Sometimes, I sit down to practice something in my small sketch book, and my pen has different ideas than I do!
Here, I was going to practice various tangles… and a “shapie” family just flowed out! There are still some tangles… can you spot them?
Small sketchbook page, drawing done with Sakura Pigma Micron pen.
Tangles: Bumper Fescu Mooka Printemps Springle
How do you challenge yourself? As an artist I’m always looking for different things to try as ways to grow and expand my skills.
Here, this tile was drawn entirely with my left hand. I even signed and dated the back with my left hand.
Why?
Well, first of all, I wanted to see if I could. In addition, drawing with your non-dominant hand builds new neural pathways in your brain. It also challenges you to look at things in a different way, and helps you to understand how your students, those that use a differnt hand to draw, are challenged to follow your instructions!
Another Beginner’s class tile #2! A fascinating thing about the Zentangle method is that no matter how many times you draw a particular tile, it will always be slightly different!
Zentangle drawn on an Official Zentangle tile using a black, Micron pen. Shading done with graphite pencil.
Tangles: Bales Ennies Fescu Printemps
This is my Tuesday morning Zentangle meditation class. These people are so wonderful to be with! They love learning, tangling and each other which makes being with them a total joy.
This week, they used an “A” shaped string and learned Bales, Ennies, Fescu and Printemps. The two tiles (one unfinished) in the lower right are mine.
I love how each of them is not afraid to try whatever variation they think of. They are adventurous spirits who are fearless students!
Perhaps, the Universe is pointing the way?
The next step of Beginner’s tangles evolving.
Zentangle drawn on an Official Zentangle tile using a black, Micron pen. Shading done with graphite pencil.
Tangles: Bales Ennies Fescu Printemps
Matt sent me this tile yesterday to post here. I’m always fascinated by the unusual elements he adds to his tangles! Sometimes it is his own interpretation of a tangle, sometimes it’s a tangle that is totally new to me, and sometimes it’s just a small, added tweak that captures my attention.
Zentangle drawn on Strathmore Vellum Bristol using a black, Micron pen. Shading done with graphite pencil.
Tangles: Fescu Pokeroot Striping
Amanda created this tile with the help of her family! She has four children that range in age from 7 to 17 years old.
She started by creating the string and then, each child would roll a dice and select a random tangle. The child would also choose where the tangle would go in the string.
The kids got a big kick out of challenging Mom, and they had a ton of fun. In addition, the final Zentangle came out great!
Happy New Year!
This Zentangle was created while going through all of my metallic and glitter gel pens. While they generally all have a reasonable shelf life, I have some that are more than 10 years old. They don’t work, the ink has separated, and some have even leaked. It was time to start fresh in the new year. So I used the tangles Aah and Pepper to create fireworks in the sky, representing the New Year’s celebrations as I tested the various pens. Unfortunately, they don’t all show up well when scanned, but you get the idea!
This Zentangle was done by Matthew Higbee. Matt is a 17-year-old high school student and a second-year art student. You’ve seen another tangle he did, here , previously, if you’ve been following this blog.
I love that he decided to take off on his own, and used tangles that we haven’t been practicing yet. I think he made good choices, and the tangles have nice contrast between circular and angular.
Day 2.
For this day, we are adding three new tangles to our repertoire: Fescu, Nekton and Knight’s Bridge. We were also instructed to practice making various strings.
For Amanda’s tile above, as you can see, her string is much more complex than on Day 1. She also used areas of repeated tangles to tie everything together.
Matthew did a wonderfully curvy string that gave him an interesting open space to fill with graceful Fescu! He decided to forgo any shading on his tile this time, because he felt it made his tile from the first day too muddy. I will be seeing him on Saturday, so I will give him a couple of shading tricks that should help him out.
Portals.
So many choices. Where will they all lead. Some appear to be places with natural growth and others more rigid, enclosed. So many choices.
Zentangle drawn on Strathmore Vellum Bristol using a black, Micron pen. Shading done with graphite pencil.
Tangles: Bucky Drupe Evoke Fescu Frondous Hollibaugh Sedgling Stoic Ticings Tortuca Vega
Window box.
As I sit in the chair by the window, perhaps this will be what I see.
Zentangle drawn on an Official Zentangle tile using a black, Micron pen. Shading done with graphite pencil.
Tangles: Aah Bumper Ennies Fescu Keeko Meer Nzeppel
Color.
This was the first Zentangle that I ever used color on. I even used my markers to create the shading. I didn’t do another full color Zentangle until this year, because I really didn’t like the way this came out, at the time. It just seemed too alien for a Zentangle. Now, I don’t mind color and actually enjoy it once in a while!
Zentangle drawn on Official Zentangle tile using a black, Micron pen. Coloring done with Tombow markers.
Something fishy.
This tile didn‘t start out to be an underwater scene. I was trying to decide which tangle to put in the space where the “eye” is. In the process of rotating the tile around and thinking, I realized it looked a bit like an underwater scene and the Shattuck reminded me of scales. So I added the “eye” (which is now a tangle called Caviar!) and the Fescu to look a bit like a fin. That completed the illusion for me.
Leftie-Louie.
This tile was done entirely with my non-dominant hand. That includes the shading and even the date and signature on the back. I was actually surprised at how well it turned out!
Zentangle drawn on Official Zentangle tile using a black, Micron pen.
Tangles: Crescent Moon Echoism Fescu Florz Nzeppel Pokeleaf Tipple
Back Yard.
Is this a view of the back yard from an odd angle? I couldn‘t resist adding the legs to the Worms and hanging the Bulb Lanterns from a hanger. And that gave the tile an outdoor feel!
Zentangle drawn on Official Zentangle tile using a black, Micron pen.
Tangles: Bulb Lantern Fescu Onamato Pods Unyun Worms
Silliness.
Every once in a while, I think my brain falls into some kind of alternate reality of silliness. I wasn‘t sure how I was going to tie all the different random tangles into the string I chose. So I just started drawing with the Btl-Joos… and things kind of evolved from there. The end result was weird but fun!
Zentangle drawn on Official Zentangle tile using a black, Micron pen.
For your heart‘s healing, Lily.
This week, one of the Zentangle Facebook Groups that I belong to asked the members to draw tiles using tangles created by Lily Moon. This request came because she posted about a very difficult time in her life on her blog . I had never used any of her tangles before, so I chose Amphora.
Zentangle drawn on Strathmore Bristol Vellum using a black Micron pen.
Experimental.
This paper is from the same package as the tan I used for yesterday‘s drawing. I like the color, but it turned out to be rather difficult to tangle on. I ended up using metallic and glitter gel pens. Unfortunately, they don‘t show up well on the image here, but it really does look a bit better in person.
Zentangle drawn on cocolate cardstock using metallic Pentel Slicci gel pens, Kaiser metallic and glitter gel pens, and Zig Wink of Stella glitter pens. Highlights and shadows done with colored pencil.
Echoes.
I think the multiple echoes that tie up this tile are the tangle and the circular repetitions. The shapes of the Marasu and the Cogwheel echo each other. Putting the Fescu on either side of the center creates balance. Finally having the top and bottom Pinwheels echo provide a nice contrast to the more organic designs.
Zentangle drawn on Official Zentangle tile using a black, Micron pen.
Tangles: Cogwheel Fescu Linked Marasu Msst Pinwheels Verdigogh Worms Chartz Static