Enthusiastic Artist

Ebony and Ivory

2013-05-23T18:22:00.000-06:00

Black and white. Half and half. 50/50. That's this week's challenge from the DivaCZT: try to keep the artwork in equal balance.

I haven't had much success with this (maybe I was trying too hard) although I don't mind my first effort. I chose tangles that were fairly equal black and white, but had to made a few adjustments once they were on the paper! I also tried out TanglePatterns string #53.

Tangles: Bunzo, Firecracker, Knightsbridge, Paisley Boa, Unyun

Then I thought of using a white tile and a black tile, half and half. I eyeballed a shape that looked to be about half the tile and cut it out with an Xacto knife. Then I drew an identical shape on the other tile and cut it out. Then I taped the black shape into the white tile and vice versa. Cool. I like the idea and may use it again, but I'm not particularly happy with the results in terms of this challenge.

The first one here is the white shape in a black tile. The equal black and white made the whole tile too monotoned so I grayed some of the background. Having darkened that, I though I should lighten something else, thus the white dots in Bunzo (which I like!). Interesting, but still too monotone. On to the next one.

Tangles: Bunzo and Demi

Here's the black shape in the white tile. I did one tangle a much larger scale than the other, which I think helps a lot. I again added some gray on the background, and did some white highlights on some of the black squares. I found that if I let the white ink dry really well and went over it a second time it was whiter. I love what I've been seeing others do for this challenge and I'd like to tackle it again later.

Tangles: Bunzo and Dyzzee

But here... here's my idea of Ebony and Ivory in true perfection. These are the children of a friend, a fair-haired, fair-skinned Canadian married to a lovely dark Haitian. Aren't they absolutely gorgeous?!?!?

More Schway

2013-05-21T19:37:00.000-06:00

It turns out I was rather captivated by this tangle. I originally wasn't sure whether I'd really like it or not. I felt I wanted there to be more to it and wondered about putting dark tangles in the dark arrows. I pulled out two bookmark starts and Schway'd them.

Tangles, besides Schway: Black Pearlz, Bunzo, Camelia, Drobbles,
Knightsbridge, stripes with highlights, etc..

I do a lot of wonky houses and buildings and it struck me how the squat-er arrow shapes resembled simple house shapes. I tried that idea on a regular size tile.

Tangles, besides Schway: Black Pearlz, Bunzo, Drobbles,
Flux, Knightsbridge, Paizel, etc..

Kuke

2013-05-16T18:20:00.002-06:00

This was a fortuitous challenge. I've had the step-outs for Kuke near my desk since it came out, wanting to try it... soon... Here are my efforts for the Diva's weekly challenge 118.

Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Cruffle, Jonqal,
Knightsbridge, Kuke, Pearlz

Tangles: Crescent Moon, Florez, Kuke

Black and white zendalas

2013-05-14T10:32:00.001-06:00

Tangles: Baton, Black Pearlz, Going Down, Paisley Boa,
and elements of Crescent Moon,

The next is from a small mandala template I made many years ago and recently rediscovered.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Lamar, Pearlz, Paisley Boa, Paushaluv, Tortuca,

With this white flower I had quite a battle with myself to leave so much untangled white space! It's not my normal modus operandi. :)

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Deelish, Knightspeak, Msst, N'zeppl

Schway

2013-05-10T18:54:00.000-06:00

A new official tangle (Schway) and another weekly challenge (#117).

I had a tile with a spirally string. I thought it would be interesting to have the arrows go in and out of the spiral... but I got them oriented in the wrong direction! Oh well. Live and learn. Now I know that the arrows will go perpendicular to the original lines.

Tangles: Diva Dance, Knightsbridge, Pearlz, Schway

I also had an ATC with some random gold swooshes handy so I decided to try to fit Schway's arrows among them. I also used colored ink, white ink, gold ink, and tried a Sharpie and a black Identi-pen to try to cover some of the gold (neither really worked).

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Gneiss, Knightsbridge, Romanancy, Schway, Tipple

Flower of Life

2013-05-09T11:26:00.000-06:00

The traditional Flower of Life patterns is lovely, and can just keep on growing in any direction. All you need to do the circles is a compass, but it can also be accomplished using a lid. I tried this on a zendala tile and it developed into something quite lovely.

Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Lacing, Pearlz, Tripoli, Wud and more

I wondered how it would look if I started with an off-center circle. I had a tile with some gold wash so I used that, and various 'brown' inks. I wanted the one full circle to stand out a bit.

Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Cruffle, Knase,
Paisley Boa, Pearlz and more

I really liked that one, so I pulled out a zendala tile with an all-over purple wash and tried the same thing. The purple acrylic paint I used is a bit dusky, and gave the whole thing too much grayness for my liking, so I got out a white pen and white pencil and added highlights.

Tangles: Betweed, Black Pearlz, Cruffle, Fleurette/Florez hybrid,
Knase, Pearlz, Printemps

I was finding the size of the sections somewhat restrictive - I wanted more space to tangle! I'm going to try a flower of life design on a larger square paper. Stay tuned.

A little aside: Molly Hollibaugh designed a tangle called Fife which is inspired by, or reminiscent of, the Flower of Life pattern. You can see the drawing instructions in the Zentangle newsletter here.

A tangled tree

2013-05-05T17:12:00.000-06:00

I had done a turquoise and green wash, and tangled this tree a while ago but couldn't figure out what to do with the background. I felt that more tangles would detract from the tree. In the end I decided simply to stay with the washiness of the background, adding a little more wash and some colored pencil enhancement. It may need a bit of fine-tuning, but I'm quite pleased with it!

This tangled tree is done on 8"x10" illustration board.
(c) 2013, Margaret Bremner

Blind sighted

2013-05-02T13:25:00.001-06:00

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

Three color zendalas

2013-04-28T21:38:00.001-06:00

This blue-green one begins with one of Zentangle's pre-strung tiles. I did a turquoise acrylic wash overall, then tangled.

Tangles: Lamar, Romanancy, Snugz, Tipple, and stripes

This golden lotus began with me trying to use up a gold leaf pen that was drying out. Then I strung a loopy flower thing over the dry gold ink and started tangling. I had a lot of trouble wanting to add more gold, and yet leave the petals fairly white. Then I had the idea to put a gold wash over some of them. There are also some tiny gold gems in the center. Unfortunately, the gold and the gems don't scan very well; it's nicer in real life.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Braze, Copada, Msst (sort of), Munchin and tiny gems

Some of you may think you recognize this piece from Suzanne McNeill's book Zentangle 7, page 10 :), and you'd be right, almost. This is the same piece, but I've added to it: darkened some areas, yellowed much of the orange, added a few highlight colors, added colored gems, and added Many Moons around the outside to the edge of the paper.

Tangles: Amaze, Firecracker, Many Moons, Starburst, Tripoli and tiny gems

Chez Amanda

2013-04-24T17:38:00.001-06:00

A challenge for Earth Day, or Amanda as Laura the DivaCZT's son likes to call the little blue planet. In my blog post about some postcards I'd made for an Earth Day swap I mentioned how I'm awed by the immensity of space and our tiny planet in it. A little blue dot. I went with that concept again. First, a view of us from 'way out there somewhere. I can't take credit for that lovely three-sphere layout idea; that's Maria's, here.

Tangles: Jemz, (a varied and very unexpected version of) Kuke, Tipple

Then I thought of leaving Earth in a spaceship, with those doors and windows that close the way a camera shutter does. (My husband's been watching Star Trek lately; I wonder if that had anything to do with it?) I used a mandala template (#51) from Erin, the Bright Owl.

Tangles: oddly, not many really, if any, but there are elements of Baton, Cubine,
even Y-not (or Etcher) and Msst

I wonder if Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, under new management might be renamed Chez Amanda.

JEMZ - a new tangle

2013-04-22T20:49:00.000-06:00

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Jemz, Knightspeak, Paisley Boa, Paizel

I've been (*ahem*) wasting too much time recently playing a game on my phone. BUT... it inspired this tangle pattern! Ha! Vindicated!

Jemz is a square grid tangle and begins much like Florz, but this time make larger black squares rather than fairly small ones. You want to end up with a white octagon in each (former) square.

Tangles: Firecracker, Jemz, 'Nzeppel, Tidings

BTW: It's getting harder and harder to keep track of tangles and names. If this pattern has been presented elsewhere, or if the name has been used earlier, please let me know!

Tangled Trees

2013-04-18T20:28:00.001-06:00

That's the title of a large piece of Zentangle inspired art I completed recently. I showed it at a recent weekend art show and sale with a group of artists I work with.

You can see some of the first tiles here. I just kept going and did many more tiles that could be taken for trunks and branches. Each tile was done individually, without consideration for how, or if, it would link with another tile. Once I had a small stack of tiles completed - probably about 50 - I began to arrange them.

I placed fuller, 'heavier' ones at the bottom, getting lighter going up. I didn't want everything to match spot on. It's more interesting with some breaks and gaps. However, some of the gaps were too much. In those cases I added more tangles, sometimes in gray so they'd seem to be more in the background.

Arranging the paper tiles.

It ended up being six tiles square. I mounted them on a 24" square canvas and tipped and tilted the tiles for some irregularity. I expected simply to paint the background canvas white, but no. Nothing is as simple as you expect! Of course, the Tiepolo paper that Zentangle uses isn't really white, more of a pale cream. So I had to mix paint to match. Well, that was actually simpler than I expected, and I now have a small container of what I'm calling "Meringue" color, should I need more later. Here are two detail pictures.

This tile is in the bottom row, third from the left.

This tile is in the third row, third from the left.

My little corner of the art show and sale. I sold 23 pieces!

I'm thinking of another forest, maybe in browns.

Stars in your eyes

2013-04-16T17:09:00.000-06:00

This week's challenge from the DivaCZT leaves lots of room for possibility. Stars. Just incorporate stars somehow. Star tangles, a star string, little stars, big stars. I chose a pre-strung Zendala tile that looked very starry (six points). I've been botching Auraknot a lot lately so I decided I was going to do it right for once. :)

Tangles: Afterglo, Auraknot, Pearlz, Starburst variation,
and elements of Munchin

You can't see it here but I added a bit of clear glitter ink which dolled it up a bit.

Ooooo! Ahhhh!

2013-04-15T00:30:00.000-06:00

Today I want to share a few things that I find inspiring, in a zentangle sort of way. Enjoy!

This picture was sent to me by a friend and Zentangle student. I don't know where she saw it.

For a whole different (read: tangley) take on

anatomical drawings

you must check out this posting from Alex Konahin,

an artist in the Netherlands.

I'm still enthralled by Ernst Haeckel's renderings of radiolaria.
Check out this earlier post of mine.

Feast on some wonderful, black-and-white,

tangley mandalas

on Jane Snedden Peever's blog Dream It Then Create It.

She hasn't posted for well over a year and but the post history is a delight.

And finally, just for fun, enjoy this dance video.
(With thanks to CZT MaryAnn Scheblein-Dawson for sending it.)

Notice how one pair of tights is shared between two dancers,

so each person has one black leg and one white one. :)

Brilliant!

It's Hip to be Square

2013-04-10T21:27:00.000-06:00

Another zentangle challenge from our lovely Diva, this time to do borders within borders within borders... that's the string. I love many of the tangles that go in lines so I was looking forward to this.

I started with one of my current favorite tangles, Paisley Boa. Then remembered a previous favorite, Fohbraid. I found that the real challenge with this challenge was going around the corners!

Tangles, out to in: Zedbra, Purslane, Paisley Boa, Fohbraid,
Perfs, Knightspeak, Going Down

I added Zedbra at the very end, deciding that I wanted the whole tile covered. That made me think of other tangles I've designed and I decided to do another using only my own tangles.

Tangles, out to in: Chebucto, Lamar, Seljuk, Many Moons,
Copada, Black Pearlz (well, just one)

3 zendala dares

2013-04-05T12:29:00.001-06:00

Every week Erin, the Bright Owl, post a new mandala template on her blog. Here are three I've done recently.

Number 30

Tangles: Deelish, Knightspeak, Paisley Boa (with leaves), Tipple

Number 45

Tangles: C-Scape, Cubine, Flux, Fohbraid, Jalousie, Pearlz, Purslane, Ragz
spirals, and things that just felt right at the time.

Number 16 (x2)

Tangles: Knightsbridge Aura, Not-a-Knot, Paisley Boa, Pearlz, Rounding and more

Others' spheres

2013-04-03T20:47:00.000-06:00

A while ago I posted a couple of templates for doing zendalas that look like spheres. That post is here. The idea appealed to some of you and I said I'd show a selection on my blog. Prepare to be inspired!

This was created by Lesley Scott-Gillilan, a CZT in Indiana.

Homage to Jazzy, a neighbor's dog, by CZT Jane Menard in Ontario.

This one is done by Cathy, in the USA.
I think her choice of Dex makes the sphere look as if it's
coming out at us but with little squares going in. Cool.

Cindy Teigland used Knightsbridge and Anne Marks' tangle Camelia.

Here's an interesting variation from Lila Popcheff.
She's used the square grid but done the tangles in strips.

CZT Sue Clark used the tangle Flourish, but found it was
just too tricky in those stretched shapes at the edges.
The effect is still there.

Catherine Langsdorf created this one for a recent Diva challenge.
Love the different things she did at the edges!

Remember, if you try this send me a photo (or tell me where to find it on the Internet). If there are enough more I'll post another selection!

Earth Day swap

2013-04-01T11:20:00.003-06:00

I'm involved in an Earth Day postcard swap among some of the CZTs. Earth Day is the fourth day of the fourth month, so we were asked to make four original cards. All the tangles used were to begin with the letters E-A-R-T-H. I only goofed a few times. :S

I'm quite impressed by outer space and how our planet is a tiny blue speck in the immensity of everything, so I did four little blue planets. They'll be in the mail tomorrow.

Tangles: somewhere above you'll find:
E - Emingle, Echoism
A - Assunta, Afterglo
R - Ragz
T - Tipple, Tripoli, Tidings, Tortuca
H - Hurakán, Hibred, Hurly Burly
(goofs: Black Pearlz, Knase, Seljuk)

Mandala rescue

2013-03-25T20:01:00.001-06:00

Last week I showed some zendala tiles done with a template that looks like a sphere. I didn't like the last one I showed, so I cut out the middle and promised to show you what I did with it.

On the left is the zendala tile with a white border. I thought the sphere was
too dark (and messy) at the edges so I cut out a smaller circle, shown on the right.

I've been working on this mandala for some time. It's 14" square. I'd made three rescue attempts already but I think this last one is working! I've added some collage and a fair amount of white ink.

I had started drawing a center (shown above), but found I preferred the cut-out from the zendala tile there and so did my daughter and husband! Coincidentally (really?) it was within a millimeter or two of the size of the middle of the mandala! But I also liked what I'd already drawn. This mandala is on illustration board, so with an X-Acto knife I carefully cut around the circle and peeled it off. Now I have another lovely little tangled circle to do something with.

Mandala with the original center peeled off.

I glued the new center on, and also changed some too-dark-reddish areas towards the corners. (Now they're too light! Oh well, I can deal with that.)

Mandala with its new center, still not finished.

It's not finished yet. There's still a bit more collage, some fine-tuning and some touching up to do.

Sphere look zendalas

2013-03-22T13:10:00.002-06:00

I was cleaning out some files the other day (I did throw things out, honest I did!) and discovered two templates for drawing 2D works that look like spheres, especially if the edges of the circle are darker/shaded. The templates fit on a zendala tile although they were a wee bit small. I thought it would be easiest to use square grid tangles and tried a few.

Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, and mainly Rosé variations

Tangles: Camelia variation

Tangles: Assunta variations and Black Pearlz

I had started one with a currently favorite tangle, Snorr, from Sandy Hunter, CZT (I have yet to figure out all the lovely variations she shows!) but it just didn't seem to have enough variety. I wondered if color would help and opted for the rainbow transition I used earlier. It was improved, but I really didn't like how dark (and messy) the outer edge was. So, I used a compass and drew a smaller circle on the back and cut it out. Here's the before and after:

I didn't know what I was going to do with that little circle until I remembered a piece I'd been working on, off and on. More on that next week.

Go ahead! Try this at home!

Here is the link to a 2-page PDF with the two templates I used, resized slightly to fit better on a Zendala tile. It takes some brain gymnastics when the squares become less and less square towards the edges. The tangle won't fit well there; just don't tell anybody. Very large thanks to both Erin and Roy for helping me figure out how to do that link thing! (I learned something. Yay!)

Have fun! And if you do try this at home, send me a photo and I'll post a selection here.

Box begone! (Diva challenge 110)

2013-03-20T14:47:00.000-06:00

Woohoo! Permission to go wild! These tiles don't look wild at all, but I did try something I've been thinking about for a while. It's a technique used by colored pencil artists. A design is impressed into the paper and when you draw over it with colored pencil the design is left white. Like this:

I wondered how that would work with tangles. I had two ideas. The first was to do it as described. The second was to impress the patterns and then go over the whole thing with water-soluable pencil. I expected the water (and color) would sink into the impressions and be darker. Once the patterns were visible I darkened selected areas.

Tangles: Firecracker, Giotto, Paisley Boa, Paradox, Tripoli, Whyz

Tangles: Coaster, Crescent Moon, Gneiss, Hollibaugh, Munchin, Providence

Well, the water idea didn't work very well! This whole concept might be better with color instead of gray, or in a larger size. The more detailed tangles are less successful.

If you want to try this (probably with colored pencils!) here are two methods:

Use waxed paper and a hard lead (white) pencil. Put the waxed paper over your drawing paper and draw on the waxed paper, pressing reasonably hard so that you impress the drawing paper. Remove the waxed paper and, lightly at first, color over the designs on your drawing paper using the side of the pencil. The white pencil is just in case you break through the waxed paper. If you're careful you could use an ordinary hard lead pencil, I'd say 4H or harder. This method is what I used for the colored sample above.

Use the pointy end of a compass to impress the designs directly into the paper. Depending on your paper, this may tend to tear or shred. Test first. This method is mainly what I used for the tiles above.

Having tried both I can tell you that it's much easier to do curving lines with the pencil and waxed paper than using the compass point. You could also try your thumbnail, an unbent paper clip, a pointy knife...

Compass with pencil and point, Verithin brand white pencil, and
waxed paper with some impressed designs.

And just for fun, INSIDE these boxes are some of the Zentangle tiles I've created over the past two years.

Auraknot

2013-03-18T12:00:00.000-06:00

I had an idea for a variation of Auraknot. I thought that if the bands became gradually thinner on the way out and in from the original 'star' it would look a little more dimensional. On my first tile I forgot that you need an uneven number of points to best obtain the interweaving look. I have stars with six and eight points. Oops. Oh well. You can see, a bit, the effect I'm going for.

Tangles: Auraknot, Black Pearlz, Flez, Paisley Boa, Pearlz, and bump Striping

Second tile, I remembered: uneven number of points. I went for seven. The diminishing band width shows nicely on the way out, but I realized it's hard to get the effect on the way in; there just wasn't enough space.

Tangles: Auraknot, Pearlz

Three zendalas in color

2013-03-15T20:36:00.002-06:00

The first uses design #29 from the Bright Owl. I painted a turquoise acrylic wash outside the mandala design, then tangled that area in blue and the rest in black.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Camelia, Daggerly, Drupe/Fracas,
Knightsbridge Aura, Paradox, Paushalöv, Tortuca

The second uses a Zentangle pre-strung zendala tile. I wanted to break up the design a bit so I added the six large circles. This one and the third began with acrylic washes in purple and magenta.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Lamar, Starburst, Tipple, Tripoli elements,
plus Rounding and spirals.

The third began as a three-pointed design. I kept adding strips to it, somewhat like Inapod. The three areas ended up looking a bit like bulbs or seed pods I think. It's also darker than I expected. I almost gave up on it more than once, but I kept thinking, "Hmm, maybe I could try that." In the end, I think it's alright.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Bunzo, Inapod, Paisley Boa, Pearlz, Purslane

Weekly challenge #109

2013-03-13T22:13:00.000-06:00

I, too, was quite taken with the 'bump' Striping effect recently presented on the Zentangle blog. I had tried it with basic black and white stripes, but I loved what some others had done with wrapping another tangle around the bumps! Amazing! I decided I should try it.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Crescent Moon, Lamar, Tripoli, and 'bump' Striping

Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Künstler, 'bump' Striping

In the end I was quite wimpy at putting other tangles in the bands and didn't try anything very fancy.

UPDATE: A second challenge this week was to think of names for this tangle/technique. Cheryl Rotmen suggested 'Roman' and I suggested 'Alanancy'. Maria combined the two into the new name Romanancy, which is how this 'bump striping' will be known from here on in. Read about it on the Diva's blog here.

LAMAR - a new tangle!

2013-03-11T00:30:00.000-06:00

Tangles: Beelight, Knightsbridge, Lamar, Tortuca, Yincut

There is a trend happening here: I seem to be inspired in the bathroom. Dansk, Chebucto, Pia, and now Lamar, were all inspired by patterns in bathrooms! Here's a photo of the tiles in our bathroom in Mexico that inspired this tangle.

I deconstructed this pattern, adapting it to pen-and ink drawing. Here are some tiles I did while working out possibilities.

The Spanish word for 'sea' or 'ocean' is mar. Years ago I was told by a Spanish prof that mar is normally a masculine noun (el mar) but that sometimes in literary or poetic work it's feminine: la mar, thus the name of the tangle. Here's how to do it.

Tangles: Lamar, Magma, Paisley Boa, Paushalöv, Tortuca

BTW: It's getting harder and harder to keep track of tangles and names. If this pattern has been presented elsewhere, or if the name has been used earlier, please let me know!