2 delightful videos

I'm posting two links in case you've missed these two charming videos created by Zachary, a Texas design student. Both are about three minutes long and show the development of a Zentangle tile. I can't embed the videos so just click on the links and enjoy!

ZENTANGLE IN MOTION

Every stroke during the creation of a Zentangle tile - 947 strokes in all!
Watch it here.

ZENTANGLE IN MOTION 2

Over 2000 images of the development of another Zentangle tile.
Watch it here.

And for something else to look at, here's a tile using tanglepatterns.com's string idea number 3.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Bunzo, Cruffle, Fleurette, Florez,
Lamar, Paisley Boa, Paizel

SKYE - a new tangle!

Wow. I am really thrilled with this one! Yes, there are step-outs!

(Oh, alright! Skip to the step-outs! But come back up to see/read all the rest, okay?)

I noticed this interlacing on the box of the game Isle of Skye. It's a classic Celtic interlacing pattern, which, if you follow a strand, you'll notice is composed of two strands, not one. (I enjoyed the game, by the way.)

This is the pattern stripe from the game's box.

Deconstructing this pattern encountered a lot of false starts.

Once I had figured out how to draw it, I drew it a few times on a tile. I wanted to be sure I knew what I was doing before I pretended to explain it to others.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Pearlz, Skye, Tipple

Blue Skye! Honestly, I wasn't thinking that when I did this. I just had a tile with a blue wash sitting waiting.

Tangles: Bunzo, Crescent Moon, Pearlz, Phuds, Skye

The step-outs!

(Updated step-outs posted 2016 September 2)
Don't forget to shade it, although it looks quite alright without. Have fun!

Tangles: Cruze, Elven, single Pearlz, Skye, Zonked

Tangles: Skye, Tipple, and wavy lines

UPDATE: 2016 May 19

Well, my goodness! People are having lots of fun with this tangle, to the extent that some are posting alternate step-outs and video demos. Here are three videos offering basics and further explorations such as ending a row of Skye, and doing Skye in a circle.

The first is from Bunte Gallerie on YouTube:


The next is one is from Kathrin Bendel, also on YouTube. Kathrin is a CZT in Germany and made this (her first!) video as an additional instruction to some who were having challenges drawing Skye.


And one from Ellen Wolters, who has done video demos of a great many tangle patterns.

Arukas goes to town

I've been playing with the relatively new tangle Arukas and wanted to explore possibilities. Arukas went to town!

Unfamiliar with Arukas? You can watch Molly Hollibaugh (Arukas' designer) draw it on the Sakura YouTube channel here.

Here are some of the fun and rather different tiles I came up with.

Classic black on white. I did the Paradox in a 005 pen but I'm  not sure it was worth it.

Tangles: Arukas, Black Pearlz, Paradox, Pearlz, Tipple

Brown ink on a white tile. I began with three nested circles for the string. I've enjoyed using this recently. I wasn't sure that gray would work with the browns, but I put the gray shadow on at the last minute and am glad I did.

Tangles: Arukas, Black Pearlz,  a Lotus Pod
and hints of Crescent Moon

Black on white again, this time a bit swirly.

Tangles: Arukas, Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Crescent Moon,
Pearlz, Sindoo and a Lotus Pod

I like the fuchsia ink of the Sakura pen, and I recently acquired a more 'hot pink' pen that claims to be lightfast (*crossed fingers*). I started with a blob of pink acrylic 'watercolor' and used a straw to blow five pink rays across the paper. I was liking it all except the white ray to the lower right corner; it looked way too much like a large sowbug fossil. Something had to be done! I trimmed the edges and made them striped.

Tangles: Arukas, Diva Dance (with dots), Tipple,
and a hint of Beadlines and Copada

I've seen some lovely work using blue ink on a tan tile and wanted to try that. I again used the 'blob-of-acrylic-blown-with-a-straw' technique. As you may know, "simple" is not generally in my artistic vocabulary. Some turquoise crept in, then some green, and yellow, and white. It started looking like a moon and a sun so I added stars. I'm calling it Celestina. :)

Tangles: Arukas, Drupe, Tipple

And another black-and-white one. I used a bit of gray wash in the center, and as I was almost finished I realized that it also needed more gray in the third ring around.

Tangles: Arukas, Black Pearlz, and Lacing.

I like doing a particular tangle several times. It encourages inspiration and experimentation. This is perhaps one reason why artists often work in series.

'Splice' peppers

I recently encountered a tangle called Splice, which creates interesting round shapes.
Here's a demonstration from YouTube.


It kept reminding me of cross-sections of sweet, bell peppers.

So finally I gave in and pulled out a round tile and drew peppers.

Tangles: Gingham, Splice, Tipple

The Bug Ball

CZT Sam Taylor created this charming ZIA stop motion animation featuring tangled bugs. It's on the Sakura YouTube channel and shows the bugs dressing up in Gelly Roll Stardust and Gelly Roll Metallic for a fun bug fashion show. Enjoy!

How to grow a mandala

This lovely, short video shows one way to draw a mandala using a series of simple shapes. I find the tone is very akin to that of Zentangle: go with the flow, don't agonize about it, there are no mistakes, see what happens.




I tried this using a standard 9 cm. (3.5") Zentangle tile and added some shading. Of course, you could add color. Or do it in colored ink. Or not bother with the shading (although it adds a lot!). Or... all kinds of things!

Mandalas by Jung's patients

This short news item from CNN explains a little bit about mandalas from Carl Jung's psychological perspective.



If you haven't already, try out Zentangle's new round paper tiles. You can see some that I've done here and here.

360 degree Escher

I've always enjoyed the work of Dutch artist M. C. Escher.  Here is his work "Relativity".

Someone has taken this piece and created a 360 degree video. Have fun traveling around it!

 http://www.360cities.net/image/tribute-to-escher


Tribute to Escher in Barcelona

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.

Stippling - a tutorial

Stippling is a delicate drawing technique with lovely results. In this technique the drawing is composed entirely of tiny dots. Some very impressive shading can be accomplished this way.

Drawing by Jayel Aheram on Flickr. Image licensed on Creative Commons.

Christine Farmer does a lot of pen and ink work using stippling. You can see examples of her work here. She says, "Stippling as a technique requires precision, skill, and concentration, and I like the fact that progress is necessarily slow and steady." Sounds rather zen, doesn't it?
Noli Novak frequently does illustrations for the Wall Street Journal employing this technique.

Image from Noli Novak's website

Some superb artwork can be created using only stippling. BUT... it can also be used in small amounts. It's a terrific way to achieve an effect in pen and ink that is other than black, white, or lines. Some time ago I tried a very simple Zentangle tile using only stippling. For the string I overlapped two 8s. There is no pencil shading.

CZT Donna Hornsby's tangle Keenees uses tiny dots... basically stippling. When stippling in Keenees you can go darker into the corners, like this:

I thought it would be interesting to do some Zentangle tiles entirely in stippling. I found it has a sort of misty look. I think I could be a little bolder with areas that could be more black. Both these next tiles were done using a 01 pen, with the exception of Zedbra on the left which was done with a 08 just to see the difference. I used pencil for the shading.

Tangles: Florez, Keenees, Lotus Pods, Tripoli, Zedbra.

Tangles: Dutch Hourglass, Flukes, Flux, Miranda, Paradox

Next, I tried a normally-drawn tile, but did all the shading using stippling. I still much prefer the effect of pencil, but stippling can be a good option for shading should you find yourself with only a pen.

Tangles: Cubine, Golven, Hibred, Pearlz, Unyun and stippling

HOW TO?
Simply use your Sakura Micron (or similar) pen, hold it vertically (not slanted) and with a light touch tap the pen tip on the paper. Many, many, many, many, many times. :-)
More dots in one place gives darker areas. Fewer dots, lighter areas. You can use different sizes of pen for varying effects. If an area is to be quite dark you may want to begin with a larger pen to fill space faster, then switch to a tiny pen for finishing.

There is a little more about stippling from Canadian CZT Geneviève Crabe on tanglepatterns.com here.

Finally, here's a two minute video showing the development of a portrait done entirely in stippling. Prepare to be amazed!


Hero from Miguel Endara on Vimeo.

Fibonacci

LEONARDO PISANO FIBONACCI
(pronounced FIB-on-AT-chee)
Image from
http://www.gap-system.org/~history/PictDisplay/Fibonacci.html

Leonardo Pisano is better known by his nickname Fibonacci. He was born in Italy but educated in North Africa where his father held a diplomatic post. Fibonacci was taught mathematics in Bugia, an Algerian port city. He travelled widely with his father and recognised the enormous advantages of the mathematical systems used in the countries they visited. 

Fibonacci ended his travels around the year 1200 and returned to Pisa. There, he wrote a number of texts which played an important role in reviving ancient mathematical skills and made significant contributions of his own. Of his books, some no longer exist, but we still have copies of Liber abaci written in 1202. A mathematical problem in Liber abaci led to the introduction of the Fibonacci numbers and the Fibonacci sequence for which he is best remembered today:

"A certain man put a pair of rabbits in a place surrounded on all sides by a wall. How many pairs of rabbits can be produced from that pair in a year if it is supposed that every month each pair begets a new pair which from the second month on becomes productive?"

Trying to figure out things like this muddles my brain and neurons go off like holiday fireworks. I generally have to draw pictures with arrows, so I'll take it from the experts that the resulting sequence is 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144 and so on. In this sequence each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. It appears in many different areas of mathematics and science. It relates directly to the growth patterns of trees, shells, flowers and animals, the proportions of human bodies and what we perceive as visually appealing or beautiful, and so much more.

You may have noticed that the Zentangle kit contains 34 blank tiles. You can buy tiles alone in packs of 55.

Here is a beautiful video that gives an overall impression, and a bit of hard information, about the Fibonacci numbers and sacred geometry. (Go full screen. It's worth it.)

No mistakes

There are no mistakes in Zentangle. There is no eraser in life. That's why there's no eraser in the kit or at classes. Very interesting things often happen on the paper or canvas when I do something that wasn't what I intended or expected, but I keep going anyway. Deal with it. It's a challenge, an opportunity. Learn. Experiment. Have fun. Be amazed.

I enjoyed this 13 minute video of jazz musician Stefon Harris and his improvisational quartet. For him the bandstand is a sacred space. For me that's the paper or canvas, for a dancer or actor perhaps the rehersal hall or the stage. Stefon talks about there being no mistakes on the bandstand saying, "Every 'mistake' is an opportunity in jazz." Sometimes one member will play something that may seem like a mistake to the audience, but Stefon says that the 'mistake' there is that the other members didn't respond to it; it's an opportunity that was missed.

Many actions are perceived as mistakes only because we don't react to them appropriately. Perhaps it seems like a mistake because we try to ignore it rather than recognizing, accepting and developing in another direction. Eliminate "Gosh darn!" from your vocabulary and replace it with, "Hm, how 'bout that!" 

Enjoy the video; plus there's some really interesting music!

Strings of fire

Etsuko Ichikawa uses molten glass to create black and gray lines on white paper. Stand-alone Zentangle strings! You can read and see more about her here.

Gratitude and much more

Recently I was pointed to this TED talk and I just had to share! Here are ten minutes of stunning visual beauty, delightful faces, and philosophy we would all do well to embrace whole-heartedly.



You can see more of Louie Schwartzberg's amazing time-lapse photography projects on his website.

Man decorates basement with $10 worth of Sharpies

Whaaa?!?!?
Charlie Kratzer decorated his sizeable basement with $10 worth of Sharpie pens, and it's wonderful!
"People are amazed that with something as simple and inexpensive as a Sharpie, you can decorate a whole basement," says he, and I am! There are historical and literary personages, famous paintings and cartoon characters. There is a curving staircase and a fireplace. And lots more.
You can watch a 360 degree video of his drawing skills here.