Zenduo series.  If you missed my original post about what I'm doing, you can read it here.

Until next time...

Brusho Magic

"Life is art. Live yours in color."     Unknown

Have you ever heard of Brusho paints? Maybe you already have some, but if you never heard of them you should check them out on Pinterest or Youtube. They are watercolor ink crystals (meaning they're powders) that can create some very unique effects. Some time ago I bought a pack of 12, but have done very little with them. I had a free afternoon recently and pulled them out to play. 

It was a good chance to use some of the pile of odd sized papers that I have sitting around, leftover pieces from other projects. There was some cold pressed watercolor paper, hot pressed, mixed media, bristol vellum, and even some yupo. By the time I was finished I wasn't sure what paper was what... I should have documented them in some way. I laid a wash of water on some and then sprinkled the brusho crystals on. Others were spritzed with water after the crystals were put down. On some the crystals were just left alone to do their magic, some were manipulated with a brush or sponge, and other papers were tilted to let the paint run around the surface. Again, by the time I was done, I couldn't tell you which method was used on which paper! 

Most papers were larger than tile size. Once they were dry I looked for the sections that I liked most and cut them into tiles, discarding the parts I wasn't too fond of. Here's the first one. 

The color reminded me of fire or the sun, which led me to tangle it like this (using black Micron, white Uniball Signo pen, and just a touch of pastel pencil for shading)...

Patterns used: Squid, Tipple, and Maryhill

On the next one I achieved a very different look.

I decided to run the tangling around most of the color. Then I added some shading with pastel pencils. I LOVE using them for shading on tiles with color. There is a color to match pretty much anything, and they smudge and spread so easily with a tortillion.

Pattern used: Huggins

And the last one I have to share with you today, with another different look...

When I began this one it was going to be stacked with rows of tangles, but as you can see, that's not exactly what happened! I used no shading on this one other than what was provided by the paint.

 Patterns used: Sand Swirl, Gewurtz, and Arukas

I have several more tiles prepared, waiting to be tangled another time. Have I inspired you to get some Brushos of your own to try... or to pull out the ones you may already have?

Never Ending Circles

"Creativity never goes out of style."    Unknown


I recently purchased Corel Draw, a graphic design program. The learning curve is pretty steep for me, not being very technologically savvy. So I've been playing with it and drawing strings for tangling, as well as designing Zendala templates. Here is one of my designs that was pretty easy to do... just circles and ovals... from which I then deleted some portions of the lines.

That was the end of the computer assistance. Next I filled it with tangles but did not blacken in any of the little parts I normally would when using these patterns. It looks kind of blah at this point.

Patterns Used: Beelight, Fassett, N'zeppel, Tipple, Baton, Frosty, Sand Swirl, Arukas, Crescent Moon, Knot Rickz, Antidots, Podzles, Maryhill

Then I added the blackened parts. I didn't do that originally because I had decided I was going to try adding color later and didn't want the black spots to interfere with my coloring. It's starting to look better here.

Now with the shading it looks much better!

Next I printed a copy to color. But I decided to start with the drawing that has the parts blackened in, rather than pre-blackened. I used chalk pencils to add the color, which, as usual, blended really nicely. Unfortunately, whenever I scan my work it's hard to capture the colors just the way they look in reality. Some sections here look a little washed out.

I like the color, but the black and white shaded one is my favorite. Black and white is what drew me to Zentangle in the first place, and generally wins out over color in my mind... but not always!

Lucy in the Sky With Gems

"There are little gems all around us that can hold glimmers of inspiration."     Richelle Mead

If you belong to any of the Zentangle Facebook groups, you've probably seen that "gems" have been the hot topic recently. I decided to give them a try, not really expecting much, but I was pleasantly surprised at how easy they really were to draw, and how realistic they look.

I used Prismacolor colored pencils, 3 or 4 shades in each gem. Normally I don't do a lot of colored pencil work because I find that it is very labor intensive due to all the layering and blending that needs to be done. I once colored a large piece with colored pencils and it took me forever! But it didn't take too long to just color the gems in these pieces that I'm sharing here. 

This first one just has lots of line work... back and forth, getting in the flow, never lifting the pen except to change the direction of the lines. Very soothing.  

Next, I decided to try a flower, with a big gem in the center.

Patterns used: Betweed, Sand Swirl, Diva Dance, Hypnotic, Fassett, Huggins, and Navaho.

I wanted to see how it would look with color added to the outside border of the flower, so after remembering to scan the one you see above, I added purple in the border.

I'm not sure which way I like it better. What do you think?
All the while I was working on the flower I had another vision forming in my mind, which you see below. I love the way this one turned out, full of bright, shiny color.

Patterns used: Purk and Squid

That's where I intended to end this post. However, I had another piece sitting in the corner of my desk, half finished. I started it with small size gems, and found that I really didn't like working in that small of a space with the colored pencils (you'll notice in the above pieces all the gems are larger in size.) I almost threw this one away, but at the last minute decided to go ahead and complete it.

Patterns used: Arukas and a tangleation of Fassett

I'm glad I didn't throw it away, but it's definitely not my favorite of the batch. The gems were a lot of fun to do, and I expect that they'll be popping up in my art work from time to time.

**In case you've been living under a rock and have NOT seen these gems before, here is a helpful video by CZT Chris Gerstner, on how to create them.

 

Bright and Beautiful Colors

"Never be afraid to try something new because life gets boring when you stay within the limits of what you already know."    Unknown

For a while I've been a fan of Dyan Reaveley - her art and her products, sold under the name of "Dylusions". If you're not familiar with her, just google her or go to YouTube and you'll find LOTS! What attracts me to her work are the vivid colors and whimsy. I own most of her ink sprays, and have used them to make colored tiles. However, things tend to get quite messy when I use them, and there is lots of cleanup, especially on my hands. And one thing you should know about me is that I am a clean artist. That's one reason why I love Zentangle so much... there's no mess.

Some time ago - I'm not sure how long it's been - she came out with a line of "blendable acrylic paint." I was reminded of the paints recently, and started looking into them some more. With some advice from other CZTs, and armed with lots of info I found online, I decided to order them. They come in 12 colors, I think, and I ordered 11 of them (I'm not a big fan of brown). There are white and black, and the rest are beautiful, bright colors that match her ink sprays. 

Dyan's video that I watched and loved is here. She uses baby wipes and her hands to paint with. That sounded intriguing, and since she kept saying how easy it is to wash/clean up, I decided to give it a try. 

I cut up various papers into rectangles approximately 3 x 5.5 inches. I gathered my paints, baby wipes, and paper towels and got to work creating a number of "tiles". As in any new endeavor, I didn't love them all, but did end up with several that I liked. Here is the first one I decided to tangle.

I created the small black circles using a stencil, and the larger ones using a small sponge dauber. Then I added my tangles.

 Patterns used: Crease and Frosty

I was going to let the shades of paint be the only shading, but I decided to give it a try with graphite. First I had experimented with colored pencils, which is normally what I would use to shade a colored tile, but didn't like it. Here's the little bit of graphite shading I added. I'd be interested to know if you really notice a difference, and if so, which you like better. 

On the next "tile" I added the border using a stencil of flames along the edges.

And then I tangled and added shading.

Patterns used: Olb, Arukas, and Tipple.

I had to fight with myself to leave that space in the upper right corner open, without tangles. I love open space but find it hard to leave it that way.

Final verdict? I LOVED working with these paints, for all the reasons Dyan points out in her videos, and more:

• the paints are smooth and liquidy
• the colors are beautiful
• I love the striking contrast of the colors with my black pens
• they spread amazingly well with a baby wipe - no streak marks
• quick drying so I can tangle on them right away if I want
• they blend very well (and yes I did use my fingers for that purpose)
• they wiped up off my craft mat with a DRY paper towel
• they came off my fingers mostly with just soap and water, and a quick swipe with my craft scrubbie
• they were very neat to work with, compared to sprays

Is that enough reasons to convince you to go out and try these paints if you haven't already? I think so. And if you do, let me know what you think.

Arukas

"Life is the art of drawing without an eraser."   John W. Gardner

The Diva is back to her blogging this week, and the new challenge is to use the tangle Arukas. About a month ago, when this tangle was newly released, I tried it out on a couple of tiles. The first one I did back then was on a Zendala tile. I loved the way this turned out, enough so that I included it when I recently changed the headers on  this blog and my website, tanglemania.com. I really like tangling on the round tiles even if they are not your typical Zendalas.

Since I enjoyed this pattern so much, I was happy to see this week's challenge. I picked one of my hand-colored tiles to use and completed it in a similar fashion to the round one, but blackened and shaded different areas, as well as adding 'Nzeppel in the background. Not bad, but I don't like it as much as my first tile. 

Then something interesting happened. I was looking through a pile of completed tiles I had sitting on my shelf. Lo and behold, I found another Arukas tile I did last month and had completely forgotten about.

Well, would you look at that! I used 'Nzeppel in that background also! I guess I have a one track mind. They are a little different... the turquoise one has 'Nzeppel in a grid, and the pink one has it laid out randomly. And of course the rest of the pattern was done very differently, with curving arms. This is not my favorite tile.... probably why I had forgotten about it!

I did like the idea of curvy arms, however, so I decided to do another tile, trying to make it very different. I think I achieved my objective.

It's on an apprentice tile, which is a little bigger and a little whiter than the regular Zentangle tiles. I had decided to make the arms wavy, but of course was not thinking as I began, and drew the first lines straight. There are no mistakes in Zentangle, so I just continued. It was a happy 'mistake', as I love the way it looks with one straight side and the others wavy! This is definitely a pattern that has been added to my list of favorites.