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!

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

"You're only here for a short visit. Don't hurry, don't worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way."   Walter Hagen

Those of you who have ever cruised know that there is always - at least on all the cruises I've ever taken - an art auction. We usually don't attend them, although one time we did and actually bought a piece of art that now hangs in my study/zentangle room. On my cruise last month, as an incentive to get people to go to the art auction, they were handing out some sort of raffle ticket along with an art print, to everyone as they walked through the ship. We did not go to the auction, but did come home with two of the following pictures of a tulip.

I'd love to give the tulip artist credit; however, I can't read the signature. But you know where my mind went immediately...the tulip was just screaming out to be tangled. I only wish they were handing out a variety of prints on the ship, because I really don't want to tangle two of the same thing. It would have been great to have an extra one had I messed up the first one and wanted to start over, but that didn't happen (yay!). So here's what I got when I put pen to paper.

 

The paper has a glossy surface so I used my Sakura Microperm pen to tangle, as the Micron pens I usually use would just have smeared and made a mess. The variations of color in the tulip form a natural kind of shading, so I didn't do any extra shading after tangling. 

Around the colorful area is a one inch white border which is difficult to see in the above picture (the whole print is nine inches square). I decided to also tangle the border, using the pattern Knot Rickz, a pattern which really looks better with shading. Pencil wouldn't work on the glossy surface, so I tried my alcohol markers. First I tried a Copic marker (on my extra picture), but it seemed to kind of smudge the lines I had drawn. So I tried a Prismacolor brush marker which did the trick. They're both alcohol based markers, so I don't understand why one worked and not the other.

Well, now what do I do with the extra tulip picture? I've decided to give it away to someone else who would like to try tangling it. There will be a slight difference, as I had to cut off the corners on the diagonal (just the white border). I actually might like it better that way and wish I had done that to mine before I tangled. So...if you'd like to tiptoe through the tulips with your pen, leave a comment here. Sorry, but I can only mail it to someone in the U.S. You have until Thursday, October 16 to post a comment. On Friday I will randomly pick one of the comments and post the winner here (please include your name in your comment). So check back at the end of the week to see if you will be receiving a flower in the mail!