It's Pi Day again!

Pi Day, March 14

Here's some pie! 😄

In my original post, here, I disclose all the ingredients. Yum!

2020's Twelve Days of Zentangle

Zentangle's Project Pack 12. The annual Twelve Days of Zentangle. This year, Zentangle Renaissance. It's taken me quite a while to find the time to do this project but all in good time. Aaand... here we go!

DAY ONE - Bronx Spear, an interesting tangleation of Bronx Cheer. My little pot of gold gouache was hard as a rock, so while waiting for it to reconstitute I used gold acrylic paint.

DAY TWO - In my book you can't go wrong with Crazy Huggins, and I love the idea of double DooDah in the horizontal ones.

DAY THREE - This took a wrong turn right from the start when I did the four fragments all the same rather than turning them as I went. I kept going, wondering what delight would appear out of the 'oops', and it's one of my favorites! That's the first tile below. The second tile is my second try, and how it was "supposed" to go; I really like this, too, and hope to experiment with it more.

DAY FOUR - The idea was to do three of these, with a gold border along the entire bottom, then bend them at the center, glue the sides together, and have a lovely tiny conifer tree shape. My gold ended up in a corner, and I only did the one.

DAY FIVE - Aura'd Fife, "tethered" Auras, a coffered border, and more. I realized that Fife with the inner Auras is a lot like Double Double without the initial square grid. I like the idea of white chalk rings but mine didn't work well.

DAY SIX - We used four bijou tiles, four overlapping hearts and the tangle Scena.

I like doing (almost) the same thing on four bijou tiles 

and then seeing the various ways they can be placed.

DAY SEVEN - We began with a light gold wash over the entire paper (gorgeous!), then added Paradox, Pearlz, and Flux. I also used Paisley Boa immediately beside Pearlz.

DAY EIGHT - We started with a pre-strung zendala tile, and then completely ignored the string to create the border! I wanted to preserve a little more of the pre-strung design so I left the star points visible. My gouache still wasn't smoooooth so I used a lot of different metallics in the center: gold acrylic paint, copper acrylic paint, gold gel pen, copper gel pen, and clear star gel pen.

DAY NINE - On a phi tile, a Purk/Festune mashup, Pearlz, Stiritup, and more. I really like the phi tiles.

DAY TEN - On a 3Z tile, some paisley-like, moon pie-ish shapes. and a gold border. My gold gouache is somewhat reconstituted so I used it, but it's still very grainy.

DAY ELEVEN - The tangle Drawings on a zendala tile. I couldn't get the shadow as dark as I wanted even with a 6B pencil so I added tiny wavy lines in black.

DAY TWELVE - On a square tile, we began with Mi2. Then we added Auras,"capes" :), and "therefores" (AKA Tridots, or cinta marta?)

Many thanks again to those at Zentangle HQ for another fun project pack!

Phi again. PP11 follow-up

A bijou tile with Apacore centered 
at one of the four phi intersections.

Revisiting the golden mean through Project Pack 11 was such fun I wanted to do more!

The pack contains a "markus operandus" for locating the phi proportions on Zentangle tiles. Markus Operandus II can be downloaded here, for free, at the bottom of the page. I've added marks to mine so I don't have to rotate my paper in order to indicate all the phi lines. I may have it laminated. It looks like this.

It can be used not only with the new Phi tiles, but also with the classic square (also apprentice and bijou) tiles, as well as the triangular 3Z tiles. I wanted to give them a whirl. 

The proportions work on a square just as well as a rectangle. I'd done this years ago when my focus was mandalas. With the mandalas I used all four phi lines to create the working space:

Here's a mixed media painting from that time using these phi ratios.

Pro Fanis  •  ©1998
30" (76 cms) square; acrylic and collage

I've been fascinated with sacred geometry and the golden mean for many years. Delighted to revisit it in this project pack, I created a number of square tiles. 

Using the same four lines as above I did a classic-size tile. You can see Hollyhock in the corners, Icantoo in the rectangles, and the center connects it all.

Tangles: Hollyhock, Icantoo, and hints of
Crescent Moon, Pearlz, and Sanibel

I had a gray tile with a mauve wash. It struck me that somewhere near the 'center' of the flower shape might be a phi intersection. Here is the finished tile, with backwards steps to the mauve wash.

Tangles: Aquafleur, Pearlz, Pokeleaf

This is an eco-dyed tile that I subdivided into various phi-measured sections. I used Moonlight pens and gold ink as well as brown and sepia micron pens.

But triangles? The kit says it works with triangles, too. I don't see why not, but I'd never thought to try it before. On a rectangular shape, there are four phi intersections (shown above). I discovered that with a triangle, there are three.

The black and white 3Z tile below has the tangle Ayame, but instead of beginning it at the center I began at one of the intersections. On the tan tile, I used the six notches at the perimeter as places to begin the droplet shapes.

I'm grateful to Zentangle for reintroducing me to divine proportion. I plan to do a lot more with these measurements.

Crazy Paradox

You've likely heard of Crazy 'Nzeppel and Crazy Huggins and recently Crazy Cadent. I've been experimenting with Crazy Paradox. It really is like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates - you never know what you're going to get!

Here is the first tile I did, and the string it began with.

To do this, I let the string be the 'grid' in which I draw the Paradox fragments. Sometimes I only do two or three sides of Paradox until I meet another pencil line which takes it in another direction.

I liked the tiny section of Pearlz in the tan tile and thought that some variations might be more interesting than just lines. I did a few using Pearlz and what I call shaved Paradox. Here's the original string and the finished tile.

Colored ink is different.

It's difficult to instruct, since there are no consistent steps, other than the square or triangular spiraling of Paradox itself. However, I prepared a page showing the progression of one particular tile to give you an idea of how it works. You will need to go to this link to access the downloadable file.

Finally, this is my favorite tile thus far. I began the gray tile in blue ink but I didn't like it so I cut off the corner. It was interesting, but I tried black behind it, preferred it, and cut a black tile so I could glue a piece behind. No mistakes, right? Just opportunities.

Tangles: Paradox, Pearlz, Rain, Seljuk

I hope you'll enjoy playing with Crazy Paradox!

For more about Paradox and its possibilities check this post from 2011.

Zentangle's Project Pack #08

There's always something new coming out of ZTHQ! I quite enjoy these project packs and I always learn something (usually several somethings). This particular pack introduces five of Sakura's new Moonlight pens, with lovely opaque ink.

DAY ONE
On a black Apprentice tile, Munchin with orbs.

DAY TWO
A black Apprentice tile and a white 3Z tile, with a little trick!

Tangles: Hollibaugh, Tripoli, Well, plus dots

DAY THREE
On a white 3Z tile, we made little "jellyfish" starting with Tripoli's triangles, then shaded.

DAY FOUR
On a white, pre-strung zendala tile, we filled the spaces with three tangles.

Tangles: Bunzo, Printemps, and Knightsbridge

DAY FIVE
On a black, pre-strung zendala tile, we filled the spaces randomly with six particular tangles, then added graphite shading and white chalk highlights.

DAY SIX
We divided a white, pre-strung zendala tile in half using Mi2, then filled one half in black and white, the other half in  color.

Tnangles: Knightsbridge, Mi3, Shattuck

 DAY SEVEN
On a black Apprentice tile we created some large-petaled flowers and filled the petals many different ways, then added leaves and more.

DAY EIGHT
These are my first two of six Renaissance 3Z tiles which will all have similar tangling.

Tangles: Well, and lots of Auras

Aloha tangle and D-1 fragment

Two Diva challenges in this post!

First, Suzanne Fluhr's challenge to use her tangle Aloha, and then Marguerite Samama's challenge to have fun with Zentangle's D-1 fragment.

ALOHA is a leafy tangle that's very graphic and bold. Step-outs can be found here.

On the first tile I added a gold crescent moon with some ochre pencil for a bit of shading, and used an Aloha-like fill in the Paisley Boa sections.

Tangles: Aloha, Paisley Boa, Paradox, Printemps, Tipple

I had a tan tile with a blossom-like string, five petals and a center. That's rather lost at this point! I didn't realize until I was 'finished' that the pink and orange inks would look so similar on the tan paper so I outlined the whole 'flower' and added a 'stem'.

Tangles: Aloha, Pixioze, Printemps

By my third go at it I was deciding that Aloha looks best on its own! Here's the beginning of my third tile, and what I added next, which I didn't really like much.

I eliminated the white around Aloha with a gray brush pen, then used a gray drawing pen for some of the tangles. I'm not unhappy with the result, but I still really like the simplicity of Aloha alone.

Tangles: Aloha, Printemps, plus stripes and spirals

THE D-1 FRAGMENT fits into a  square grid but is really based on triangles. I had a slightly curvy, but still square-ish string so I began with that. I wanted to see what would happen if I continued to subdivide the triangles; that's at the bottom.

Tangles: Crescent Moon singles, Pearlz, Zewm

I got caught up in the triangles and tried this fragment on a couple of pre-strung 3Z tiles. The pictures show the string I began with, and the finished drawing.

As I was working with all those angular triangles I was reminded of the tangles Ing and Fassett, so I did an ATC with D-1 and those tangles.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Crescent Moon, Fassett, Ing

Rainy Day house

It's a gentle rain, coming straight down, and with sparkly water droplets!

This is the second in my Global Village series of house kits, a joint project with CZT Jenny Perruzzi. It's just been launched and it comes with most of the supplies you need, including tiles, special pens and even a custom cut mat with a house-shaped window. You'll need to have basic supplies like a pencil, tortillon, and black pens.

If you're interested in creating one of your own, you can purchase a kit at Jenny's Etsy store here. And if you missed the first one, a medieval half-timbered house, you can find the kit in the same Etsy store. You could end up with a village!

Pi Day tiles

March 14 is World Pi Day, pi being 3.14 andonandonandon...
So in honor of this occasion, I present six varieties of pie, on 3Z tiles.
Bon appétit!

Clockwise from the top:

Pumpkin pie with a dollop of whipped cream - Ingredients: rounded Ing, Dansk, Tidings, and Perfs with a copper dusting of cinnamon. Served on a white tile.

Pecan pie - Ingredients: Tripoli and Fugu. Served on a tan tile.

Raspberry pie - Ingredients: Tri-dots, Prestwood, W2 and Tipple. Served on a tan tile.

Blueberry pie - Ingredients: Printemps, Shattuck, Tipple with some spirals and other additives. Served on a white tile.
Such a lovely color; I couldn't bear to put a top crust on. Originally I was going to use Pokeroot, but it's a tangle a don't do very well, and besides, who wants little stems in their pie?

Lemon Meringue pie - Ingredients: Knightsbridge, Prestwood variation, Meringue (what else?!) and Tipple. Served on a white tile.

Tourtière (Québecois meat pie. Delicious!) - Ingredients: Knightsbridge, Puffle, Y-Not and Tipple.
Served on a tan tile.

So, when is World Pizza Day?