Monday Camelia

I've been enjoying Anne Marks' new tangle Camelia. It's an elegant tangle that doesn't look like a square grid until you look closely. Here are three tiles where I've tried it.

Tangles: Camelia, Knightsbridge, Ninja Stars, Posh, Tripoli

I love the little floating balls in this next one! Hurray for shading!

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Camelia, Jalousie, Munchin elements,
N'zeppel, Pearlz, Zedbra

Not sure I like this zendala tile that much, but I like the Camelia, and I really like the echo of Camelia near the center pinwheel. I tried a different pencil for the shading and was not happy with it.

Tangles: Camelia, Cubine, Paradox

Early pen-and-ink trees

Here are a few more of my earlier pen-and-ink pieces. As you can see, I've always loved pattern, repition, and detail. I also like trees!

An illustration in a children's magazine:

Me too!

Mi2.
This week's challenge from the Diva.
A superb tangle from CZT Mimi Lempart.
Me too, of course. Also, Mimi is 'mi' twice. :)

Tangles: Mi2 and some Black Pearlz

I hadn't used a two-pencil string for quite a while and I wanted to see if I could use Mi2 in those spaces.
(You can see more about two-pencil strings here, and click the label on my blog's home page.)

Tangles: Cruffle, Mi2, Pearlz, Zewm

Tiles for Monday

Tangles: Black Pearlz, C-scape, Dex, Hollibaugh, Paradox,
Pearlz, Purslane, Vermal

Using two of my new tangles, Cadox and Dentri:

Tangles: Cadox, Dentri, Tripoli, Zewm

Tangles: Gneiss variation (split in the middle), Knase, Parabola, Paradox, Tripoli, Zewm

Early pen and ink work

I had a previous period of doing a lot of pen-and-ink work, then I got more into painting, now I'm back to the pen-and-ink with Zentangle.

I recently sold my file cabinet and have been weeding my files. I've cut the paper down to half! In the process I discovered some of my old pen-and-ink drawings and thought you might be interested to see some. My love of pattern, repetition, and detail will be evident!

The waves and moon was the cover art on Quarry, a literary magazine, for a year.

 

This Oriental-looking carpet was done as an event poster. Event information went in the empty middle space. It was originally vertical.

 This violin greeting card was a fund-raiser for the local symphony orchestra.

These roses are part of the endpapers in a YA novel.

You can see another drawing if you click this post.

Surprise! A local tangled building!

My jaw dropped when one of my Zentangle students e-mailed me a while ago with some photos, wondering if I'd had anything to do with the Zentangle patterned electrical building she'd come across. I said, "No. But cool!" Shortly after, another student wrote me about this! On a nice sunny day I went to the intersection she mentioned and took some photos.

Laura Harms, a fellow CZT and fellow Saskatonian, tells me that this is the handiwork of the Exhibition Community Association.  Laura did some Zentangle classes with them and her colleague from work did some of the tangling on this building.

This is what I saw first.

Then, around to the right...

...and to the other side.

Monday monotangles

Mainly.

C-scape (with Beadlines and Purslane):

Tripoli (with a Black Pearl):

Auraknot

Auraknot is the new tangle from Zentangle central. It looks wonderfully interwoven and can look a bit like Celtic knotwork in some cases. Auraknot ia also this week's challenge from the Diva.

 Here are my first two tries. On the left Auraknot with Tripoli and Black Pearlz. On the right I tried threading the tangle Blake through the Auraknot. It wasn't as successful as I'd hoped but I do like the wavy lines from the points.

Then I tried two on round tiles. The first was a blank tile, and I wanted to try Auraknot beginning with 'a Fengle' and a circle running through it. Then it went on all kinds of adventures!

Tangles: Auraknot, Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Knightsbridge Auras,
Paradox, Rounding, and elements of Cadent, Finery, Munchin,
Purslane, Sanibelle, Striping, Tripoli, and possibly more. Whew!

The second round tile was one with a pre-strung template and it's very regular. I used only Auraknot and some elements of Florez. This is a fun tangle. I think the only thing I don't like is that the shading can be quite finnicky. But I try to be zen about it. I'll be using this tangle again.

Eccentric circles revisited

For some reason recently, I pulled out this piece that had been sitting around for over a year, very little work done on it. It was rectangular but I was able to cut it down to a square. One of the reliable things I do with art that isn't working is this: Draw a circle on it and see what happens. Works almost every time!

Tangles: Assunta, Black Pearlz, Coaster, Crescent Moon, Knightsbridge,
Munchin, Paradox, Pearlz, Prestwood, Providence, Tipple, Tortuca, Tripoli, Xyp
and stripes with highlights

I used black, various blues, and gray inks. One circle overlapped another and so on and so on. This happened shortly after the Diva's challenge to use circles so of course I had to title this one "Eccentric Circles". (Thanks Laura for the fun word play!)

This piece is another good example of how shading can make a tremendous difference. Here it is before. Rather dull in comparison I'd say.

9-pointed zendalas

It dawned on me a while ago that Zentangle's new round tiles with 'pre-strung' mandala designs are divided into different numbers of sections. This despite the fact that Zentangle actually mentioned this in some promotional material! Oh my brain!!! While working on this one, I realized that it has nine points, or sections, or petals, or...

Tangles: Circfleur, EarthRising, Flux, Paradox, Phuds

The pre-strung mandala design on this tile reminded me of a beautiful building in India that I would love to visit some day: the lotus temple near Delhi. Here is a photo of it from above and you can really see the mandala-ness of it. The blue-green areas are water pools.

This Baha'i House of Worship is the first in India and was opened to the public at the end of 1986. It now receives more visitors than the Taj Mahal, four million each year. I have difficulty with really big numbers so that translates into about 13,000 every day or 9 every minute. It is a bit of an architectural marvel and has received much attention in professional architectural, fine art, religious, governmental and other circles.

Here's a short video about it from Seven Wonders of India:

I pulled out another tile with the same string on it and drew a zendala inspired by this building. I think the Opus curlicues don't work so I might try it again.

Tangles: Auras, Caviar, Cubine variation, Opus, Tipple, Tri-dots

I've printed the arial photo above in black-and-white and made a mandala template that is of this building. Because of the angle of the photo it's slightly irregular, which will be interesting to work with. It will be 10 or 12 inches across. If it turns out well I'll show you, but it may be a while!

Play with Paper - zendala dare

Erin at the Bright Owl blog has another interesting mandala template for her dare this week, but it's not the mandala that's the dare. She asks us to find some interesting paper to tangle on using her template. I love paper as much as Erin does and have lots in drawers in my studio. I chose three to use.

First up, a mottled pink and gold origami paper. I used red ink and a bit of brown and white, and red pencil for shading.

Tangles: Florez, Paradox, Phuds

Next I used a piece of scrapbooking paper with a small grid pattern in purple and green. I used that grid pattern as a basis for the tangles.

Tangles: Bales, Beelight, Screen

Finally, my favorite, on handmade marbled paper that I bought on holiday last year. I love marbled paper and it's often so beautiful all by itself that I don't want to add anything to it.

Tangles: Munchin, Tipple, Tripoli

Several months ago I tried using other types of paper. You can see those efforts here.

Fiore di Pietro

This lovely tangle was created recently by Rho Densmore, CZT.  Fiore di Pietro is a beautiful tribute to her brother-in-law Peter who passed away unexpectedly. You can read about that, and see the drawing instructions, on her blog here.

It took me a few tries. I could get the circles lined up alright, but the diamonds wouldn't appear. Then I realized that my large circles were too small; they had to be BIG! 

First I'll show my third effort, the one I'm really pleased with, done on a blank Zendala tile. I also used another of Rho's tangles: Providence. I used five colors of pens plus gold and clear glaze, and three colors of pencils.

Tangles: Black Pearlz (or red!), Fiore di Pietro, Flux, Perfs, Providence, Sanibelle,
Munchin elements, Rosé element, stripes with highlights.

Here's my first attempt: a bit weird, but interesting.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Cadox, Fiore di Pietro, Flez, Yincut, Zewm

On the second attempt I realized that the big circles had to be way bigger, so I drew a second circle around each of them and re-drew the diamonds. Making progress. :)

Tangles: Beadlines, C-scape, Fiore di Pietro, Parabola, Purslane, Spinners, Zedbra

I finally got the hang of it! I like these two very different versions of Fiore di Pietro.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Cadox, Caviar, Facets, Fiore di Pietro, Jonqal

String and nails portraits

Remember that string and nail art you did as a child? Artist Kumi Yamashita has taken that a whole lot further. Amazing work! To see more, see here.

Two zendala tiles

I wanted to use Mimi Lempart's tangle Mi2 around (part of?) the edge. I made a booboo right at the beginning and had to make some adjustments! Part of it ended up looking more like Huggins, and I used Tidings in other sections. They actually work very well together! You probably wouldn't have thought there was anything amiss had I not mentioned it, would you? There are no mistakes in Zentangle.

Tangles: Huggins, Mi2, Tidings, stripes with highlights

I also wanted to try using Fengle all over a blank zendala tile, and to start it off-center. I wasn't very happy with it at first - it seemed too all-over-the-map. I like it better now. I like how the strong, large bits are at the 'middle' while toward the edges it's more small and delicate.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Caviar, Crescent Moon, Fengle, Knase, Tipple, Tortuca,
stripes with  highlights, essence of Tripoli, and Rounding