Monday, January 31, 2011

Primary Colors. Or are they?


Red, yellow, blue, yes? 

Ahh, not so fast! 

That works for paint or colored pencils or ink. Red, yellow and blue are 'primary' because they're the first - or essential - colors. These are the colors from which all other colors can be mixed. You can’t mix a primary color using other colors.
 
Light, however, is different. With light the primary colors are red, green, and blue. You may recall pictures of very close-up TV screens and the red, green and blue dots or bars which compose the images. This is because colored light transmits colors, and colored matter absorbs and reflects colors, so mixing them requires different methods. 

If you take a variety of paint colors and mix them you'll get a muddy brown. If you mix all the colors of light, the result is white light. A prism (I love them!) breaks the white light of the sun into the separate colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.

It’s yet another story when dealing with printing, where the primary colors are cyan, magenta and yellow. If you have a color printer you probably know that. They are similar to, but certainly different from, blue, red and yellow. Have you heard of CMYK? That’s Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and the K is for Black.

Back to the paint, ink, and colored pencils briefly. Here's today's art tip: Have you ever wondered what to do if you need brown? Mix orange and green, or really "red and yellow" and "yellow and blue".

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Tile fail!

Linda Farmer, who maintains the Tangle Patterns site, recently issued her own zentangle challenge: to tangle your name. No, not what you might think. The idea is to find tangle patterns beginning with the letters of your name and do a tile with those patterns. I planned to use:
Meer
Avreal
Raddox
Gneiss
Amaze
Rain
Ennies
Tortuca

I began with a border and string. The string was in the shape of an "M". I needed 8 sections for all the letters so I divided it in half horizontally. It soon became evident that I can't count. I had 10 sections. How did that happen? Maybe I could include my middle and last initials? I considered leaving two sections empty. I was obviously off to a good start.

Half of the tangles I'd never done before. I flubbed Avreal by putting the lines going the wrong way. In Gneiss I somehow got an odd number of sections, which is unworkable. I wasn't too pleased with Tortuca either. Fortunately, Amaze is hard to botch.

"B" for Bremner. Also for Bronx Cheer. A very appropriate tangle to include! This tile was going off the rails so I thought I might as well blow up the track. The raspberries would to be red, glued on, and they would hide some of the flubbed parts. This was starting to be fun instead of disappointing.

I retrieved some grocery flyers from the recycle bin and looked for raspberries. Of course, it's not raspberry season. No raspberries to be found. I'd have to make do with trimmed, imported strawberries. I added stems. I did my initials large. And now, presenting... my name tangle tile fail!



I had to take another shot at it. I planned better and had eight sections to fill. I used the same tangles. In the end, I like Amaze and Avreal is okay. Gneiss is indeed nice, and bold, and I will use it more. I've really liked Raddox for a while, and I teach it but rarely use it. Maybe it will show up more frequently now. Still not big on Tortuca. Here's the MARGARET tile that passed:

Friday, January 28, 2011

More fun with blind strings

I really enjoyed Laura Harms' challenge to do a zentangle tile having done the string with your eyes shut. For one thing, it sometimes creates wobbly lines to work with. I also find that it usually places the string off-center - and occasionally off the page! That was the part I liked best. It sent me right over the edge! :-)

It reminded me of when the technology of photography arrived on the scene and artists started playing with it. It produced some interesting compositions with off-center subjects. Sometimes the subjects were only partly in the picture. Sometimes the images were even blurry. It gave painters a whole cartload of new things to think about! Gustave Caillebotte, a French painter working in the late 1800's, is one artist who was quite taken by this new way of conceiving the picture plane. Here are two of his paintings.
"The Oarsmen", 1877
"On the Pont de l'Europe" 1876-77, Kimbell Art Foundation, Fort Worth, USA
It looks perfectly ordinary to us now, but 140 years ago it was quite bizarre.

Okay, so coming back off that tangent, here are some of the blind string tiles I've done recently, admittedly much less impressive than Caillebotte's paintings.

with Zedbra and droplets

This tile includes a tangle pattern concocted by myself and Laura Harms, CZT, also in Saskatoon. It's along the left edge and it's called Zedbra.

Laura said about Zedbra: "...it was created by Margaret, but named by me... it's a little inside joke.  Margaret and I are both Canadian and in Canada "Z"s are pronounced zed not zee..."

Click here to see one of Laura's tiles (from her weekly zentangle challenge number 2) using Zedbra including highlights along the middle.

I'll post a how-to page on Zedbra soon (although you can probably figure it out yourself).

 This tile
includes a pattern
I discovered recently on
stART's blog. There are two
bold  stripey edges in this tile,
and two delicate rolling edges.
The delicate tangle is called
Organza Pleated Ruffle
and was designed
by Ruth Howell,
a friend
of stART's.
Ruth's tangle has dots
around  the curved parts,
so perhaps this is a tangleation!?
It works nicely with Lilypads.


Wednesday, January 26, 2011

DIAMOND PANES tangle instructions

I bought a book of bargello needlework patterns for cheap from the library's clear-out bin. Bargello seems to be a bit like needlepoint except the stitches are longer and go up and down on the canvas instead of diagonally. There were some good ideas in there. One, called Diamond Panes, was easily adaptable to drawing although step two is a little tricky. Here's how it goes:



Here are a couple of tiles using Diamond Panes. 
In the first one the tangle ends up on its side.

Diamond Panes, Betweed, Florz, Flux, Umble

Diamond Panes, Cubine, Flux, Tipple, Xyp

Saskatoon in January

For my readers in different climates, I thought you might like to see some pictures of Saskatoon in mid-winter. These were taken on January 19th, 2011. There was a cloudless sky and a full moon. It must have been the middle of the night because the temperature was -33C with a windchill of -43C. We have a river through the middle of the city and these were taken from the east riverbank looking west across the river.

I like to give credit where credit is due and asked the person who sent me the photos if she could identify the photographer. She e-mailed her source who e-mailed... you get the picture. BD told EC who told my friend MH to "Just use it!" At some point someone provided this information: "Those pictures came from a former city policeman - I emailed back to ask who took them - if it was him & all he emailed back was 'would I lie?' -  & he is a jokester, so I really don't know who needs credit."

UPDATE, 2014 August 7 : these fabulous photos were taken by Bruce A. Johnson. You can see more of his work here.
The "fog" you see is vapor rising from the river and from various heating systems.
Looking at part of the downtown section of Saskatoon from across the South Saskatchewan River.

The Bessborough Hotel, the grande dame of local hotels, a castle on the prairies.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Ixorus

This week, a new tangle appeared in the skies over Planet Zentangle. It has been named Ixorus and is well-suited for tangleation. (for what?) You can read all about it in the Zentangle newsletter.  So smart Laura (the diva), knowing that we'd all be wanting to try it out anyway, proposed Ixorus as this week's zentangle challenge. I did two or three tiles before I had one I liked.

The first one seemed to be suffering from residual Orb-itude:


Then I seemed to get a handle on the design. I tried it various ways. Here's the one I like best. I like the black dots on the bottom edge finishing off those stray lines.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Tibetan sand mandalas

If you've ever seen a real-life Tibetan Buddhist sand mandala I'm sure you were as impressed as I was. For me the truly amazing aspect is that they don't use any glue! The mandalas are large - about a meter across - and take days to construct. That's a LOT of loose sand! Don't dare bump the board it's on, or sneeze, or turn on a fan.

Photo courtesy of 'henryart' at creativecomons.org
I've had the privilege of seeing three being constructed. It's amazing to watch the monks at work. I discovered an interesting time-lapse video of one that took six days to complete. The whole thing comes together in about two minutes and the video is very interesting. One gets a much better idea of the process - and I think it's even more impressive - to stop by day after day to watch a mandala like this take shape slowly, as it must. It's interesting to be in the atmosphere of the monks' care and focused attention, although they are also friendly, smiling, and open to chat and explain. Then finally, once all that careful work is done, to watch it all being swept together.

Here's another video that's mostly sand mandalas. The sound track is by Phyllis Cole-Dai, an American pianist and composer. The music is lovely, as are the sentiments expressed, but what makes this video particularly special for me is that my painting "Whiz Bang" appears in it! It shows up near the end, just after the seven minute mark, and lasts about half a minute.

WHIZ BANG (c) 1995 Margaret Bremner; 24" square.
While mainly done in acrylic paint Whiz Bang does contain a few sections of colored sand. But I used glue! There is also a filigree gold-colored metal disk in the center. If I had to choose a dozen masterpieces of my work, this would be one of them.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Orbs

This week, Laura Harms' zentangle challenge (#5) asks that we use orbs. To be honest, for some reason I wasn't particularly taken with the challenge. At one point I thought maybe I'd skip this one.

Yesterday, we had a lovely evening with two of our daughters and five friends playing board and card games for three hours. After that, I went down to the studio. My automatic pilot takes me there a lot. The orbs appeared! To be honest again (not that I'm usually dishonest!) two of these tiles I think are among my best ever. I'm also fascinated my how different they are, one from another.

Those blind strings got me into going off the edge of the paper, and even filling the entire tile. 
This first one started with a blind string. I admit to using a circle template for some of the large circles.

Orbs full tile

Then I decided that I should use a border again, having got quite away from that.  I added some random circles with my eyes closed, none of which met at the ends; I made some adjustments!

7 orbs in a box

Then I did a 2-pencil string just going 'round and 'round a few times. 
It didn't look like much at that point.

Orb

I'm delighted, and occasionally dumbfounded, by how much difference shading can make! Shading can adjust, correct, hide, enhance, improve, and even salvage.

Now here's an added treat.
My daughter - the one who just got married - gave me a little pack of
rainbow Scratch Magic Mini Notes. 'Orb' to me seems to include 'lighted' or 'glowing'
so I tried an orb-y thing on one of those notes.

Orbs? Scratch magic mini note. Memories of lava lamps.

See a follow-up to this post here.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Circle Symbolism

Black Elk,
a medicine man and visionary
of the Oglala Sioux, said, “Everything the
Power of the World does, is done in a circle.  The sky 
is round and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball,
and so are all the stars.  The wind, in its greatest power, whirls.
Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as
ours.   The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle.   The
moon does the same, and both are round.  Even the seasons form
a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to
where they were.  The life of a man is a circle from childhood to
childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves
Our tipis were round like the nests of birds, and these
were always set in a circle; the nation’s hoop, a
nest of many nests where the Great Spirit
meant for us to hatch our
children.” 

*   *   *   *   *

Having neither beginning nor end, the circle has long been a symbol - across time and cultures - of eternity, wholeness, protection, and unity. It calls to mind things such as the full moon, the sun, the entrance or exit of a tunnel, the pupil of the eye, a hug. 

In striving towards the spiritual, humankind has, over the centuries, constructed circle-forms. In ancient times closed circles were considered protective, particularly for workers of magic.  A sorcerer's title dating from the first century B.C. was "circle-drawer". Defensive emplacements surrounding ancient towns were set in a circle. A circle is present on most talismans as it was believed to concentrate the magical power needed to summon the desired spirits or forces.

Rose window, Notre Dame. Photo: Mattis, WikiCommons

Many Gothic churches are renowned for their beautiful stained glass rose windows.




Dharma Wheel atop DaZhao temple in Hohhot. Photo: M.Bremner
Ancient, circular stone henges are found in Great Britain and elsewhere. 




Mosques are frequently domed as are some churches and other religious buildings.

 




TaiJi drain cover in a garden in China. Photo: M.Bremner

The Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism is symbolized by a wheel with eight spokes: the Dharma Wheel or "Wheel of the Law".










The TaiJi (or ying yang) icon is symbolic of the interconnection between opposites such as male and female, youth and age, celestial and earthly, here and there.  

In Jungian psychology, the image of a circle inside a square represents the connection between our spiritual (circle) and physical (square) natures.





The circle is often associated with the idea of a protected or consecrated space. An expected ritual of visits to some holy sites is to circumambulate - or "walk around" - the area before entering the sanctuary. Wiccan practitioners initially cast (draw) a circle on the ground. These actions separate the sacred inner area from the worldly outer area.

A circle implies a center. As babies and young children we think the universe revolves around us.  Some of this feeling lingers, no matter how old we become!  Cuzco - the capital city of the ancient Incan empire - means “navel”. The Chinese call their land the Middle Kingdom.

Stretch out your arm and point at the horizon; slowly turn all the way around, tracing the horizon back to your starting point.  The horizon makes a circle around you. I like to turn the old expression "in the middle of nowhere" on it's ear - wherever we are, we are in the middle of everywhere.

Imagine yourself at the center of a sphere and the seven sacred directions of many north American aboriginals can be imagined: east, south, west, and north, (or: front, right, back and left), then Up toward the heavens and the Creator, Down toward the Earth, and Inward toward self-knowledge.

Now, go have a nice cup of coffee.

Fancy cappuccino. Photo: M.Bremner

(This post is, at least in part, for Denyse, who tends to use a lot of circles and couldn't remember why she found them so peaceful.)

Monday, January 17, 2011

A simple mandala template

We've recently moved, closed our storage unit after three years, and have been unpacking boxes. One item I discovered was this apple corer/slicer.

I don't recall ever using it for that purpose (amazing how Stuff accumulates, isn't it?), but it struck me as a quick and easy stencil for a mandala.  

I planned to fill it with zentangle patterns. It's a bit too big for a nine centimeter 'tile' so I used slightly larger paper (13 cm/5 inch). I penciled the eight sections. The corer isn't level and slips around a bit, so the divisions are uneven, but that's part of the charm of Zentangle isn't it?

I used a lid to add another circle inside the outer one. You'll see the zigzag border on the first finished piece.

Below is the first one I tried. You can see where I added the other circle with a lid. I left the center empty and I find it rather striking, probably because it flows into the empty areas in the next ring out.

SOUTHWESTERN SUN
pen & ink and colored pencil; 2011 ©Margaret Bremner
Chartz, Rain, aura, tiny circles...


Here's my second go at it. Again, I added another circle by tracing around a lid. This time I filled the center with Tipple.

GENESIS
pen & ink and colored pencil; 2011 ©Margaret Bremner
Coaster, Fescu?, Rain, Tipple, tiny circles

Then I got really enthusiastic and decided to add color, a border and a true string to the mix. I didn't add the extra circle, and it ended up being much less a mandala. I think it looks like a small glowing thing so I call it "Ember".

EMBER, 6x6 inches
pen & ink and colored pencil; 2011 ©Margaret Bremner
Betweed, Coaster, Crescent Moon, Cubine, Facets, Hibred, Jitterbug, Lotus Pods, Msst, Munchin, 
N'Zeppel, Paradox, Printemps, Shattuck, Striping, Tipple, Wud, Xyp, Zander, tiny circles (sheesh!)

Is there an apple corer in your kitchen that should be with your art supplies?

(This post is, at least in part, for Laura Harms, CZT who's had a crazy week and has been wanting to draw circles a lot. Circles are an ancient protective symbol.) 

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Radiolaria

Nope. Nothing to do with radios. Radiolaria are ancient, single-celled, marine organisms. There are 5000 species and each one builds its own unique style of protective 'shell'. There is an amazing array of configurations. Many are round and are fabulous mandalas. Others seem like nature creating 3D strings and patterns.


Go here to see a wonderful eight minute trailer for the film Proteus, a documentary concerning the life, work, and philosophy of Ernst Haeckel, a 19th century naturalist who documented 4000 of the 5000 species of radiolaria. The film uses many of his detailed engravings. The trailer shows a great many of these images. They zip by at lightning speed, but it's a good show. See more of his engravings of radiolaria here.

I'm going to borrow this film from my library.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Starry-Eyed Surprise

This week's zentangle challenge is stellar :-)
It was suggested that we listen to the song "Starry-Eyed Surprise" and do a tile with the theme of stars. I really liked the blind string challenge from last week, and decided to do blind strings for these star tiles. In the first one I did blind star shapes one on top of the other. I like how Carole Ohl's tangle Hurakán looks like a distant galaxy!


In the second I did blind star shapes offset from the others. I seem to have opted for a lot of thin line striping, hatching and cross-hatching, in these.


Once I completed these two, I thought, "Who said a star has to have five points?" So I may try some others with more points.
What will next Monday bring?

Monday, January 10, 2011

More fun with two-pencil strings


I've been having a lot of fun with this two-pencil string idea I discovered recently, so I thought I'd share some recent tiles I've created using this method.

(box)
(large bobble)

(roundy)
(with Krli-qs tangle)

(machine)
In this one I put an eraser between the two pencils, making them farther apart. I didn't like the string at all. The two pencil lines seemed too far apart for the size of the paper. However, I decided to see what would happen and I quite like the result! The lesson: Persevere.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Shut-eye string

Zentangle weekly challenge number three: draw the pencil string with your eyes shut! This was very interesting. I 'stringed'* two tiles, and thought I was making big hand movements, but when I opened my eyes the string was rather tight and didn't look very interesting. But I persevered.

This is the first tile I did. I really like how it's off-center and sort of bundled or compact with lots of white space.

Frankly, it was so interesting I had to do another.









Below is the second one. I thought it needed the bubbles on the right to balance it. The shading doesn't show up very well.

I like this method! I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to my art, but I also recognize that often the best work happens when I don't really know what's going on. So anything like this that takes control out of my hands is probably a good thing. :-)

I'm looking forward to using this method again, but right now... MY ELDEST DAUGHTER IS GETTING MARRIED ON SATURDAY AND THINGS ARE A LITTLE BUSY AROUND HERE!!!


* There. We now have a new Zentangle-inspired verb: "to string".  In context: "I stringed the tabletop and then tangled it with a Sharpie."