This amazing Zenbutton was created by Amanda! I love the tangle she used around the outside edge!
Zentangle drawn on an Official Zentangle tile, using blue and black, Micron pens. Shading done with colored pencil.
Tangles: Fragment C15 Fragment L16 Fragment B11
This tile has been sitting in my drawer, partially done, for months. I found it when I was looking for unfinished tiles.
For some reason, when I first added the Squirmy tangle to a few sections, I really didn’t like it, and felt like I had ruined it.
When I pulled it out yesterday, I thought, “Why didn’t I finish this? It’s not bad!” So I added more Squirmy and finished filling in all the sections with Hypnotic. I used both Copic markers and graphite for the shading. And added a bit of white pencil highlights.
Sketchbooks.
Do you use a sketchbook? If you do, is it big? A favorite size is 9" x 12". They are great, if you generally draw in a larger format.
But I think a smaller size works much better if you regularly tangle on standard-sized tiles. The reason why is because you can turn the sketchbook easily, just like you turn your tile as you draw. I also like the smaller size because it fits in a pocket or my purse, so I always have one with me!
When you use a grid-type tangle, you don’t have to do it in a perfect grid shape! Here, I wanted to see what it would look like to use Bales, but make a fairly wonky grid, possibly with some perspective to it. So I made part of the lines curved, and varied the distance between the lines, just to see what it would look like.
This type of exercise is good to do every so often. It gives you a lot of good meditation because you don’t have to think that much about the tangle itself… it’s the same throughout the tile. It also illustrates what happens with variations of size and angle of a basic grid tangle. And the end result is an interesting tile!
This beautiful Zenbutton was created by Amanda. I really love all the different fragments that she chose. I think there’s a great balance of light and dark! She’s tried some that I haven’t been brave enough to tackle yet!
Zentangle drawn on an Official Zentangle tile, using a black, Pigma Micron pen. Shading done with graphite pencil.
Tangles: Fragment D1 Fragment K5 Fragment G7 Fragment U3
I’m building a library of tiles done with a single fragment from the Zentangle Primer. Today, I decided to tackle J15, using blue and brown ink. I love the effect this tangle produced when used en masse. The large, interlocking circles receded to stand behind the blue, web-like shapes, so I simply accented the illusion by shading with the appropriate colored pencil.
Creating tiles like this, with fragments, is kind of like discovering buried treasure. You try to visualize what they will look like, but even if you understand the pattern, actually seeing it is still surprising!
Wevuz fever.
She was tired of being grounded because of the illness. She never should have gone to the liquid planet. But watching the merfolk swim, with their beautiful coloring fascinated her. It was the height of tourist season while she was there. So many beings from so many strange places, all sharing the pathogens from their home worlds. Something was bound to happen.
Zentangle drawn on Strathmore Vellum Bristol using a black, Micron pen. Shading done with graphite pencil.
Do a little.
I’m still have a little trouble getting back into the swing of my daily routine. So I did this first thing yesterday morning, just so that I would accomplish something. I find that I can always fall back on the basic tile, that we all make in our first Zentangle class for a comfortable, meditative experience. In this case, I changed it up a little by using a black, 3Z tile. Not everything we create has to be a master work of art!
We are made of stars.
This tile is actually from 2010. It is the first time I drew the tangle Afterglow. I liked the idea of not anchoring just a single iteration and instead, creating many, growing out of and around each other. At the time, I had no idea how to shade it, so I just didn’t.
I am thinking about repeating this tile, but with all the experience I have now added to the design.
SpundalaZ, second round!
Before I get to an explanation of the picture, I want to let you all know why there were no posts last week. My husband and I managed to get the flu, lucky us! We’ve run the whole gamut: aches and pains, fever, runny nose, cough, and general yuck! We haven’t had it in years, so that may be why we got hit pretty hard, but it really knocked me out for the whole week. And I’m still not cured. Yesterday, my nose started running like a faucet. Hopefully, I haven’t caught a different virus on top of what I already had!
Growth.
Yesterday was Memorial Day. It was a federal holiday and a day off of work for my husband. So rather than spend a lot of time working on a complicated drawing, I went with something fun, yet meditative. I like the contrast of the organic, leaf-like tangle on top of an angular, geometric base.
Zentangle drawn on Strathmore Vellum Bristol using a black Pigma Micron pen and a cool grey Copic Multiliner. Shading done with graphite pencil.
Button, button.
Amanda has jumped on the Zenbutton band wagon! She’s done a few others, but this one is one of my favorites so far. I really wanted to share it with everyone so you could see more things that can be done with fragments.
In just a couple more weeks, Amanda and I will be heading to Rhode Island for CZT 30. We’re so excited, and we hope to learn lots to share with all of you here, when we come back. While we are gone, make sure you follow us on Facebook (there’s a link over there on the top, right side of this page!) We will be posting pics of our adventures for you!
Fragments, as introduced in the Zentangle Primer, are a really interesting and powerful way of creating patterns. Essentially, they are designs that fit into a grid. I’ve already done a few of these, which you can see here . I really love playing with the very geometric patterns. Drawing them gives me practice with being precise. But the real magic comes when it’s time to shade! It’s amazing how a simple design can suddenly have so much depth and structure just from the addition of some pencil.
String theory.
She knew that diving into the black hole to escape the pirates would be risky. But she really didn’t know how wild the ride would be. The view screen showed her the strings of realities she could follow. Which one should she choose?
Zentangle drawn on Strathmore Vellum Bristol using a black, Micron pen. Shading done with Copic marker, colored and graphite pencil.
Tangles: Coral Marasu Scute Scena
Life saver.
She tossed the ring out into the ocean, not knowing if it would work. This was no ordinary water. It was a sea of freezing chemicals that a human could not survive. Even the plants (yes, there were plants in it!) were oddly floating along the surface in areas. In some places, plumes of frozen gasses erupted into the air and in others, chunks of ice floated. This was a body of water like none she had seen before!
SpundalaZ.
Yesterday, I reviewed various tools that could be used to create the base for a SpundalaZ. Today, I’m showing you one done on one of the bases, this one.
I used colored pencil to push the coloring a little more towards violet in various areas, and also added the violet coloring to the background with Distress ink and colored pencil. But you should still be able to see where the rings and color changes are.
Warning: Lots of images ahead!
If you are an active tangler, you probably know about ZenButtons. I’ve posted a few that I’ve done recently . But do you know about SpundalaZ? These are another type of Zentangle button, but they are created over a base design. This post is about how that base design can be created.
The basic premise is that you need to be able to rotate the tile around the center point, and while it is rotatating, create greyscale or color concentric areas on the tile.
If you recall, I posted a similar tile a couple of days ago. It was the same tangle, in almost the same size and layout, but drawn with black ink on a white tile. That tile was drawn in July, 2010, when I was first learning how to tangle.
I decided to recreate that tile, but using everything that I’ve learned since then. To begin with, I reversed the coloring and used white ink on a black tile. That gave me the opportunity to play with highlights and shading. You might think that you can’t really “shade” on a black tile… but you actually can. Most paper isn’t blackest black. In this case, I was able to find a colored pencil and a black Copic that were even darker than the paper. Even though you might not notice it without studying the image closely, those shadows are there, and they do make a difference!
This is my second tile from Eni's Fragmented Windows lesson . I really wanted to try this in blue because it reminded me so much of floor plans. I also made the grid a bit smaller than the first one. I’m not sure if I like it better, or not. I did have to use a finer tipped pen to draw the fragments because the squares were so tiny!
Zentangle drawn on Strathmore Vellum Bristol using blue and dark blue, Pigma Micron pen. Shading done with Copic marker, colored pencil and graphite pencil.