Spliced tiles

I often enjoy working on spliced tiles. It's both fun and challenging. With the three colors of zentangle tiles you have three possible combinations.

One of the first places I saw this idea was on Day 9 of the 12 Days of Zentangle 2017. The video is on YouTube here.

You can create a spliced tile...

...with a knife:

1. Place one tile on top of another, both facing up (or down). Take care that they don't shift.
2. Giving yourself an interesting dividing line, use an X-Acto knife or scalpel to slice them in half. Pencil a light line on the top tile first if you want a little more direction. 
3. Swap halves.
4. Tape the halves together at the back.

...with scissors:

1. Cut a tile in half (with an interesting dividing line, of course).
2. Place one half on your second tile.
3. Lightly trace the dividing line in pencil.
4. Carefully cut the second tile in half.
5. Swap halves.
6. Tape the halves together at the back.

Here's a black and tan one. I used colored pencils (white and various browns) to create a gentle transformation from one color to the other. Several of the central 'seeds' are gold ink.

Tangle: All Stars

More black and tan, this time it became houses. I used both black and brown inks, as well as white.

Here's a black and white spliced tile. Part of the moon is metal leaf, part metallic ink.

You can bring even more color into the mix if you want! In the tile below I also used metallic inks.

You can see more of this type of work in a post from a while ago about notanicals, a hybrid name I invented to combine notan and botanical imagery.

Oh, those three blank tiles at the top of this post? Here's what became of them:

Tangles:
Black and white tile: Crusade and one Dex
White and tan tile: Bosch and Lamar
Tan and black tile: Molly's Sprouts (that's what I call it!)

The black/white tile is in the same position as above. There is a hint of colored pencil, and clear Glaze ink in the center of Dex for more depth.
The white/tan tile is turned 90 degrees counterclockwise from the image at the top. I decided to ignore the color division and do the tangles across both colors.
The black/tan tile is upside down from the tile above. I tangled in black, white, and gold inks and I used brown colored pencil as well as the gray graphite.

Notanicals

I've been doing some notan-inspired work recently, a lot of houses but also plants. Botanical things. I like word play and came up with the term "notanical" for these pieces.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Icantoo, Munchin, Opus, Pearlz,
Tipple, Zonked,and an element of Paizel

This one became a rose, and needed to be diagonal.

I tried one with tan instead of white, using CZT Hanny Nura's tangle Icantoo. Imagine the first image with the black and tan reversed; that's what I started with. The second image is the completed notanical. The 'moon' is drawn with copper metallic ink.

Tangles: Icantoo, Pearlz, Printemps

Another black and white one. Those round-cut areas seem to want to be moons!

Notan - houses

At the end of this post last week, I promised to show some notan-style pieces depicting houses and buildings, favorite subject matter of mine. Here they are.

I did two on classic black and white paper.

Then I tried one with white and tan paper. I think this is my least favorite. Perhaps not enough darks.

I was very happy with this black and tan one and hope to do more with these colors.

Finally, I tried a larger one, 6"x 9".

Notan (sort of?)

For a while now I've been interested in the Japanese design principle called Notan, the judicious use of light and dark and the balance between the two. This can be a very equal, 50/50, balance, or you can be a little more liberal in its interpretation.

During Zentangle's Twelve Days of Zentangle in 2017, the 9th day's project involved splicing together two colors of tiles and I'm using that idea in the following examples. You can see a few more examples (using black and tan tiles) here.

To start, I take a black tile and a white tile, place one on top of the other, and carefully cut them apart. Here are two tiles. There are two others with the colors reversed.

Using the two companion tiles to the ones above, here are two completed tiles.

Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Knightsbridge, MySwing, Tipple

Tangles: Adente, Pearlz, Prestwood

During InkTober this year, one of the prompts was 'breakable'.

Tangles: Cracked Windows, Rain

Another prompt was 'double' and Notan is a kind of 'double'. Also, I doubled it and did two, one in only black and white and one bringing in color. On the colored one I used metallic inks on the black paper.

I find this a fascination process, and shortly I'll show you some pieces using this method with houses as subject matter (you know me and houses!).

13 days of InkTober

I had planned to do the prompts from Inktober on tile-sized paper and the list of tangles for the month in my Tangle-a-Day calendar. However, I got a nasty cold and was left with a barking cough and little energy. I came around later in the month but the calendar was abandoned.

October 1: POISON
I was not happy with this first effort.

Tangles: All Boxed Up, Cirquital, Crescent Moon, SlowPoke

But here's my calendar for the first three days using tangle prompts. I did a few random other days but for some reason didn't keep up with this.

October 6: DROOLING

Tangles: Diva Dance and Auras

October 8: STAR
Done on a Travelling Tangle Project tile from I can't remember who (apologies!).

After a long break I got back into it. I think I wasn't that inspired by the prompts and, granted, I was sick for about a week and a half!

October 20: BREAKABLE
Done on half-white, half-black paper with white and black and gray inks.

Tangles: Cracked Windows, Rain

October 21: DRAIN
Done on 3.5" eco-dyed paper.

Tangles: Printemps, Tipple

October 22: EXPENSIVE
Done on 3.5" eco-dyed paper. I used gold ink for Printemps in the background; I love the gold on tan.

October 23: MUDDY
Done on a Travelling Tangle Project tile from Toby Schwarz. He did the tea-staining, the two Gneisses and some Seawave, and I did the rest.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Diva Dance, Gneiss, Seawave, Tipple
and lots of Auras

October 25: PRICKLY
Done on an eco-dyed tile. It's not quite this dull but it is rather dark.

Tangles: Tipple... sort of?

October 27: THUNDER

Tangles: Crescent Moon, Pearlz, Prestwood variation

October 28: GIFT
Done on 4.5" eco-dyed paper and begun many months ago. Includes gold acrylic paint peels.

Tangles: Diva Dance, Finery, Hollibaugh, Icantoo, Leaflet,
Opus, Pearlz, Tipple

October 29: DOUBLE
I've been interested in the Japanese concept of Notan for some time and have been investigating it a little recently. It seemed like an excellent way to "double". I decided to do one in strict black and white, and to add color to the other.

Tangles: Auras, Black Pearlz and lots of lines!

And that's all folks!