"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.
"Circles create soothing space, where even reticent people can realize that their voice is welcome." Margaret J. Wheatley
Time for another Zendala. And more pastel pencils. I used Genevieve Crabe's mandala stencil to create the template for this Zendala. Here you can see what it looked like to start. I marked all the dots and then formed the design totally freeform - no ruler or compass or anything else but my pencil.
Here's what it looked like after tangling. When I tangle something like this I go in no specific order. Basically I stare at the template and look through my rings of patterns until something hits me. It might be the very center first, or maybe the middle or outside edge.
Then I pulled out my pastel pencils, having a red and orange color theme in mind. I hope you're not getting too tired of seeing my work with these pencils, because I'm not getting tired of using them!
I find it interesting that depending on how my eyes focus on this, sometimes I see the black and white Knightsbridge pop out with the orange Emingle forming a circle behind it, and sometimes the Emingle jumps to the front with the Knightsbridge behind. Oh, the tricks our eyes can play on us!
"Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow." Anthony J. D'Angelo
Another Tangle U goes down in the history books. I had a week long vacation in Santa Fe before TU even began. Unfortunately I caught a cold on the plane and was sick the whole time. There's nowhere to escape when everyone around you on the plane is coughing and sneezing, and I knew the outcome wouldn't be good. I still managed to enjoy my time out west, but it could have been better. Tangle U was an amazing event, thanks to Elaine Huffman, as it was the last two years, with lots to do. It would have been totally exhausting even if I hadn't been sick!
Now that I'm home from Santa Fe (still coughing) and have slowly found a place for all the goodies (pens, pencils, paper, markers, etc.) that we received, I fit in some time to start working on/completing some of the projects and ideas brought home with me.
One of the classes was a mandala class given by Ann Grasso. We used her 4 N 1 Mandala Stencil and created strings for 4 different Zendalas. I have to say that the stencil itself is quite weird looking, and when I first saw it I had no idea how it would be used to draw a Zendala string. But it works, as Ann taught us. After learning to use the stencil and drawing the 4 strings, we had some time to begin working on one. Here is the one I began in class, on an official Zendala tile, and finished after I got home this week.
Then I took out another string I had drawn on a piece of light gray cardstock. You can't really tell from this picture that it's gray, and as I found, it's not a dark enough gray to use white highlights on as I do when I use Strathmore gray toned paper. So just graphite shading on this one, no highlights.
Whenever I work on something in a class I find that I'm not as happy with it as something created at home when I'm more relaxed, in familiar surroundings, with all my supplies accessible to me. This was the case on these Zendalas as well....I like the second one better than the first. But now I have another fun method in my Zendala making arsenal. And I still have two more strings I drew in Santa Fe to work on. Maybe I'll be back with those another day. But before then I will be working on some of the other projects from Tangle U to share with you soon.
"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.
"The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls." Pablo Picasso
I'm always on the lookout for new artsy ideas that can be incorporated into my Zentangle work. A while ago my daughter found something on Pinterest that she thought I might like... using tissue paper to color a canvas. I've used many different methods for making colored tiles, including watercolor paint, Ranger distress ink pads, dylusion sprays, alcohol inks... and the list goes on and on. But I've never tried tissue paper.
So I decided to give it a whirl. You don't use regular tissue paper for this, but instead use bleeding tissue paper. Just as the name implies, the color bleeds onto the surface below it. And onto your fingers, so be advised to wear a pair of gloves if you want to try this, unless you like colorful fingers. The directions showed applying this technique to canvas, but not being a big fan of tangling on canvas, I wanted to see if it would work on watercolor paper. And it did...beautifully! (I used Strathmore 140 lb. paper.) I ended up with several good tiles, and a couple of not so good ones that I tossed.
I forgot to get a picture of this first tile before tangling, but here's the completed tile. I wrapped my pattern Cruze around the outside and then filled it with the new pattern Arukas. I wish my Cruze didn't try to run off the top of the tile, but it had a mind of its own.
For the next tiles, I remembered to get pictures before putting pen to paper. I scanned the tiles, which does not always depict the colors exactly the way they look in person, so I adjusted them a little in Lightroom to make them as close to reality as possible. That's why the colors in the before and after pictures might not match exactly. This first one is probably my favorite one of all that I made.
Since I loved the colors here so much, I wanted them to really shine through and chose a couple of light and airy patterns, Tofube by Damy, and Lichen by Jennifer Hohensteiner, which I think go very well together.
Next I tried one of the Zendala tiles I had cut. I like the way this one turned out, except for the yellow spot, the result of one of my fingertips that still had color from another tile, touching it.
Luckily, after tangling, that yellow spot was disguised at least a little bit. For this one I decided to use a stencil I have from Acadia Laser Creations. It was hard to get a good picture of the stencil since it's made from clear plastic, but this gives you the idea.
And here's how it turned out. I used the pattern Hi-Cs by Anita Roby-Lavery. It's normally a grid pattern but I did what I call "taking a pattern out of the grid" to give it a totally different look.Then I filled the outside sections with Knightsbridge and finished it off with some line work.
If you'd like to try the tissue paper method for making colored tiles, you can find the tutorial that I used here. I found the tissue paper on Amazon. It's a lot of tissue paper that will last me a lifetime! I have several more tiles that I made, so when I get around to tangling them I'll post them another time. If you decide to try it, I'd love to see your tiles!
"Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it." Greg Anderson
As you know (if your read my last post), I recently returned from a vacation. I never travel without some Zentangle supplies - pens, tiles, journals, and my tangle patterns on a ring (which has now grown to 2 rings!). I blogged about the rings last year, but if you missed it you can check it out here. Tangling is great to while away the time during the long hours spent in airports. I also had some time in between excursions and activities on the cruise. So I thought I'd share just a couple of the pieces I completed during my travels.
This first one is from the very beginning of my trip - a tile I did in the Philadelphia airport waiting for my connection to Edinburgh. My 5 hour layover! I started with Kandysnake by Vicki Murray. I planned to just do a little, but once started, I couldn't stop! Finally I added a little Aloe Vera by Suzanne McNeill. I was very happy with the completed tile, and find that my favorite tiles are often the ones that are fairly simple, with only a couple of patterns.
For this next one I used a stencil from Acadia Laser Creations (CZT Jenny Perruzzi). I had traced the stencil onto the paper (4 x 9 inches) before I left home. It's fun to use a stencilled image as the negative space and tangle around it. I used the tangles Bunzo, Bales, Dex, Huggins, Baton, Fallen Leaves, Prestwood, Flux, Paradox, Hollibaugh, and Knightsbridge.
That's just a small sampling of my art from around the world. I must say that Zentangle makes a great travel companion!
