Shattuck, and then some

Today we'll look at Zentangle's Shattuck. It's generally drawn with curved lines, resembling scales, and I prefer the 'scales' to match at the tops and bottoms so that's generally what you'll see here. 

It can be done with straight lines instead, as shown below. If you choose this look, you may want to draw a zigzag along the wide stripes, and then fill it in. 

Usually the dividing stripes are quite narrow, but try drawing them wider and adding another tangle inside. There are so many 'border' tangles to chose from! I've kept it fairly simple in the tile below.

Two other options for the dividing stripes are to fill them black or to draw them more like ribbons. In the tile below I've also used a variation of Moon Pie to fill some of the scales. (In the link, scroll down, past Hollis).

Moon Pie is one way to vary the scales, but you don't need to be quite that elaborate! The tile above also shows examples of gradating lines, an effect I quite like. Look at other examples in this post to see other variations of the scales. Here are a few more ideas:

• leave the lowest 'pie wedge' white instead of filling it black
• alternate black and white stripes, around the pie slice or radiating from its center
• fill with Peppering (demonstrated at around 4:45 in this project pack video)

Another thing you can do with the scales is to fill only half of them, another attractive effect.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Crescent Moon, Lamar, Shattuck

Or... fill half of the scales with one pattern and the other halves with a different pattern.

To end, here's a gray tile, with gray gems, Shattuck, and more.

Tangles: Arukas, Shattuck, Pearlz, Wunderwall

Have fun exploring Shattuck!

Have you noticed hubcaps?

I was out walking the other day and noticed an interesting hubcap. Then I noticed other hubcaps. What wonderful inspiration for mandala designs! Simply plug "hubcap photos" into an image search engine and you'll find lots of inspiration! Here are five, along with the hubcap that inspired them.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Doodah, Fife, Hibred,
Prestwood, Skyesil, Zewm

Tangles: Dewd, Icantoo, Mazorito, Snail

Tangles: Crescent Moon, Fohbraid, Gewgle,
Tipple, Zewm

Tangles: Apacore, Cubine, and elements of
Moonwaves and Tripoli, and more.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Prestwood, Slowpoke, and more

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.

Cantire - a new tangle!

Recently on Facebook's Square One Zentangle group, the tangle Reticulous (from Heidi Kay, CZT) was the focus. It appeared earlier as BrixBox (from Anneke van Dam, CZT). They have slightly different step-outs and you many find one easier to work with than the other. It's a wonderful vessel tangle using an offset square grid. 

I wondered if it could be done using triangles. So I tried, and it can, but the process is a little different.

Here's a tile with BrixBox/Reticulous, and Cantire together. (Pronounce it can-tire not can-teer. I'll explain later.)

These are the step-outs for Cantire.

Some things to note:

• These are equilateral (equiangular) triangles - to the best of your ability! 😉
• As with BrixBox/Reticulous, the small shape is one quarter the size of the large shape.
• Unlike BrixBox/Reticulous, two shapes are needed on each side of the large shape.
• Something will go haywire. Trust me. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. It's just an opportunity.
  
• You can use any of the marvelous fills for Tripoli to embellish your triangles.

I have an oxalis plant near my desk and drawing the leaves made an interesting triangle string. Then I fitted Cantire around it.

Why Cantire?  I'd received a couple of very good suggestions for a name, but somehow they didn't quite click. I'd already used Trifle for another triangle-based tangle. Then suddenly I thought of Canadian Tire, an iconic hardware and auto supplies store in Canada. Its logo is a red triangle. Cantire it is!

One more tile for good measure, on gray paper stained with a hibiscus teabag. I used Moonlight pens and color pencils.

For another tangle with an iconic Canadian theme, check out Double Double.

BTW: It's getting harder and harder to keep track of tangles and names. If this pattern has been presented elsewhere, or if the name has been used already, please let me know!

Crescent Moon, and then some - lines and centers

Tangles: Crescent Moon, Windfarm and Rounding

My first 'Crescent Moon, and then some' post a week ago, was all about the 'bugs'. 

Today we'll play with the lines and the centers.

THE LINES

Instead of a simple series of lines around the 'moons' try something different. 

Alternate black and white stripes, or leave a highlight, both shown below. I'm showing two types of highlights, Maria's "sparkle" of a broken line, and rough-edged black.

You can gradate the separation of the lines, starting close together and gradually adding more space between them. This is a gray tile that I had stained with a hibiscus teabag. It also shows Crescent Moon moving outward instead of inward.

Tangles: Crescent Moon, Pearlz, Within, and Auras

Three more possibilities are shown on the gray tile below.

--  Leave more space between the lines and fill some of the spaces with perfs, or a series of lines, or whatever strikes your fancy. (top)
--  Connect the lines alternating as you would drawing Hibred. (right side)

--  When the lines begin to meet at the base, continue to draw down to the base instead of Aura-ing. (bottom)

THE CENTERS

Classic Crescent Moon has a black center, but there's so much more you can do!

• Continue a tangle that's outside Crescent Moon (see the tile at the top of this post).
• Fill with a single (Archimedian) spiral.
• Fill with another tangle. For starters try Tipple, Knightsbridge, Printemps, or Tidings. 
• Continue the Aura lines all the way to the center.
• Simply leave it white. Maybe add shading inside the last Aura. 
• Carefully leave some white dots (or add them with white pen afterwards) to create the look of a night sky.
• Fill it black, let it dry, and tangle in white ink.
• If the 'moons' end up with a large space, let the center flow out.
•  vcnbbvv bffv (that's my 6-month old granddaughter helping me type) 😊
• What more can you think of?

Tangles: Beadlines, Crescent Moon, Knightsbridge,
Unfortunately the graphite is really interfering
with the black ink in this photo.

AND... I've just updated the "moons" post with another possibility - Mars' moons! Go to the top of this post for the link.

Teabag stains

Recently I noticed a hibiscus teabag in the kitchen sink and was struck with the beautiful, rich red of the water seeping from it. I decided to try staining some paper and saved a few more teabags. It's curious how the pink/purple shows up so well on gray paper, but not at all on white or tan. Still, the grays are lovely.

Here's the first tile I did with the first small batch of stained tiles. I've used some of the teabags three or four times and they're still staining very nicely.

Tangles: Ayame, Finery, Mooka elements

I added some white vinegar to the water in which I dipped the teabags, but I'm still rather concerned about fading. Most of these stained items will likely become ATCs or bookmarks - things which will generally not be exposed to light. The ATC below is at the lower left in the selection of stains above.

Three zentangle-tile-sized pieces.

Henrike Bratz, a CZT in north Germany near Denmark, contacted me on Instagram about the colors not showing on some papers. She advised me to put a dab of lemon juice on my finger and touch that to the dried stain. It worked beautifully, as you can see below. Apparently the acidity of the lemon juice is what's needed.

Here are two tiles done for Hanny Nura's Full Moon Mosaic on Instagram. The first uses the tile in the lower right above.

Finally, every time I looked at this next tile I saw a little crab. So that's what it is.

A few favorite quotations... (and art)

...interspersed with a few favorite and appropriate Zentangle tiles.

Anaïs Nin is a French author whom I suspect I would not have liked much had I ever met her. But she's the origin of one of my favorite quotations. 

"Life expands or contracts in proportion to one's courage." 

Tangles: Paradox, Pearlz, Rain, Seljuk

The drawing above is on gray paper. Whatever I'd done in the upper left corner, I hated it so much that I cut it off. I loved the interestingly shaped tile! Then a black tile slipped behind it and I preferred that, so I cut a bit of black paper and glued it behind the gray one.

Artist Robert Genn maintained a website called "The Painters' Keys" that was continued by his daughter (also an artist) after his death. On the subject of thinking and creativity he offers the thought that 

"Thinking is good, but your brain
is perpetually thundering down the tracks 

with intent to derail your creativity." 

The tile above was created during InkTober 2019 following the prompt Tread. 
I think of it as Rainbow Demolition Derby.

Life is lighter without grudges. Forgive someone not for their sake but for your own. Be good to yourself. I consider myself fortunate that I've never had to draw on this quotation. I expect it's much easier said than done, but I appreciate the idea that

"Living well is the best revenge." 

You may be familiar with the book "The Little Prince". If not, try to borrow a copy. It's short and it's fun. And the author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said, 

"Love is not gazing at each other.
Love is looking together in the same direction."

"A Soft Place to Rest My Heart"
(c) 2019; 9 cm. (3.5") sq. on paper; Sold
Pen and ink, acrylic wash, colored pencil

"Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." 

An actual quotation from Albert Einstein, as far as I can determine, unlike the popular "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." credited to him (which I kind of prefer, but oh well).

I refer to this as "my brain on Bosch".
Bosch is a delightful tangle, usually done as a border.

"Anything is possible, one stroke at a time."

The tangle Crusade, from CZT Wayne Harlow, flummoxed me for quite some time. Others have had this challenge with tangles such as Skye and Amazing Spider. But I liked it enough that I kept at it, eventually understanding it well enough that I can now do it on curved lines and in wonky strings. Yay me!

Tangles: Crusade, Pearlz, Tipple

"The well-being of the world, its peace and security, 

are unattainable unless and until its
unity is firmly established."

You may have noticed this one in my e-mail signature. It's from Baha'u'llah, Founder of the Baha'i Faith. I've been a Baha'i since I was 19. I love going barefoot when possible, on a sandy beach or grass at a park for example. I feel more connected to the earth.

"Mud Between My Toes"
(c) 2013; 11.5 cm. (4.5") sq. on a pre-strung, tan zendala tile; Sold

Pen and ink, acrylic, colored pencil