Simply Resistible

I have discovered a new favorite way to play with my Zentangle Inspired Art or ZIA!  Watercolor with a resist.

Here is a piece I created with glue, Twinkling H2O watercolors, and Micron for tangling.  I used a little white Gelly Roll pen for highlights and to enhance the glued areas.  I had so much fun with this piece, I hated waiting for the drying time in between.  When it was time to tangle, I couldn't put it down!

I see many more of these in my future.  Want to learn some ways to do this?  I also see a new class in my listing soon.  :-)


I've also made several bookmarks with watercolor paint.  These are part of an annual creative pay-it-forward gesture.  I give a creative item to five different people, and they pledge to make the same offer to five people.

Let's share the creativity!

Here are a few base bookmarks waiting to be tangled.  On the right is one of the almost finished pieces.

I have to laminate and embellish a bit for the final product.  I hope the recipients will like these!

They were so fun to create!

Try Try Again

After posting about my first experience with this week's Diva challenge and my less-then-favorite tribute to Bales, I was inspired to try again.  

I started with a border and strings that reminded me of a landscape.  Immediately I knew I'd be coloring this piece in when finished!  I filled each section with a different variation of Bales and tried to play with the size and angle of the grids.  Here is the black and white result:

I had so much fun working on this piece and enjoyed the different fields of Bales.  I grabbed my new Tombow Irojiten colored pencils and filled in each of the sections.  I used every pencil in the Seascape Dull Tone, volume 7 set.  The pencils colored smoothly.  I liked working with them.

Here's the final, colored in version.  I'm much happier with this piece!  Even so, I'm even happier that I didn't let the first try get me down or stop me from making something new.  I challenged myself to try again and to play with my new pencils at one time.  I'm so glad I did.  

The Bales Have It

I usually love monotangles, a work featuring different versions of a single tangle pattern.  For some reason, this week's Diva challenge working with Bales was not my favorite.  I love Bales; I think it's a nice, easy pattern with a lot of variations.

I used a big single Bales as my border.  It was fun playing with some variations in the corners.  I think what I was going for in the middle didn't work, but that's ok.  It's beneficial to practice and to play with patterns or ideas until they feel right.  Even in pieces that I'm not in love with, I can always find an area that I appreciate for some reason.  Maybe it's a pattern or some shading, or maybe it's the fact that I tried something new.

Through my Zentangle® practice, I've learned to let go and to accept that it's OK not to love a piece.  The important thing is that some minor dissatisfaction doesn't stop me from trying again.  With past crafts, I'd give up when I couldn't get something right. Knitting was not my friend.  I could do basic stitches, but I got frustrated which wasn't fun. I have a big bag filled with yarn and needles upstairs that I will probably never use again (time to donate!).  With the Zentangle Method, however, I never give up.  I know that this is just one small piece, and that I will have many more in my future.  It's so freeing to know this.  I relax while creating pieces and enjoy knowing that the process--not the product--is the most important thing.

I think it's brave to put a piece that I don't like up for all to see.  I believe in practicing what I preach.  Every tile or piece is part of my artistic journey, and even though I've been tangling for several years, I'm still learning and growing as an artist too!

My hesitation and feelings about this piece must mean that I have to try another one soon!

I love this art journal that I have, but it's difficult to scan because of the spine.  I end up having to take pictures so they're not exactly the right tone.  You get the idea though, I hope.  :-)

Tanglers of the Round Table, er, Tile

When you try something new, does it sometimes feel like you need to wear armor or have a spear with you just in case?  It can be scary to try new things and to think outside of our regular mode.

Not so for my recent Zendala class.  Look at the great job they did!  The tiles on the left used a pre-strung Zendala tile.  On the right, the tanglers created their own strings.  I bet their filled in pieces look amazing!

I think working with Zendalas can seem a bit daunting because many of the spaces are smaller.  Most patterns can be created on a smaller scale.  You can also take the challenge to find new patterns that fit into tighter areas.  Remember, the string is a guide, and even if trying to keep the sense of balance, you can always ignore some of the lines to make larger areas in which to play.  Like practicing on a Zentangle tile, strings are there as tools, guides, or things to ignore completely as you see fit.

It's fun to think about whether to fill in every space or to leave some gaps in the design too.

Huzzah to the Zendala tanglers!

Christmas in May!

I love when a new box of art supplies comes to my door.  It's like Christmas pretty regularly around here.  Even when it's an order of books or Zentangle supplies to sell in my classes, it's always fun to receive inspiring new items.

The latest box contained goodies just for me!  I ordered a set of the new Tombow Irojiten colored pencils.  They are attractively packaged in little boxes.  Like most new things, ranging from craft supplies to clothes, I typically admire them and don't want to use them.  Sometimes I like the newness to remain, and sometimes I'm a little hesitant to jump in.

Why is that?  Do kids hesitate to rip open a box with a prized new toy inside?  Well, maybe with all of the fasteners used to keep toys permanently attached to packaging, but that's not quite the same.  :-)  Kids would likely devour the packaging if it meant being able to get to the toy goodness inside.  Toddlers, would squeal for the packaging itself!  As an adult, I hesitate.

The good news is it took less than an hour for me to crack open the box, pull out a pencil, and start tangling!  I bolstered up a little creative bravery by posting about my new acquisition with my fellow CZTs.

I've only used ten of the thirty pencils in this set, but so far, I like how they glide across the tile.  I used the fluorescence set (vol. 7).  Upon initial experimentation, I think they color more smoothly than the Prismacolor pencils, but I think the Prismacolors are more saturated and have a better fill.  It will be fun to explore with my new pencils more.

Here is my first piece with the Irojitens on a pre-strung black Zendala tile.  I have to play with scanning these darker tiles a bit more because it took a fair amount of editing to get the colors to be remotely close to what I see in person.  The pencil is a bit shimmery in person which is lovely.

Kindness

Sometimes people can do a little thing that can mean so much.  Back when my daughter was having surgery, I created art with some kind of sun in it each day until the surgery was over to help me get through that difficult time.  A few fellow tanglers created suns to share, and I was truly touched.

This week, I received a belated, but highly appreciated sun from CZT Sandy Hunter.  Sandy, like I have been known to do, created this piece but never got around to sending it (I'm currently looking at the tangled photo mat that I forgot to send for a swap).  After all this time, I had forgotten that Sandy had offered to make something, so it was an extra surprise when I opened the envelope!  I was touched by the beautiful ATC (artist trading card) that Sandy made for my family.  Her beautiful line work and color would bring some cheerful sun to anyone's day!  I don't think there's such a thing as being late with thoughtfulness.  :-)

To top it off, she even decorated my name on the envelope!  She tipped her hat and told me that the balloon was an afterthought thanks to her disruptive cat.  I never would have known!

Thanks, Sandy.  :-)  

It Isn't Always Black and White

Well, for this week's Diva challenge, it is.

The Diva, inspired by Rick and Maria's "Ebony and Ivory" pieces at Blog Zentangle, challenged us to create pieces with an equal balance of black and white areas or patterns.

For my first piece, I drew four diagonal lines for my string and filled every other section with a thicker black Micron pen.  Next I tangled some of the black on white areas, pausing to add some white on black in the adjacent sections.  I noticed that all of the patterns I had started to use began with the letter "B" so I kept going in that fashion.  This tile features the following patterns:  Betweed, Bunzo, Beadlines, Batch, Bluebonnets, Bubbles, Buttercup, Block'd, and Binial.  I love how Bubbles, by Suzanne McNeill CZT, can look like SpaghettiOs!

I wanted to work on a second piece without pre-coloring my tile.  I basically used two patterns and love how my little Sand Swirls (by Karry Heun) are trumpeting Mooka!

This was a very fun challenge that appealed to my interest in balance and light and dark.  The first piece was a bit tricky to think about as I had white on black on white.  I think I prefer to use the white pens on black tiles, but this was an interesting idea to try.