My Book is nearing the end

Here are some of the final pages in my non-journal/non-sketchbook. 

The Garry oak is native to this part of the world, and I used a leaf from a tree near me to prepare four 'starts' in a collaborative project. I did another in my Book, more or less duplicating what I did for the collaboration.

Over the past decade or so I've depicted many onion domes and wanted to include these in my Book. I couldn't decide which of the three crescent moon shapes to include, so I included all of them and have called this piece The Passage of the Moon.

I took an online class from María Továr about drawing droplets (or "zengotas") with reflections. Of course, I had to include that in my book, too. This is on the inside front cover (I'm filling all possible places!) The photo is a bit too bright.

I have something quite special planned for a final two-page spread, something I've never tried before!

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For previous Book pages, check these posts:

1. How it began
2. Next steps
3. Inserting an eco-dyed paper
4. Back cover, an alphabet, gems and paisley
5. Hexagons
6. Celtic-style tangles, and W2
7. Frontispiece and photos of my grandmother
8. Space junk
9. A sunflower, and the flower of life
10. Knightsbridge and magic squares
11. More space junk
12. For now
13. Mongolian roofs
14. Cubine and Fassett
15. Nautilus
16. Notanical - combining Notan and botanical imagery
17. An 'oops' page
18. Inspired by Project Pack 7
19. Four more pages: twisted striping, and borders
20. Three more pages: leaves, tea, and spirals
21. A month of joy
22. A few more pages in my marvelous book: a dragon, neurographic drawing, and BrixBox/Cantire
23. Five more Book pages: Salt, Morrisseau, found text, flowers, and more
24. My Book is filling up: elephants, a dinner table, and map tangling

My Book is filling up

I'm nearing the end of this not-a-journal/not-a-sketchbook that I began in the summer of 2018. There are only a few pages left. 

I used the retail sock hanger in which I always see an elephant...

...to do an elephant page.

I had purchased this book at zenAgain 2016 and had stamped the first page with the logo. Recently I added a two-pencil string. I was going to add a tangle to the ribbon, but decided I like it simple. I might change my mind.

I had begun a picture of a table for four viewed from above. I planned to use (for the first time) some interesting colored pencils with three colors in each pencil. What fun! But... I didn't like it. I quit. I did other pages. Much later I came back to it. I had another idea! 😄

The beginning, and the pencils I planned to use.

The result! I'm calling it Al Fresco. And I want those plates.

Tangles: Circfleur, Gingham, Kuke, Sprouts, Within

I've been seeing examples of "map tangling" and it looked like fun. So, I gave it a try on the inside front cover, right-hand page. Next time I'll leave a little more white space.

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For previous Book pages, check these posts:

1. How it began
2. Next steps
3. Inserting an eco-dyed paper
4. Back cover, an alphabet, gems and paisley
5. Hexagons
6. Celtic-style tangles, and W2
7. Frontispiece and photos of my grandmother
8. Space junk
9. A sunflower, and the flower of life
10. Knightsbridge and magic squares
11. More space junk
12. For now
13. Mongolian roofs
14. Cubine and Fassett
15. Nautilus
16. Notanical - combining Notan and botanical imagery
17. An 'oops' page
18. Inspired by Project Pack 7
19. Four more pages: twisted striping, and borders
20. Three more pages: leaves, tea, and spirals
21. A month of joy
22. A few more pages in my marvelous book: a dragon, neurographic drawing, and BrixBox/Cantire
23. Five more Book pages: Salt, Morrisseau, found text, flowers, and more

Five more Book pages

My Book only has perhaps a dozen pages left in it. I haven't been in a hurry to fill it, wanting it to add something new only when I felt inspired. These are the most recent additions.

I was rather taken with two tangles, Salt (the hexagons) from Franciose Lip and Amazing Spider (in the background) from Hennie Brouwer. 

Two of the recent project packs from Zentangle had flower-like results, which I enjoyed reproducing in my Book.

I was charmed by Cherryl Moote's tangle Morrisseau. Some of the elements here are collaged, some are drawn on the page.

I've occasionally worked with found text, so I did that on one page. I tore two pages from the same book and glued them into my larger book, then hunted and tangled.

I've been loving the stains left by my husband's hibiscus tea bags: pinks, purples, blues, grays, browns, ochres... Unfortunately, the paper in this book is not as friendly towards them as is the Tiepolo paper of the Zentangle tiles. This page ended up with only grays, and rather wrinkly. I also tried using some stencils with the teabags.

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For previous Book pages, check these posts:

1. How it began
2. Next steps
3. Inserting an eco-dyed paper
4. Back cover, an alphabet, gems and paisley
5. Hexagons
6. Celtic-style tangles, and W2
7. Frontispiece and photos of my grandmother
8. Space junk
9. A sunflower, and the flower of life
10. Knightsbridge and magic squares
11. More space junk
12. For now - A phrase I hated, now dear to my heart
13. Mongolian roofs
14. Cubine and Fassett
15. Nautilus
16. Notanical - combining Notan and botanical imagery
17. An 'oops' page
18. Inspired by Project Pack 7
19. Four more pages: twisted striping, and borders
20. Three more pages: leaves, tea, and spirals
21. A month of joy
22. A few more pages in my marvelous book: a dragon, neurographic drawing, and BrixBox/Cantire

A few more pages in my marvelous Book

I've been working in this book for quite some time, adding a page now and then whenever I'm inspired.

I was enchanted by results I'd seen of Eni Oken's Dragons class. I purchased it, tried a few smaller pieces, and some time later did this drawing. Great fun!

Neurographic drawing caught my fancy, being a random-looking type of pen-and-ink drawing. I watched a video lesson by a certified neurographic drawing instructor and followed along. Of course, at some point I had to incorporate Zentangle patterns! I'd done this on a sheet of paper so I trimmed it slightly and glued it onto the front endpaper, bordered with washi tape.

The offset grid squares pattern of Brix Box or Reticulous is quite fascinating. I experimented to see what could be done with triangles and ended up calling this new tangle Cantire. This page in my Book combines both the square tangle and the triangular one.

For previous Book pages, check these posts:

1. How it began
2. Next steps
3. Inserting an eco-dyed paper
4. Back cover, an alphabet, gems and paisley
5. Hexagons
6. Celtic-style tangles, and W2
7. Frontispiece and photos of my grandmother
8. Space junk
9. A sunflower, and the flower of life
10. Knightsbridge and magic squares
11. More space junk
12. For now
13. Mongolian roofs
14. Cubine and Fassett
15. Nautilus
16. Notanical
17. An 'oops' page
18. Inspired by Project Pack 7
19. Four more pages: twisted striping, and borders
20. Three more pages: leaves, tea, and spirals
21. A month of joy

My Book is filling up

Agate
In Project Pack 09 we drew some malachite with green pens and Auras. I enjoyed it so much I did a few more, one in my 'Book'. It's not green, so it's really more like agate.

Joy
I accepted a challenge to record, each day in April, one thing that brings me joy.

Paradox
Paradox is one of many favorite tangles, and I've been having fun recently with crazy Paradox. I did a page of this tangle: classic in squares, classic in triangles, striped, shaved and crazy.

Dancers
I've occasionally used styrofoam food trays to make mono-prints which I then draw on and define. At one point I sold quite a number to small magazines. I wanted to include this technique in my book as one of the methods I've used throughout my art life.

More Project Pack #09!

Zentangle's Project Packs are always so chock-a-block full of great ideas I can't help but keep exploring them once the project is finished.

APPETIZER - WASTE NOT, WANT NOT
I like the brown bags the Project Pack supplies come in and hate to simply recycle them, so I cut them into tile sizes and include the grommets and string. Here, I glued the string to the paper, and have a tile with an actual string!

Tangles: Gneiss, Hollibaugh, Knightspeak, Marasu, Springkle, Zonked

THE FULL MEAL
I was quite enchanted with the idea of using Auras to create the look of malachite, or more generally agate. Here's a slice of natural agate. Sometimes there is a nest of crystals at the center. How delightful! Don't you love geodes?

I had cut some eco-dyed paper into bookmarks and used this 'auras' method. Do you see the partial leaf in the second one?

I was enjoying myself so much I did a page of agate in my wonderful 'Book'.

And on a black zendala tile using Sakura's Moonlight pens. It was a little tricky to "shade".

And then again on a sheet of eco-dyed paper.

"Seismic Shift"
(c)2020 Margaret Bremner

Such fun! I'll be using this technique more, I'm sure.

April's Joy Quest

This wonderful idea came to me through an art business course I'm enrolled in. The facilitator, Alyson Stanfield, suggested we spend the month of April on a... 

JOY QUEST

For 30 days keep some kind of daily record of one thing that brings you great happiness. This record could be kept in any way you wanted: journal, post-it notes, scraps of paper, drawings, small paintings, collages, photos, videos, whatever.
I allotted a page in my Book - not a journal, not a sketchbook, but full of wonderful things! - divided it into 30 sections, and filled one section each day.

No joy yet!

Someone else put up a long strip of paper in her new studio space and everyday wrote down something that brought her joy.Another uses a planner with a daily 2-page-spread. When she organized her week she drew a space (in a happy color, of course) for her joy quest each day. 
At the end of the month I had a lovely visual reference of things that bring me joy on a regular basis.

Three more Book pages

Here are a few more pages from my Book - not a journal, not a sketchbook, but full of wonderful things!

Years ago I did a whole series of work using leaf prints. I wanted to include that idea in my Book. Another thing I've occasionally enjoyed is micrography so I found a quotation I like that mentions leaves.

As a tea lover from 'way back, I decided to do a page of tea labels. I've added a couple of small things since I took this photo.

On this page I used a broken copper bracelet as a template for the spirals. The corners are cut off the page showing the black edge from the following page.

More pages in my Book

Here are more recent pages from my not-a-sketchbook/not-a-journal where I seem to have been very into stripes!

I had an interesting page with random, black brush strokes. There was a white space in the middle that seemed ideal for my Striping, with a Twist. I also added very thin lines in a few peripheral sections to define them a little more. (I love this page!)

Recently I've had fun with Sakura's Moonlight pens, fluorescent inks that look great on black paper, or under black light. They're not as effective here, probably because there's some white background, but even so I find them a nice opaque ink to use on a dark surface.
I decided to use only my own tangles on this page, although Tipple and Printemps crept in!

Tangles, top to bottom: Zedbra, Seljuk, Dutch Hourglass, Skye, Copada, Chebucto,
Many Moons, Prestwood (variation), and  Lotus Pods. Plus Black Pearlz.

I have a lovely Oriental-style brush pen that has an ink cartridge. I've always loved how a line can go from hairline thin to luscious thick and back again. I did some lines across a page and developed it. It's a bit reminiscent of Diva Dance.

This next page is opposite the previous one shown, so there's an interesting play of black-and-white with primary colors.

Tangles: Bunzo, Coaster, Crescent Moon, Oaura, Paisley Boa, Prestwood, Thumbprintz, Tipple, Unyun

PP07 inspires my Book

My non-journal/non-sketchbook took a little hiatus, but I've been working in it again lately and reprised a few of the projects from Project Pack #7.

Maria showed us Coffering and I started with a 2-pencil string just for something a little different. In the background is my tangle Morse.

My first post about two-pencil strings - just over ten years ago! - is here. There are follow-up posts here and here.

This is the new tangle Pepperish, demonstrated by Martha in the Project Pack video.

I loved Martha's squared-off spiral with lotus flowers. I made these pink and yellow.

Tangles: Oaura, Tipple

Finally, there is Maria's expansion of a Cadent square. It's on the right. On the left is an expanded version of Stella (or Well, Well, Who without the Who). I thought they might work well together. I trimmed the right edge of the page to accommodate the tangle, and there's black ink two pages further (the next page is trimmed too).

Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Crescent Moon, Knightsbridge, Hollyhock, Oaura, Pearlz

Anthem

Anthem is tangle from CZT Jody Genovese. It was recently featured as the focus tangle on the 'Square One, Purely Zentangle' Facebook group.

Here are two classic tiles featuring Anthem.

I liked it so much I thought I'd do a whole page of it it my Book (that non-journal/non-sketchbook I've been filling recently). I did the initial drawing in black ink, and then - because it reminds me so much of crystals - I decided to add some rainbow colors.

The page is quite wrinkled, and some grays bled through from the obverse page where I'd tried something with a lot of water that didn't work as I'd hoped! (That post is here.)

Slowly, slowly

This is one of those things that was supposed to be something else. But the something else didn't work and it became Something Else.
It was supposed to be patterns left by film wrap and paint but the paper didn't like that idea and it was just nondescript blotchiness with a lovely copper wash in a few places.

This page in my Book developed sloooowwly. I left it for a while as I was quite disappointed in the wash result. Then I noticed a few things at the edges and drew them.

From time to time I added a little more.

I'd noticed the small darker circle and triangle left of center and eventually decided to do something with them. I added a square for three shapes, and decided to use the three primary colors. Originally I was going to use some sparkly paper but yellow looked too gold so I found some leftover bits from other projects.

Tangles thus far: Bosch, Crescent Moon, Doodah, Paradox, Pearlz, Seljuk.
And in the colored squares: Finery and Prestwood

A little more...

Tangles added: Parabola, Tipple (sort of), Y-not (Etcher variation)

...and the finished page.

Tangles added: Icanthis

Or maybe not. I might add more.

Mandala page in my Book

Having focused on mandalas for over a decade, I had to include a mandala in my (non-journal, non-sketch) Book.

When I began I hadn't intended it to look quite so Tibetan Buddhist. But the page is rectangular not square and four circles showed up in the corners. Then the four colors crept in, and lotus petals and four gates, and it just kept on.

I included some metallic and sparkle inks that don't show in the photo. I think my favorite part is the background, the Crescent Moon in triangles with multi-toned blue. I'm not sure how I feel about all the white spaces I left, but it's finished.

Cartouches

Cartouche (pronounced car-toosh) is an old term for decorating around something that's the main focus. Often that's a photo, but it could be a piece of memorabilia, or whatever you want to draw attention to. Zentangle recently  offered Project Pack #05, all about cartouches (still pronounced car-toosh). You provide your own 'focus items' but the other supplies are provided in the kit.

I had done a page in my Book using old photos and decided to do another using this 'cartouche' technique. I chose three from my old-photos-to-use-in-artwork file. They all feature me in 1961!

Here I am at a tea party, a birthday party fashion show, and selling Kool-Aid at a sidewalk stand with two friends.

I included everyone's names and the dates (thanks to my mum for penciling that on the backs!). I also did an "embedded" 7 because that's how old I was that year. I admit, I overdid it a bit with the cartouche-ing!

Here's a close-up of my birthday party fashion show. I'm at the back right, in white.