Metaphors Galore! And the winner is...

Wowee! Many thanks to everyone who participated in my contest and gave me more to share with my zentangle students. You have my permission to scoot to the bottom and find out the winner. Just scoot back up and read all the other wonderful contributions! In some cases I have done some minor editing; I do hope you don't mind.

There were over 60 submissions from 28 people. Approximately two thirds were deemed really to be metaphors. Those that weren't nonetheless conveyed some really wonderful thoughts. 

Jill wrote that "The inability to draw a perfectly straight line is not a barrier to amazing art" - Zentangle is certainly proof of that. "Every Zentangle is perfectly imperfect." said 'Ajvanart', and it's probably just as true to say "imperfectly perfect.' :-)  Carol in Wales suggests that "Zentangle is focused freedom." Martha finds that "Zentangle illuminates the path of life - shining light onto, and exposing the surprises that emerge from the shadows." 

Sandra expressed what I think we all felt upon learning some of those tangles: "Zentangle is the complex made simple." Another contributor said that "Zentangles illuminate individuality." We see that every time we have a class put their finished tiles together on the table. Byrd advises, "Get lost in the tangle - a blissful moment of creator and creation being one."

Kit in Australia wrote that "Tangling is truly 'living in the present moment'.  Your world is reduced to a 3.5" square, to a section of that 3.5" square, to a tangle in a section of the 3.5" square, to a line in the tangle in the section of that 3.5" square. There's really no way to worry about the future or grieve the past when you achieve that level of concentration and focus." (It makes me want to sing: There's a line in the tangle in the section of the string in the tile on the table!)

A number of themes came up regularly:

Music and dance

Zentangle is singing silently. 

Zentangle is a visual song. 

Zentangle is a symphony on paper.
Zentangle is the instrument that lets you play the music in your soul.

Zentangle is fire and music.

Zentangle is dancing while sitting down. 

Zentangle is a ballet with ink.

Zentangle is ballet with a pen.

The brain and thinking

Zentangle is a massage for your mind.

Zentangle is a massage for your brain.

Zentangle is water cascading over my right brain.

Zentangle is a light in the dark, cluttered corners of my brain.
Zentangle is a step off the hamster wheel of the left brain.

Zentangle is a tune up for your think tank.

Food and nourishment

Zentangle is the dessert of the food that feeds my soul!

Zentangle is a smorgasbord on paper.

Zentangle is wine in an art form.

Zentangle is manna for the mind in the boring desert of the media-dictated world.  

Zentangle is the apple of the art world, because a zentangle a day keeps the doctor away!

Travel and movement
Zentangle is tai chi on paper.
Zentangle is an escape from reality.

Zentangle is my escape into silence.
Zentangle - a journey of intimate detail to exquisite beauty.
Zentangle is a space shuttle en route to the moon of creativity.

And others that defied categorization:

Zentangle is a captured moment.

Zentangle is my morning delight!
Zentangle is an addiction without drugs.
 Zentangle is the explosion of my inner artist onto paper!
Zentangle is a game you can't lose.

On March 20 I had a dozen favorites. 
I narrowed it down to seven. 
I decided I'd have to award some Runner-Up prizes too. Woohoo! So-o-o-o...

The Runners-Up are:

5. A zentangle is a commentary on change.  -from Kit Murdoch

4. A zentangle is the fingerprint of the Artist's soul.  -from Joni Feddersen

3. Zentangle is a bridge to my inner self.  -from Stephanie Kukla ("Phine")

2. Zentangle is a road with no wrong turns.  -from Shelly Beauch

1. Tangling is a ticket for an artistic journey.  -from Susan Stewart ("arts-4-all")

(Each of you, please send me your mailing address and your first three choices of artwork. I really hope I can send you at least your second choice, but we'll see.) 


Whenever this contest popped into my head over the past month, one submission frequently came to mind. I like the relationship it makes between the process of creating art and meditation. It may have something to do with my long connection to mandalas. I like the combination of auditory and visual. I like its simplicity. As it happens, the person who submitted it also submitted another favorite:

Zentangle is an art retreat on a paper tile.
  

May I have the envelope please?

*Dr-r-rummm  R-r-rol-l-l-l*

And

the

winner

is...

ZENTANGLE IS 'OM' WITH INK. 

Sarah Garrity!  

Which mandala do you want?  

Send me your address and it's on its way!

Thanks again everybody! 

YABBUT tangle instructions

The other day I came up with a new tangle. It went through a few phases before I arrived at this one that I like. A while ago some family members were having a conversation and one said, "...yeah, but..."  I thought, "Yabbut? Yabbut! That would be a great tangle name." I wrote it down, waiting for the right time.

Here's how to do Yabbut. In step 5, note that the small black squares co-ordinate with the black triangular areas already created; they make the third point of the triangle.

There's a tile that uses Yabbut in my 'Walking the Line' post here. Here's another example:

Tangles: Dex, Drupe, Hibred, Knightsbridge, Up and Across, Yabbut

Walking the Line

The Diva's 14th (!) weekly challenge is to create a Zentangle tile using only straight lines. There are plenty of tangles that use only straight lines, but we could also try straightening out some tangles that are normally curvy.  I did straight-line strings too.

I find, with these challenges, that if I do two or three (or four...) I get a better handle on the concept. I wasn't very happy with my first attempt, even though I used Drupe and it had a circular feel. Here are my more successful attempts: numbers two and three.

Tangles: Cubine variant, Dex, Hibred, Yincut

Tangles: Cubine and variants, Dex, Ixorus, Munchin, Rick's Paradox, Yabbut

I'd also like to introduce a new tangle: YABBUT. You can see it in the lower left of the second tile. How-to and why 'Yabbut' in the next post. Stay tuned.

PARTAY!

It's almost the official first day of spring! We've had a number of melty days here in Saskatoon but it could get cold again; you never know with March. In some cultures the spring equinox signals the new year. Somehow, the first day of spring just makes sense for a new year, rather than the middle of winter!

I woke in the night not long ago and had this idea for a tangle, an extremely simple tangle with basically one step! It looks rather festive so I'm calling it Partay. It's in the background of my title tile below.

As Baha'is, my family and I will be celebrating the New Year on March 21... having a PARTAY! We'll be starting the year 168. This is a holy day for Baha'is so family and friends are welcome to join the festivities!

Here in Saskatoon, on Sunday evening we'll have a pot-luck dinner and the organizers have asked people to bring their own dishes and cutlery to avoid the garbage produced by disposable things. Following that there will be musical presentations, a PowerPoint show of events of the past year, dancing and games. It's a family-friendly event with no alcohol and I expect there may be 100 people attending. Should be fun!

It ain't no Fabergé egg

I love sparkle. And glitter. Iridescent paint. Rainbows. Stones with mica. Metallic thread. Shiny things. I must have magpies as distant cousins. I sometimes need to restrain myself when putting gems on my artwork. That's one reason I opt for very tiny gems; it helps keep me from going over the top.

I was doing this drawing a while back and decided to heck with it. Over the top we go! Gems galore, large and small. Glitter paint. Iridescent paint. Gotta get it out of my system from time to time. My tangle Gingham is at the bottom.

It's much more sparkly in real life, but still, it ain't no Fabergé egg so I call it "Fabergéain't".

Fabergéain't - 8"x10", pen and ink, colored pencil, acrylic paint, gems gems and more gems
(c) 2010 Margaret Bremner

A bit gauche but not sinister

Entirely with my non-dominant hand, you say? I've been waiting for this challenge! I've been wanting to try this method, but not quite enough to go ahead unprovoked.

In the end it was great! I noticed a few things:

1. I turned the tile a lot more than I usually do.
2. Curved lines are way harder than straight lines. Circles are quite tricky.
3. I had to move my lamp to the other side of the table, which caused me to twist in my chair.
4. Filling in black was difficult! I tended to move my whole hand/arm rather than just my fingers. Had to keep a vice-like grip on that pen. :-)
5. I thought the shading would be harder than it was.
6. It took me a lot longer.

In my first attempt I used tried-and-true tangles, ones I'm familiar and comfortable with, and also fairly simple. I sometimes like the wobbly line effect in mine and others' tiles. I also like the slightly hairy look it has with the occasional stray lines!

In my second attempt I tried other tangles, a little more complicated. It seems appropriate to display these at a slightly out of control angle. :-)

This challenge gave me the opportunity to empathize with those with MS, Parkinson's Disease, or tremors. It also put me in the mental space of a child learning to wield a pencil or an adult who doesn't do art.


On a tangent:
I find it interesting how some English words have roots on the left side, and they're generally negative. We use gauche (the French word for left) to mean unsophisticated, lacking culture or un-politic. Adroit (from the French, literally "at/to the right") means skillful. We use sinister (Latin for left) to mean nasty or sneaky. We use dextrous (from the Latin 'dexter': right) to mean having fine motor skills.

Nick Veasey's X-ray photography

Nick Veasey produces wonderful x-ray photographs of insects, fashion, toys, and more. The x-ray technique, resulting in layers of transparency, gives the works a great delicacy, even for an image of a backhoe.

All the images on his site are locked so I can't show you a sample, but go here to have a look. Click on the 'Projects' label in the upper right corner to see the images.

CONTEST UPDATE

Wow, there are some great ideas and connections flowing in! I now have about a dozen favorites, up from five not too long ago.
You have until midnight Sunday wherever you are to send entries to the metaphor contest. You can enter as often as you want and you might win art!