Square One: Verdigogh

This week's Square One: Purely Zentangle® group focus was to use the official Zentangle pattern Verdigogh. This is one of my favorite patterns to do.  I love the botanical feel of this pattern combined with the repetitive line work involved in its creation.

I often create this pattern as a curved stem with branches filling a tile.  For this piece, I thought it would be fun to explore Verdigogh as a border.  I drew the rectangular "stem" and built my needles in different directions.  I added a few on each side and turned my tile repeatedly to allow the needles to cross sides in various places.

I thought the piece was complete after adding the little berries and almost stopped there.  I couldn't decide how I wanted to shade the piece since it was already fairly busy, but I just kept picturing tiny orbs in the center.  I created an inner aura around the needles and immediately thought I took it one step too far.  Before I had a chance to second guess myself or to let the outcome dictate my artistic process, I filled the center with orbs.  I had been so relaxed creating all of my fine needles that I didn't want to stop tangling.  I didn't want this journey to end.  

Circle.

Circle.

Circle.

Sometimes the very simple repetition of one basic shape can be entirely relaxing.  I write about this often, and it certainly applies to the whole of the Zentangle® method.  It's true that tangle patterns repeat and can create a relaxing experience while creating them, but I find that some patterns are more relaxing to create than others.  When a pattern has fewer steps, as in the case of these tiny orbs, they can be especially calming to create.

I thoroughly enjoyed filling all of the small negative spaces with mini auras and circles.  I added a little shading at the end and am quite pleased with the result.

This tile was a perfect example of how this process should go.  Sometimes I get caught up in my head even though I know I should trust the process.  I've been feeling stressed lately, and I really needed to rediscover my sense of relaxed focus.  I sat down with this tile tonight, tangled, and didn't look up from my tile until it was complete.  I needed that!

A couple of my Verdigogh examples are in the fantastic new book, Pattern Play: A Zentangle® Creativity Booster by Cris Letourneau, CZT and Sonya Yencer, CZT.  Here are some of the ways I like to play with this pattern: