"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."

Niiice! GNEISS, and then some

Tangles: Gneiss, Paizel, Pearlz, plus stripes, a spiral and highlights

GNEISS - and then some

Gneiss is a tangle from Zentangle that looks like a star with aplomb. One of the things I like about it is that the original guideline disappears in the final tangle.

I'm thrilled and privileged to be attending zenAgain, a special event for CZTs (Certified Zentangle Teachers) in Newport, Rhode Island. A similar event happened some years ago and I missed it, so I promised myself that if anything like it happened again I would really try to go. One of the things I shared is some of these variations on Gneiss.

There aren't step-outs online for this tangle so you may need to seek out a nearby CZT to show you how it's done.

Tangles: Beadlines, Gneiss, Pearlz, a spiral and Auras.

MORE POINTS

Gneiss is often done with eight points. That's easy to do by simply drawing a 'sliced pie'. But you're not limited, of course. Try more points. You can do twelve by drawing two lines in each quarter instead of one.

MORE POINTS, DIFFERENTLY
You can also have more points by adding small ones in between the points of your classic Gneiss. This gives you 16 points. You can see this in the tile at the top, too.

A GNEISS COMET
Your lines needn't intersect at (more or less) the center of the star. Try an off-center center.
Put a dot somewhere in your circle and draw all your lines through there. You may want to put little ticks on the circle indicating the 1/8 divisions. Curve most of the lines, and don't forget to curve the lines of the 'V' too, as well as the second set of lines to the center.

GNEISS-LY IRREGULAR
I generally think of a 'V' as having sides of the same length, but try slanting it. This will give you uneven star sections. You can decide if you want more white or more black showing.

A GNEISS PINWHEEL
Instead of straight lines from the perimeter to the center, draw arcs. Two arcs make a sort of 'S'. You'll need to really curve the 'V' you cut out of the ends. Also curve the second set of lines to the center.

Here are two tiles showing possibilities with this pinwheel variation. In both cases I've wrapped the end of the point back into the star, such as you'd do if drawing Phicops (scroll down the post) or Aquafleur.

A GNEISS LOTUS
Instead of doing the 'V's with straight lines try doing 'bracket' lines, such as you'd do if drawing Copada.

GNEISS FILLS
Instead of the classic alternating black and white, try different fills. Here's one with white circles instead of solid black.

You can use a tangle with a lot of lines as a fill, but in that case I suggest using either black or white as a background, depending on which is not in the star. See the two tiles under 'A Gneiss Pinwheel' for example. Here are some Bijou tiles with Gneiss variations:

HAVE A GNEISS DAY!

"Starry Night" (c)2015
Tangles: Demi, Flukes, Flux, Gneiss, Pearlz

Ing stars

Zentangle has released a new tangle, Ing. It's the Diva's challenge this week, and I've been having fun exploring it. It has lots of possibilities!

I wanted to try Ing in a circle, and also wanted to use a lot of sparkly pens (Sakura's Stardust pens) so I got out a white, a black, and a tan zendala tile and a fistful of sparkly pens. Unfortunately, the sparkles barely show up in these scans, a real shame.

Once I started drawing Ing around the circles I realized that it was going to make some interesting stars. Somehow mine all have eight points; that's what seemed to fit zigzagging around a circle. Here are my three stars.

On a white tile, with blue and green Stardust pens, metallic pens, color micron pens and color pencils.

Tangles: Ing plus Black Pearlz and Tripoli

On a Renaissance tile with a copper (orange) Stardust pen, micron pens, white Gelly Roll, and color pencil. This one is my favorite, which is curious because brown and orange is probably my least favorite color combination.

Tangles: Ing, plus Black Pearlz, Tipple and elements of Munchin

On a black tile with Stardust ink, white ink, black ink, gray ink and color pencil. The vaguely-yellowish gray is, in fact, a silver Stardust pen.

Tangles: Ing, plus Tipple, polka dots and stripes.

Three zendalas

These three pieces were done with an initial random 'star' string. On the first one here I did a purple wash leaving some white areas. Then I drew the string respecting some of the lines left by the wash. Then, tangling!

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Bunzo, Deelish variation, Going Down,
Kandysnake, Knase, Kuke, Lamar, Tripoli

Is it a star or a flower?

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Fohbraid, Paizel, Paradox, Pearlz, Sindoo, Tortuca

And... a really wonky one that I just love!

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Flukes, Jemz, Knightsbridge, Paradox,
Pearlz, Spinning, Tripoli, Yew-Dee and something I thought was Warble
until I checked and discovered that I'd just made it up!

Blind sighted

Weekly challenge number 116. I'm having trouble keeping up! I always label the back of my work with the challenge number and most times, when I double check, I find I've numbered it too low.

This week we're revisiting blind strings. I really like blind strings; they give me something wonky and unexpected to work with. I realized that I've never used a blind string on a round tile, so that's what I did this week. I did one with a string that is quite random and one that's sort of star-like.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Crescent Moon, Daggerly, Diva Dance, Knase,
Knightsbridge, Mi2, Paisley Boa, Paradox, Pearlz, Printemps, Yew Dee, Zedbra

Tangles: Beelight, Black Pearlz, Flukes, Jemz, Knightsbridge,
Paradox, Tripoli, Warble variation, Yew Dee, Zedbra

Brush tip pens

When you don't know what you're doing cool things can happen! I've bought two or three brush tip pens in the past, but never really liked them.

One of our local art supply stores is closing. This is definitely too bad, but they're selling off stock and prices are low, which is good! I've been in twice and will visit again before they close. One thing I bought was a handful of brush tip pens (Pitt, to be specific). They were half price, in limited colors, but this was a good opportunity to try 'em out, cheap! I knew almost nothing about using these.

Tangles: Afterglo, Sanibelle

I chose one of the pre-strung Zendala tiles and put some brush-tip streaks in several places. Originally I had some yellow there, but I didn't like it. The black and white middle sections looked silvery, but I thought the other sections should look more gold. I drew on top of the Afterglo tangle with gold ink and white ink in leaf stripes. Unfortunately the gold ink doesn't show up well in the picture. There's also a bit of sparkly red in the outermost triangles.

I had a variety of green pens so I did another one, again on a pre-strung Zendala tile. I also used an olive green Sakura Glaze pen and a white pen.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Hurly Burly, Pais (sort of) and stripes with highlights

I found that I did less tangle drawing and more color filling. I guess that figures. Once there is brush tip ink on the paper, the next pen work tends to bleed a bit, but it's manageable. With a brush tip, the line can vary from hair's breadth thin to quite thick. I need more practice to use this to good advantage. Sometimes there is a lovely transparent quality. For that, I wish I had more pale colors. I'll do more, and maybe get the hang of it better.

Dodecahedron completed!

Earlier I posted about a book of three cut-out shapes I'd bought. I had started working on one of them. You can see how this project began here. Now, finally, I can show you the finished product, hanging in a corner of my dining room swaying gently in the breeze from the heat register. I took a short video of it and attempted to upload it but it didn't work. Too bad.

Tangles: too many to mention!

Some polysyllabic (many syllables) words, for those interested in such things. 
In my earlier post I wondered what shape this was; the book called it an icosahedron (20-sided shape) but I didn't think so. I finally figured out that it is a dodecahedron (12-sided shape), but not a simple one. The angles connecting each yellow pentagon (5-sided shape) have been pushed in, creating the blue folded diamond shapes and yellow stars instead of pentagons. I expect there is a proper geometric term for this shape, but I don't know what it is.

Icosahedron?

You may recognize that word from the Zentangle kit. The kit comes with an icosahedron die and a legend for when you just can't think which tangle to do next.

An icosahedron is a 3-D shape with 20 sides. At the right is a diagram of the most simple version, with flat faces. They can also be truncated (which flattens the points into pentagons) or stellated (which pulls the faces out into points and makes it star-like). The measurements are related to sacred geometry and the Platonic solids. Fascinating! I love these 3D geometric shapes.


I also love second hand stores. At one I bought a book - Cut and Assemble 3-D Star Shapes - made of heavy cardstock. It contains the parts required to cut out and construct three different shapes.

The blue background of the
book cover doesn't help much.

Lovely and fascinating, but no doubt more lovely and more fascinating if tangled first! I started drawing in the book (parental *gasp*).

The book calls all three shapes icosahedra, but the particular one I'm starting with has 12 yellow faces (and 30 blue faces). Looks like a dodecahedron (12 sides) to me.






I scribbled in the book (parental *gasp* #2) : pencil strings over the stars. I'm using black ink on the yellow parts, but the blue is fairly dark so I'm using white there. Here's part of a page I've tangled so far.

I'll post a photo when this piece is tangled, constructed and hanging from the ceiling.

Starry-Eyed Surprise

This week's zentangle challenge is stellar :-)
It was suggested that we listen to the song "Starry-Eyed Surprise" and do a tile with the theme of stars. I really liked the blind string challenge from last week, and decided to do blind strings for these star tiles. In the first one I did blind star shapes one on top of the other. I like how Carole Ohl's tangle Hurakán looks like a distant galaxy!

In the second I did blind star shapes offset from the others. I seem to have opted for a lot of thin line striping, hatching and cross-hatching, in these.

Once I completed these two, I thought, "Who said a star has to have five points?" So I may try some others with more points.
What will next Monday bring?

NINJA STARS tangle instructions

If I remember correctly, this idea came to me when I was half asleep one morning. I'm really happy I remembered it! Once I drew it, it resembled "those frisbee knife things ninjas throw", as I said to my daughter to see if she knew what they were called. She didn't. I consulted the Oracle (my husband's name for the internet) and learned that 'ninja stars' is just fine, although the Japanese name is 'shuriken'. Learn something new every day.

Here's the tangle:

The black areas could fill with thin stripes for a less bold pattern. An aura could go inside the 'squares' and other tangles could be put inside that. (Yincut? Tipple?) I'll have to try some of those variations!