Quotations and art - Ways of seeing

Today, here are a few more favorite quotations, paired with art.

"There is, at the surface, infinite variety of things; 
at the center there is simplicity and unity of cause."

Ralph Waldo Emerson said this, and these are my three favorite, very simple tiles. Less can be more. I particularly appreciated this quotation when I was focusing on mandala imagery, considering the center and the perimeter.

"The ability to create beauty is God's greatest gift to man. 

And the appreciation of beauty - whether man-made 
or natural - is not only a joy but an active call 
to something much greater than oneself."

The quotation is from Painton Cowen in the book Rose Windows which I greatly enjoyed years ago, again, when I was researching and creating mandalas. This ATC I made has found a new home. The hummingbird is a transfer print; the rest is pen and ink on eco-dyed paper.

"See the extraordinary in the ordinary."

I'm sure I heard this somewhere, but I'll take credit for it. 😉 I'd brought this pine cone home because something about it appealed to me. Later I was looking at it and it struck me that there was a pattern of triangles at the ends so I did this drawing focusing on those triangles. 

"It is time for parents to teach young people early on that 

in diversity there is beauty and there is strength."

Thank you, Maya Angelou. It's time to stop seeing black and white, men and women, old and young, as opposites and in conflict, and instead know that they are complementary. Let's grow up.

These two pieces were created by cutting tiles in half - in an irregular line - and sticking the opposite halves together. There is another black-and-white and another black-and-tan tile somewhere.

"If thou wishest a discerning eye and seekest for a hearing ear,

 set thou aside that which thou hast heard 

from fathers and ancestors, for such things are imitation."

We mustn't believe everything we hear. We have a rational brain; let's think for ourselves.
These "pages" are drawn on eco-dyed paper. Looking for hints of subject matter in the dye markings, I just couldn't stop seeing eyes at the top right of the one page, so even though I almost never depict people I went with the flow and discovered this man. The quotation seemed to go well with it.

From The Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Baha

Want more? See A few favorite quotations... (and art) here.

Mistakes? Methinks not.

We do make mistakes. But that doesn't mean we have to abandon the entire project. There's almost no mistake that you can't do something with, and maybe even make it better.
This concept is a 180 degree turn from my attitude 35 years ago in University. If I did something I hadn't intended I'd often scrap the thing and start over. An important message brought to me by Zentangle!

First, here are two"mistakes" that my students have made.
Once in a while, learning the tangle Florz, someone puts the little black squares in line with the square grid rather than doing little diamonds at the intersections.

It's a rather interesting variation. And as proof that it's really not a mistake, here's a floor I saw in a historic building.

When drawing Crescent Moon, occasionally someone will think the Aura lines go all the way down to the base line all the time rather than keeping the Aura happening, with space between each row of lines. It's an interesting, tunnel-like variation.

Seven ways to deal with something displeasing.

1. Shade.
Besides adding wonderful dimensionality to your art, shading is a great way to hide or disguise something that's a bit disappointing. Go to the dark side with your pencil.

2. Overlay with a tangle that is mostly black.
Of course you'll think immediately of Bronx Cheer, usually done in raspberry form, but demonstrated here as a border pattern.
Or try Punch from Sandy Steen Bartholomew's book Totally Tangled. Simply draw some circles around parts you do like (or do a regular pattern of circles) and fill the rest of the area with black. I used a variation in the darkest section of the tile below, where I'd done something I just didn't like. Maybe try squares or triangles. If there's a LOT of black, refer ahead to idea #6.

Tangles: Keenees, O-Bob, Punch, Tipple, Tripoli,
stripes with highlights

3. Try the Tranzending technique.
You can watch Rick and Maria demonstrate it here. It will still leave a lot of what you already drew showing, but perhaps you can draw a heavy line over your "mistake" - and add some heavy shading. ;)

Tangles: pinched Assunta, Black Pearlz, Yincut
overlaid with Echoism

4. Do it again, and again...
Made a little booboo? Do it again a few more times and it will look as if you intended it as a cool "Oooh, look at that!" kind of thing.

5. Accept it. Be creative. Deal with it.
Accept what happened, see it as an opportunity to be creative, and make something of it.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

In the tile below, the tangle Chebucto went haywire at the left end. I'd put some lines on the wrong side of the black squares. But it's interesting how the tangle interlocks at one end and flies off in ribbons at the other. If I hadn't told you, you probably would have thought I intended it. :)

Tangles: Chebucto, Drupe and Fracas,
and one whose name I forget!

6. Cover it. Then maybe tangle on top of it.
Use black. In the tile below I didn't like the pink sections; they seemed to take away from the yellow/orange. I blacked over them, then used a white pen to draw spirals. Other details completed it.

Before and after covering, and tangling over.
Tangles: Doodah, Pearlz, Stella, Within, and the sparkle enhancement

Or try another opaque ink. Sakura's Metallic ink pens cover well. Here are before and after pictures where I felt the dark blue Diva Dance (top left) was the wrong color, so I used silver and blue metallic ink to cover it, and added more for balance. (Now I'm not sure which one I prefer!)

Before and after covering with silver and blue metallic ink.

7. Channel your disappointment and carefully chop it to bits.
If I've been working on something that has its good points, but I'm generally not happy with where it's going, I cut it up and make bookmarks or ATCs. I also save bits for future collage.
Here are four bookmarks made from very different beginnings.

And four ATCs.

No mistakes, right? Only opportunities to have fun and be creative.
Here's wishing you a year of creative 'mistake' making!

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

Travelling Tangles completed

It's great fun sending and receiving partially done tiles, ATCs, and occasionally other zentangle art from fellow aficionados around the world. Here are some recent pieces, as received and as finished.

From Yvonne Westover in Ontario Canada, on a linen-textured paper:

From Kelly Barone, on an interesting soft paper with seeds in it:

From Bonnie Baskin for the 'Summer' theme swap:

From Diana Claus:

From Janet Day in Washington, USA:

From Pat Floerke in Nicaragua:

From Prairie Kittin in Washington, USA:

Travelling tangles

I've recently begun participating in a Facebook group called the Travelling Tangles Project. I tangle part of a tile and send it to someone, and they do the same for me. Then we complete each other's tiles. I've received some very interesting 'beginnings' that I've been privileged to complete.

Here are some tiles I've received and how I finished them.

Pat Floerke in Nicaragua sent a zendala tile that she'd begun using blue, green, and purple ink as well as black. I used more. :) She began with Finery and Tipple and I added Pearlz, something related to Maryhill, and a sort of triangular Well with one side different!

Fellow Canadian Susan Szathmary sent a tile with a blue-green wash and some zippy green gems/pebbles. As soon as I placed it on the beige oatmeal paper to scan it I knew it had to be a shore scene. I added Floo for clouds, Tipple (Caviar version) for sand, and a tangle that's not public yet for waves.

I received a tile from Barb Mavraganis with spatters of dylusions ink. To her Mooka and Zenith I added Pixioze, Ruutz, and more Zenith.

Loretta West sent a classic black on white tile with some delicate, ribbony tangles. I stayed with that theme, but the center seemed to want to be darker.

Finally, here's an ATC begun by Debra Huff. I kept seeing trumpet-shaped flowers so I went with it.

If you'd like to join the fun, seek out Travelling Tangles Project on Facebook.

In a future post I'll show some tiles I've sent and how others finished them.

Paisley salvage

I had done a few tiles with paisley designs thinking that I would arrange four of them into one work. Should I add color? Sparkle? How to arrange them? They sat on my desk for months. And months. I decided they'd had their chance and it was time to reincarnate them as ATCs.

I sliced the edges off the four cards leaving me four 2.5"x3.5" ATCs. Then I added color to them all.

I was left with the four trimmed edges and decided to use them for more ATCs. I glued them to the sides of four black ATC cards. Then I had lots of fun adding other elements: patterned washi tape, holographic ribbon, a red gem star, black gem curlicues, white ink, metallic ink, little pearls, glittery white embellishment tape, and the hummingbird from a chocolate wrapper.

I have a hard time throwing out artwork that's just not satisfactory. Often, when I'm not happy with a final piece of work, I turn it into bookmarks or ATCs.
Some of these may find themselves in a swap at We Love to Tangle this June, in Calgary.

Gems ATC swap

You may have seen some beautiful, colorful gems making the rounds on various Facebook zentangle sites. They're gorgeous, fun, and somewhat addicting!

So many of the zentangle patterns are a delightful way to present and surround these vibrantly colored jewels. Lisa Fedele, another CZT, has organized an artist trading card swap of gems plus zentangle.

Here are my six cards for swapping, plus an extra - in thanks - for the intrepid organizer.

I'm quite pleased with the turquoise in the middle card, and less happy with my attempt to add a fossilized fly to the amber in the top one!

The color is achieved with water-soluable pencils, color pencils, and white ink. In some of the small pearl areas I used "Liquid Pearls" - a fun addition. I also glazed all the black backgrounds so they shine a bit.

Interested in trying this yourself? Kae Yoshino seems to have originated this craze. You can read her tutorial about creating these gems here. Eni Oken, another talented artist also has a gem tutorial here. Have fun! And don't say I didn't warn you! ;)

Twinchie winners

The raffle's over and nine people will be receiving one of the twinchies I posted here. Being twinchies they're small, of course, so I'm also sending along an ATC (artist trading card) to each person.

The winners are:
Donna Blair, of New Jersey USA
Rita, of BC Canada
Melinda Davis, of Tennessee USA
Barb Ruff, of North Carolina USA
Rosie Hill, of Oregon USA
Laura Emler, of Ohio USA
Chris Leach, of California USA

Heather Pearson, of Ontario Canada

Jakki Garlans, of Connecticut USA

The mail went out a day or two ago, so I hope you'll receive it soon. Thanks for entering!