"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."

Line drawing lessons

Some time ago I started doing Simone Bischoff's series of lessons for sharpening one's line drawing skills, so I thought I'd share my efforts with you. Originally in German, the short series is abbreviated in translation on tangle-patterns.com. There you'll find the details of each exercise. I did all my work on zentangle tiles.

Lesson one: ways of connecting dots 
Simone shows various ways to connect two dots. I used Black Pearlz for three of the dots.

Lesson two: lines in waves
This didn't work out the way Simone's did, but it is wavy lines!

Two tangles that use a series of wavy lines are Diva Dance and Magma.

Lesson three: fantasy flowers

Lesson four: spiral forms
First, a helix, a double helix, and a spiral.

The second idea in this lesson is to use the three spiral forms all starting from the same place.

It started going rather haywire so I just let it do that, and added more.

Lesson five: angled lines

Using straight, and angled lines first, then adding geometric shapes on the lines.

Some tangles that use this type of angled lines and shading are Raddox and Static.

That's as far as I got (thus far, at least). It is a fun exercise and offers new ways of thinking about mark-making. Give it a try!

ZIGGY - a new tangle

I don't remember where I saw this picture, but I just love it! In part it's the bright colors, but it's also a really interesting pattern.

It's the inspiration for my new tangle Ziggy.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Knase, Tripoli, Ziggy

This is how to draw Ziggy. It's a tangle that requires more concentration than some, especially starting at step #5. If your zigzags start going a bit haywire in step #6 don't worry, mine always do.

(Apologies for the shadowing. I had to scan it in two parts
and my computer likes to let everyone know where the division is!)

Here are a few ways to vary this tangle. I rather like it with the shading done only in pencil and without the thin ink lines.

Tangles: Dansk, N'zeppel, Tortuca, Verve, Ziggy

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 earlier, please let me know!

Points east

Encouraged by friends who were raving about it, my husband and I found a fabulous deal (75% off!) and decided to travel east by ViaRail. It was wonderful!!! Two days and two nights of delicious food, being rocked to sleep, lovely and varied scenery and board games with friends. We went from Saskatoon to Toronto and will definitely do the train thing again. Here's the pattern on my comforter on the train.

We spent a few days in Toronto and Guelph visiting relatives, then on to Ottawa, again by train (cheaper than the bus). We lived in the Ottawa area for many years and stayed with friends. My brain actually worked well for once and I'd been planning - with someone in Ottawa - an Introduction to Zentangle class on the Tuesday evening. There were 19 students, one of whom had come from Sudbury, about a four hour drive! Her young granddaughter lives in Ottawa and came to the class too. Our hosts both came and my husband tried Zentangle for the first time.

Here's a not terrific photo of the first tiles everyone did. I overheard one student say to another, "Hunh. Who knew I could draw?!"

Then to Montreal, where we lived for five years many years ago. It was lovely to hear and use French again. For a few days we attended the annual North American meeting of the Association for Baha'i Studies, which moves around the continent. One of the women in one of the sessions I attended had this handbag. It reminds me of the tangle Dansk. I want one, too!

A few of my Zentangle students from Ottawa were also at the Montreal conference. One tangled the back of her name tag card and another carried around the muslin bag of supplies I'd given everyone. Addicting? Nah!

We had a great two-week vacation and would have taken the train home but couldn't get a good fare until the end of August. We just couldn't wait that long. But we brought home two dozen Montreal bagels. Yum!

Flash kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscopes are terrific!  Translucent, colorful, sparkly mandalas!

Like I need another way to waste time in front of the computer.

This digital kaleidoscope by Dinesh Vora is a wonderful thing to stare at for a while. (You'll have to go to the link to see it.)

Also, if you move the mouse over the image you can affect its movement.

(The kaleidoscope: another great thing invented by a Scot: Sir David Brewster, 1817)

Dreaming Girl

Following our move across town I discovered this small drawing I'd done in university (a lo-o-o-ong time ago). You can see why Zentangle was such an immediate *click* for me!

"Dreaming Girl" (c) Margaret Bremner
The paper is non-archival and has yellowed over the years.

I used technical pens years ago, and always loved that medium. I rediscovered some of those pens too, following the move. That pattern on the bottom edge is something I used frequently back then and I've done it in some recent zentangle drawings, too. Although we don't use the term "uni" here, I've called the tangle D'Uni. That pattern on the shawl is interesting too!

Vacation patterns

I'm convinced that being away from home makes me more aware of what I'm seeing. I should try taking my camera with me every day for a week here at home, and see what I notice! These are photos of some of the interesting patterns I noticed in Halifax and Bermuda.

A church in Lunenburg, NS.

Brick wall in Halifax NS

"Halifax" on an old map at the
Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax NS

 

Hanging roots of a banyan tree in Bermuda.

Glassware at a glass-blowing shop in Bermuda.

Octopus climbing the glass wall at the Aquarium.

The shirt on the man in front of me.
I'd like a dress like this.

 

Very interesting plant. Seed pods?

What an amazing pattern all over this puffer fish,  which is poisonous to eat.
(Thanks to Cookie for identifying it.)

A large chunk of coral in a garden.

Jack Wise, Artist

I have long enjoyed the intricate mandalas painted by Jack Wise. In particular I like how he often flows the same pattern through various color changes or shading.

In his early 30s Jack Wise moved from the United States to British Columbia, Canada, to pursue a life as a homesteader. That was in the early 1960s. After a brief hiatus, he returned to his painting with a passion that lasted the rest of his life. Wise was known for his calligraphy based upon Chinese brushwork, and for his colorful mandalas which embody a Buddhist cosmology. 

I originally had one of Jack Wise's mandala paintings on this blog post, but was requested to remove it. I did. Nonetheless, you can see some of his wonderful artwork here. Click on the yellow word "Contemplate", then on the yellow word "mandalas". Be sure to look at the detail images for each painting.

SCREEN - a new tangle!

Here's another tangle based on a grid, inspired by oriental screens. There is room for lots of variations and tangelation possibilities.

Bermuda floors, ceilings, walls, and a chair

Not Florz, but a floor nonetheless!
I've had a few students to this pattern
instead of Florz, and it's an
interesting variation.

Two grid patterns: tile floor and lattice wall on a balcony.

Leaf imprints in a cement walkway at the Aquarium and Zoo.

A wall made of Bermuda limestone
beside a narrow road.

The not so worn back of the same chair.

The very worn seat of a leather armchair at
the Bermuda National Art Gallery.

Brick ceiling of the gunpowder depot
of the old British fort at Dockside.

Two of the 3-dimensional decorative tiles adorning the ceiling
at the Hamilton City Hall,  Bermuda.

More tangle development ahead!

Patterns at Peggy's Cove

During our visit with our eldest daughter in Halifax NS, we went to Peggy's Cove for an afternoon. Although it had rained the day before, the day we went it was lovely and we enjoyed walking through the tiny town and scrambling on the coastal rocks. These are some of the patterns I noticed in my wanders.

Black and white twisted rope lying on a wharf.

Driftwood tree roots near the shore.

Tidal pool on the rocks. The dark part strikes me as a filled-in string area and the lighter corners as parts of a tile left blank.

Lobster traps stacked on a wharf.

Y-Not!!! Table and shadow on the deck of a café.

That table and it's shadow made me think about Molly Hollibaugh's tangle Y-not and I had to do it again on the drive back to Halifax. It was a twisty, bumpy road so my lines were going to be very wobbly. Besides the Y-not, I opted for some tried and true tangles.

Tangles: Crescent Moon, Knightsbridge, Shattuck, Tipple, Y-not

DUTCH HOURGLASS tangle instructions

It's been almost a year since I was in Whitinsville for the Zentangle teacher training seminar. One of the other participants was Maria Vennekens from the Netherlands. One day she wore a shirt with a lot of patterns, and I noticed something like this among them. To me, the initial 'X' with the filled-in top and bottom looks like an hourglass.  Thus "Dutch Hourglass".  If the pattern is big enough I like to put tiny black dots in each of the white dots, but - of course - it's your choice. Here's how to do Dutch Hourglass:

Here are some tiles using Dutch Hourglass.

In the first, the tangle is used as a field in two sections of the string. If you do this tangle, be sure to make the stripes/diamonds/triangles a good size. You need room for the three circles.

At the top left of this tile you'll see a "tangle" that I'm calling Botched Dutch Hourglass Resurrected.  :-)  I didn't make it large enough and had no room for the white circles, so I filled the triangles with black, which was too bold so I added large black dots in the middle of the diamonds which toned it down but was still rather bold so I gave it lots of shading.

Tangles: Dutch Hourglass, Facets, Parabola, Rick's Paradox, Striping (and, in the interests of thoroughness, Botched Dutch Hourglass Resurrected)

In the next tile, I used a single row of Dutch Hourglass in one of the 'ribbons' of the string. All these tiles began with wide two-pencil strings. To do a wide two-pencil string I place an eraser between the two pencils. (Ha! There IS a use for erasers in Zentangle!)

Tangles: Dutch Hourglass, Crescent Moon (with a highlight), Inapod, Yincut and a Knightsbridge Aura

Here again I've used it in a ribbon. I think it's those 2-pencil strings I started with. Another interesting thing in this tile is two slightly different effects with the tangle Tidings. In the top right it's done with only lines. In the lower right I've filled the tiny extra spaces with black.

Tangles: Dutch Hourglass, Beadline, Munchin, black Pearlz, Tidings

Overnight on April 26, I'll be winging my way to Halifax to visit my recently-married daughter and her husband for ten days. After that it's Bermuda for a week to visit my husband's sister and her husband. You bet I'm taking lots of Zentangle supplies with me! I'll need to do some creating myself, and who knows, maybe I'll get a chance to share it with others. Interspersed with visiting, whale-watching, board games, Peggy's Cove, snorkelling, restaurants, and touring of course!