"Ye Are The Stars" process

I recently purchased a stencil called Alhambra (from Marieke on Etsy) and used it to create "Ye Are the Stars" on an eco-dyed Opus tile.

Here is the paper as it came out of the dye-bath. I intended to retain more of these colors, but that's not what developed.

I didn't want simply a pattern with designs, so I searched to see if there was a 'star moth' or 'star butterfly' I could incorporate. Lo and behold! There's a Pink Star Moth, native to the southeastern coast of North America! I found pictures and did one in colored pencil.

Fairly far into the drawing I decided there were just too many patterns going on; I liked them, but they weren't contributing to the look I wanted. Here are two details:

I didn't like the Ragz on the left or the five different corner sections on the right.

I had to change them. With high quality art paper (like the Tiepolo of Zentangle and Opus tiles), if I'm very careful I can peel off a top layer of the paper and begin almost fresh. I got out my scalpel, tweezers, and bone folder and got back to drawing.
(See further down for "How to peel paper".)

I re-tangled all those sections, opting for Tidings all over, and am much happier with the corners now. There is gold ink in each of the nine 8-pointed stars.

Here is the finished artwork.

HOW TO PEEL PAPER

First, I lightly cut around the edge of the section I want to remove - more like scoring than cutting. I absolutely don't cut all the way through! Then, I loosen a corner or two with the knife point...

... and use tweezers to peel off the top layer. It never goes neatly! I always have to pick off more edges and peel more. But eventually I get it all off, leaving a rather fuzzy section of paper.

Then I use the bone folder to really smooth it down. A thumbnail works well, too.

THE TITLE

"Ye are the stars" comes from this quotation from the Baha'i sacred writings:

"O friends! Be not careless of the virtues with which ye have been endowed, neither be neglectful of your high destiny. Suffer not your labors to be wasted through the vain imaginations which certain hearts have devised. Ye are the stars of the heaven of understanding, the breeze that stirreth at the break of day, the soft-flowing waters upon which must depend the very life of all men, the letters inscribed upon His sacred scroll."

In my Book: a sunflower and the flower of life

More pages in my Book. This project has rather taken over my life. :S

Sunflower meditation. I had done something like this at one of the OgunquiTangle retreats and found the quotation online. I liked the piece and it's been sold, so I did a reprise in my Book.

I've done work based on the Flower of Life pattern, so I did a page with that design. I added the hummingbird when I found it among my Art Stuff. It's a nod to another hummingbird I added to another flower-of-life piece.

Here's the smaller, earlier piece, on a zendala tile:

Hexes in my Book

In ongoing decluttering I found a small, square sketchbook from the two years I lived in China. I wasn't interested in keeping most of it but there was a page investigating triangles and hexagons. It's really amazing the variety of stars, boxes, snowflakes, cubes, diamonds, chevrons, tunnels and more that can be achieved with these simple repeating shapes. I glued the page into my Book and expanded onto the sides.

Opposite that page seemed perfect for another go at CZT Cherryl Moote's tangle Hexonu, a much more random (and zen!) version of hexagons. Done large, they can be filled with other tangles.

How "Prairie Sun" came to be

Some years ago I saw a beautiful quilt while visiting a quilt show with my mother. I quickly drew the pattern on a zentangle tile I had in my purse. I wanted to do something with this design later.

Eventually, I decided to do each square (or 'quilt block') on a separate tile. Of course, I wanted to do this in color. I used a compass so that all the circles would connect rather than having irregular joins.

Earlier, I had done a black-and-white piece of tree trunks and branches, and decided that this would be the same size: six tiles square, mounted on a 24" canvas. Here are the 36 tiles, randomly scattered,  before I did the pencil shading.

There are a number of different designs that can be made with these squares by turning them in different directions. I tried a few and decided I liked best the regular concentric form. It took a lot of shifting and turning to arrive at the final arrangement with colors connecting where I wanted them to. Little colored brads are placed at the intersections of the tiles to mask the rounded corners.

I considered either a black border and sides, or colors that would blend with the tiles. I chose colors and did a mottled border and sides.

Well... no. I did not like it. It sat in the studio while I looked at it for two weeks before I decided that it was channelling My Little Pony way too much. I painted the sides of the canvas black as a means of separating the surface from everything else, and echoed the circles keeping some of the mottled color but painting the rest of the background white. The white is iridescent and not quite opaque so you get a hint of the color underneath. I think now the tangled squares have more prominence.

The last thing I did was to replace the small round brads with larger square ones, placed diagonally. Now it's finished! Here are a couple of details of the final piece.

And just for fun:
On another tile I had drawn a quick idea of the quarter-rounds and some possible tangles. It's on the left below. I don't think it was particularly useful, and I was about to throw it out when I thought, "No, I could do more with that." The end result is on the right, below.

Dreaming in hexagons

King Me Boardgamery and Café is a new business in Saskatoon owned and operated by my better half. Having connections, I got involved in the decor!

The floors are diagonal black-and-white check (Knightsbridge!) with a deep red baseboard. A border resembling wainscotting, and matching the baseboard, was desired around the walls. Many contemporary games use hexagons for the game boards so I suggested a row of hexagons rather than a simple band of red.

I started with an 8" circle and made a hexagon inside that. I cut that shape out of a sheet of stencilling plastic intending to stamp the hexagons onto the wall. It leaked. Phooey. I think wall paint is too thin. Plan B: frog tape, which worked excellently.

First, a leaky stencil, then on to frog tape.

Many thanks to the Nice Young Man at the paint store who advised me that red doesn't cover well and I should start with dark primer. Good advice. Even with two coats of dark primer it took 4-5 coats of the red paint to get the coverage needed.

Five layers of red paint later... hexagons completed!

But wait! That's not all.

Of course, the hexagons didn't all fit neatly along the length of each wall. That would be way too easy, and not nearly as much fun. It was a good excuse for some funkiness. I added some offset, and some smaller, hexagons. I also color photocopied hexagon pieces from a few games and stuck them on the wall. There are only half a dozen of these scattered around the room, so they're a little surprise.

On the left: a large piece from the game Mage Knight.
In the middle: two announcements of the Catan World Championship in Berlin.
On the right: two planet hexagons from the game Star Trek Catan (yes, seriously).

On the left: the whole section of wall.
On the right: a close-up of tiny hexes from the game Castles of Burgundy.

One section is very short, bumping out around a post or something. It seemed to want a stop sign (octagon) and my husband suggested, "No, make it say 'Play.'" Brilliant. Wanting to get it right, research determined that the font on a stop sign is Highway Gothic. The wall beside it has smaller hexagons, oriented the other way.

And yes. I used some boards leftover from poking out game pieces for the smaller hexagons!

We had purchased a couple of interesting vinyl "paintings" at a yard sale thinking they might be useful. They're stretched on wood to look like canvas paintings.

They did fit quite nicely above a sofa in an alcove, but they really needed some hexagons, don't you think?

At the front, near the counter, is the unfinished back of a metal mailbox for the tenants upstairs. The wall is painted, but it looked quite rough and needed to be covered. I offered to do a painting. 24" square was a sliver too small so I worked on a 30" canvas. I planned a large red hexagon on a checked black-and-white background. I thought I'd tangle some patterns in the hexagon.

As you may know, one of my art mottos is "When in doubt, add more." The painting definitely became more. It almost took on a life of its own as I tangled away with some new paint pens I'd been wanting to try. Here are a few "in progress" shots:

Here are some detail shots of the red hexagon:

Hexagon friendly tangles: Afterglo, Beeline, Paradox, Phroz, Tripoli, Windfarm, Y-Not

And here it is, in situ near the front window. Well, that was fun!

And here are two photos of the business: the view from the front door, and the game library.

Fractangals

While I was drawing Crescent Moon for the Diva's weekly challenge #72 I happened upon the idea of fractal tangles.

Fractals are absolutely gorgeous geometric images composed of exactly the same configuration of shapes repeated over and over and over, either smaller or larger than the one beside it. You can zoom in or out infinitely and the basic shape simply keeps repeating. I just love them! Here's one image of a fractal:

From Carlson's Fractal Gallery at http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/carlson/

A fractal tangle, then, would be when you choose a tangle and use the same tangle inside, or beside, the larger one, then smaller again inside or beside the second, and then again... You can see a few examples using Crescent Moon in my post for challenge 72.

I tried the idea with some other tangles. I found I had to begin with a very large version of the tangle I chose, even using only part of it. Of course, this is art not physics, so I didn't feel compelled to do exactly the same image over and over, just keep the same idea going. :)

Using Strircles:

Using Cubine, St. John's Cross, and Jalousie:

To my eye, I think the square grid tangles may not be the best choice for Fractangals.

 

Using Carole Ohl's Coaster:

... and also one Black Pearl, and some droplet shapes.

Using Hollibaugh:

Something like this might have happened anyway with Hollibaugh,
but I was thinking about fractangals!

Using Shattuck:

All of these examples are what are called monotangles, a Zentangle using only one tangle in various configurations. Monotangles and fractangals are a good way to investigate a pattern; you have to be a little creative and think up other ways to do something familiar. Remember this idea when doing other tiles, or zentangle-inspired artwork (*note to self*).

Try a Fractangal or two. Have fun!