"Life is a circle. The end of one journey is the beginning of the next."
Joseph M. Marshall
I love the black and white format of traditional Zentangle. The contrast of black and white is what really drew me to the Zentangle method in the first place. But, oh what fun color can be!
A few days ago I shared my new alcohol ink colored tiles made to create interesting backgrounds for your tangling. I'm back today to show you what I've done with some of the Zendala tiles. The first one is a pretty blue and white.
I decided to tangle with a blue Micron
pen. I used a stencil made by Genevieve Crabe, which has lots of holes through which you mark dots, using them as a guide to create your own Zendala design. You can see these stencils here. My theme was triangles and I tangled them with lots of Munchin and a little bit of Phroz.
Next, of course, was shading. Now if you follow me regularly, you probably know of my love affair with pastel pencils. So you think you know what's coming, but no.... this was not shaded with pastel pencils. I used Prismacolor pencils and blended them with a tortillion dipped in Gamsol odorless mineral spirits. It was the first time I've used this method, and I'm happy to say that it worked really well! In the past, the few times I've used colored pencils, I blended by layering and layering and layering and going over and over and over it with a colorless blender. Maybe some of you like that way of doing things, but I found it to be very long and very tedious and very tiring on my hand. Using the mineral spirits was so much more up my alley, much quicker and much easier on my hand. It may have been my first time using this method, but it won't be the last, as you'll see in my next tile.
I love the way the white parts of the background make this tile appear to be glowing.
Next up was a pinkish-purplish tile.
I wanted to give this one a more organic look and used Flux (one of my go-to tangles recently) and Betweed.
As I said, I again used Prismacolor pencils and mineral spirits for shading this.
I added some sparkle to it by applying a clear Stardust gelly roll pen over the shading in the Flux, but you can't even see a hint of that in the above picture, so I took a closeup at an angle to show you the sparkle.
The last tile I have to share with you for now has shades of yellow, orange, and green.
I used a stencil from Acadia Laser Creations for this one. Since it is more earth-toned, I tangled with a brown Micron. It took me awhile to decide how many patterns to include and which parts of the stencil should be tangled with which pattern. This is what I ended up with, Knightsbridge and Baton.
Then I agonized over what materials to use for color, and after testing several things, I went with Tombow markers to fill in some areas, but no shading on this one.
I am liking this tile more than I expected to as I worked on it. Always a pleasant surprise when that happens.
Remember, if you're thinking about trying out some of these new tiles for you own tangling, you can still get 10% off until the 18th by using the code NEWCOLOR in my Etsy shop.
"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!
"If you really want to catch your dream you have to chase it." Unknown
There was so much I learned and so much inspiration at TangleU in Santa Fe that I am back with more. One of the classes that I was most looking forward to was a class with Kate Lamontagne. And she didn't disappoint. Kate does stunning work with Prismacolor pencils and she taught a class in making (on paper) a dream catcher. If you ever have a chance to take a class with her...DO IT! She's from Holliston, MA. I actually lived there 20 years ago, but I believe that was before Kate was there.
Here's the dream catcher I created during the class. Not too bad for my first one.
I learned several things from this process that I should/would have done differently. Probably the most important one was to create larger spaces in the top zendala-like portion. It was very hard to color and blend in those small spaces in the one above (at least it was difficult for a novice like me!) So here's the one I created after returning home - the before coloring picture (yay for remembering to take the picture!)
This dream catcher was drawn on Strathmore tan toned paper which is smoother than the paper used in class, and I found that I like working with the colored pencils on the smoother paper better.
Here's how it turned out.
This was no quick process. There are many layers of color in each space, worked until the color and blending was just as I wanted it. For the most part I'm very happy with it. I'm just not sure if I should have gone a little lighter on the colors in the feathers.
There will definitely be more experimentation with the Prismacolors in my future. I'll be trying them out in some of my other Zentangle work, not just dream catchers. If I can get them to look half as good as Kate's work I will feel very accomplished!
"Color is a power which directly influences the soul."
Wassily Kandinsky
I was recently inspired by something that a fellow CZT, Meredith Yuhas, posted on one of the Facebook groups I belong to. She had used colored pencils on black tiles. Her tiles were beautiful, as is all of her work, and I couldn't wait to try her technique.
First I drew N'zeppel in the center of this tile using my white Uniball Signo pen, the only white pen I ever use. Then, using a white Prismacolor pencil, I filled in the "balloons." On top of the white I used two different hues of the same color in each balloon in order to create a shaded look. I found that when I laid down the white first, the colors I placed on top were brighter. The finishing touch was adding a form of Diva Dance on each side, and coloring it in the same manner. I was really, really happy with the way this turned out.
Next I wanted to do something with Knightsbridge, so I drew the grid you see below. My idea was to try using Tombow markers for this one, instead of colored pencils. That's what you see in the outer row along the edges of the tile. I was not so happy with the way that worked, so instead of starting over I just continued by using Prismacolors for the rest. They are more vibrant on black than the markers.
My only problem with the black tiles is that they always seem to suck in the white ink (even though the Signo pen works best), and the white lines end up not as white as I'd like. So I often go back over the white lines a second time which works to brighten them up. Because of this, for my last attempt (for now) using this method, I pulled out a little Moleskin book (3 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches) of black heavyweight paper. The black paper doesn't eat up the ink like the tiles do, so the white lines are more vibrant with only one pass through. Here's my burst of Flux.
Thanks for the inspiration Meredith! These were so much fun to do.
