Recent Tiles

I try to do a tile-a-day, in the morning, after the kids leave for school.  It clears my mind of the morning chaos, grounds and centers me for the day ahead.  As I mentioned in an earlier post I've been working on line weight and rounding.  Here are some of my recent tiles, in rather dark photos because it's been so rainy here the last week or so.

#covfefe

A new tangle I found on Pinterest called Salo

Tangles: spoken, huggy bear, w2, and Zen Gem

Rounding the Bend

As an art historian, I spent a lot of time studying and contemplating the concept of style, particularly comparing "isms" and learning the hallmarks of an artist's own hand and how it changed.  You know, Impressionism vs. Post-Impressionism, early Monet vs. late Monet.

I hadn't given much thought to Zentangle styles until recently--some CZTs prefer a lot of three dimensionality, some like a lot of shading, some are very precise, while some are more organic.  What did I like?  I like organic tangles more than precise, grid-like ones.  I don't like too much shading and only some 3-D (I don't need them to look "real.")  So where does that leave me?

After watching a recent Kitchen Table Tangles video from Maria and Rick, Zentangle founders--and I highly recommend it--I started giving more thought to my style.  I liked Maria's broken, imprecise lines (and how she creates little decorative "dingbatz.") She utilizes rounding, which is one of the official Zentangle "Tanglenhancers." See above, even in the thumbnail, where she rounds (darkens) the corners of the rectangular dingbatz and the corners of the mooka tangle? I like the effect.

I started paying more attention to my lines and came across Eni Oken's tutorial on line weight and rounding.  She's an artist and CZT with an array of useful and beautiful ebooks and video tutorials on shading, Zen Gems, and other technqiues.  I won't rehash the video here--you can purchase her tutorial for a small fee--but I really liked her discussions of adding substance to lines and forms.

Here are some of my efforts (with mediocre photos taken inside on a rainy day):

And to make it really clearly, a single progression from beginning to end.  I still need to work on my technique (some of the rounding and thickening is a little too jagged), but it's an intriguing exercise.

Plain tangles

Wtih rounding and weighted lines a la Eni Oken

Finished tile with shading

Something about this change of style seems to add weightiness to my tiles, literally and figuratively.  The tiles seem more "serious," not quite as whimsical.  Perhaps a little dark.  I'm going to try to balance it a little bit.  But I do like the possibilities.

 

Quick Zen Gems

I've been playing with a technique for making Zen Gems that I learned at a recent workshop with Beth Malley, CZT.  I'm enjoying adding a little bit of color to my black and white tiles.  I'm not aiming for verisimilitude here, just stylized color.

My Zen Gem mandala from Malley's workshop.

A rainbow of Zen Gems, with bezels surrounding the colors.

-=-=-=-=-=

I'll demonstrate the techniqe using a Zendala I'd already drawn.  It's easiest to start with a large space, between the size of a nickel and quarter.  This tile was just begging for some color in the center.

Step 1:  Choose three shades of the same color.  Here, I've gone with pink--the lightest color is actually peach.  I use Prismacolors, though any map colors (how I grew up referring to colored pencils!) would do as long as there are three shades of the same color.

Step 2:  Draw a small "window" with the darkest or lightest color.  Leave the interior blank.  I used the darkest here.  The workshop actually had us using a pencil, but we found that it smeared, so I've switched to using one of the shades.

Step 3:  Using your darkest shade, color around the edges of the shape.

Step 4:  Using your middle shade, color around the edges of the first color, overlapping and blending.

Step 5:  Using your lightest shade, color around the rest of the space--except the "window"--and blend the entire Zen Gem.  Blend with colors until the gem is shiny and there are no clear distinctions between colors.

Step 6:  Using a white gel pen, fill in the blank "window."

Step 7:  With the same white gel pen, make a "smile" opposite the window

Step 8:  Using 01 micron, lightly draw "cracks" in the surface.  Do not color over the ink--it will smear.

The finished product.

For more on Zen Gems, I highly recommend Eni Oken's comprehensive ebook 3DTangle: Shading Smooth Gems.

Another Zentangle Retreat

My mom and I attended a Zentangle retreat this weekend at Copper Beech Institute in West Hartford, CT.  It's the place I attended my first Zentangle class two years ago.  We had a wonderful time--delicious meals, rejuvenating yoga and meditations, a lovely walk to the snow-covered labyrinth, and, of course, the Zentangle sessions with Meredith Yuhas, Janet Valencis, and Beth Malley, all Certified Zentangle Teachers (CZTs.)

They split the beginners from the more experienced tanglers on the first night, with my experienced group doing a black-and-white project working with negative space, led by Beth.  I liked the results.

On Saturday, we did two more projects, both tangential to pen and paper tangling.  With Janet, we explored the use of polymer clay to created tangled beads, basing our designs on such tangles as Printemps and Tipple.  With Beth, we learned to Zenquility, or paper quilling.  We used basic flowers with coils and teardrops as the start of a Zendala or other tile.  I especially enjoyed this, seeing the possible applications in Zendalas.  Quilling is much like 3D tangling.

I really liked our session Saturday evening, which was a guided meditation with verbal cues for the tile.  See the results--similar yet so individual!  I can't wait to try this kind of meditation in one of my advanced classes.  Over the course of the weekend, we did another meditation with Meredith, a breath meditation called Four Corners or Box meditation--you draw a box slowly, with the verticals and horizontals representing the exhales and inhales.  We also did the Breath of Joy--three inhales and then an explosive "ha!"

Our class mosaic from the meditation

Our last session, with Meredith, was a very complex terrarium, using some Zentangle patterns and sophisticated Renaissance shading in browns, blacks, and whites.  The result is a Zentangle-inspired art work (ZIA).  My favorite part was the tips on pencils she gave us--softer ones for fibrous papers.  Here, the woodless 6B creates nice dark shades that smudge beautifully.

It was another wonderful weekend and I look forward to the next year's!

Tangles in a TWYSTY: Experiments in Freestyle Zendalas

I love Zendalas, a circular, symmetrical mandala drawn using the Zentangle method of mindfulness and simple, repetitive patterns.

I especially like free-style Zendalas, not ones that require precise measuring, pre-printed strings, or a stencil.  I want to draw them free-hand, freestyle.   For me it encapsulates the meditative aspect of Zentangle and the focus on "no mistakes."  Using compasses, stencils, or pre-strung tiles, takes some of the creativity out of it for me.  Precisely-measured Zendalas also entice me to stress the perfection of the product over the process.  I find that free-style Zendalas are all about process--slowly drawing the center and working out from there.  True, it's never perfectly symmetrical or balanced; my tangles are usually somewhat off-center.  But I love practicing freestyle Zendalas. So I've been experimenting with central patterns that can easily be expanded symmetrically.  I fiddled with various tangles, as you can see here (and earlier, here).  All were drawn freestyle.

Gneiss

Fengle

Geo-Flower

Arukas

Auraknot

And then I happened upon a new one to me.  I'm calling it TWYSTY.  It's a combo between a four-petal flower, a labyrinth, and a celtic knot. Or two figure-8s or infinity signs intertwined.  Completed, it looks like this (with the addition of some tangles):

1.  Draw "rice" or "petal" shape.  May be pointed or rounded.

2.  Add as many rice shapes as desired, odd or even number.

3.  "Hug" two rice shapes together with a curved line.
 (Or you can make the line come to a point, see example #9 below.)

4.  "Aura" the hug, connecting the tips of the rice.
The first part of the TWYSTY is completed.

5.  Draw behind or "hollibaugh" to create more hugs.

6.  Repeat until all pairs are connected.

7.  Complete as desired.

8.  Here is another TWYSTY Zendala.

9.  Another TWYSTY, this time with more orb-like "rice" shapes and slightly pointed circles.

10.  Another TWYSTY variation:  for this one, after completing steps 1-6 above, add a "rice" shape between the existing ones (adding, essentially, NE, SE, NW, and NE to the compass) and repeat the aura-ing and hollibaugh-ing of the TWYSTY circles.

More Tangles!

Mooka, quipple, nipa, diva dance, flux, msst.

Zander, huggins, heartrope, bannah, zensplosion.

What a night we had!

The class was small, but this allowed lots of one-on-one discussion.  And the students chose several of the tangles that they learned.  We also played with gelly roll pens.

I will be teaching another More Tangles! class in a few weeks.  We'll do even more tangles, not repeating the ones here.  Should be great fun!

Cancelled

Due to the icy roads and weather conditions, we are cancelling today's Valen-tangle class. Our apologies for the inconvenience.