Thursday, June 30, 2011

Tripping on Tripoli

There's a wonderful new tangle in Zentangle land: Tripoli. You can see how-to drawit, as well as some variations, in the Zentangle newsletter. It's a lovely and versatile pattern. The Diva's Zentangle challenge this week is to use Tripoli. Yay! We all wanted to anyway!

This may be the first weekly challenge when I haven't posted classic, black on white, zentangle tiles. I have a number of projects in the works, so I decided to try Tripoli in some of them. In my first few attempts I was making the triangles too small, which meant that I couldn't put in the details I had intended. I learned.

One on-going project is to come up with nine themed tiles and frame them together. This one will fit in the heart theme. All these tiles will be black and red on white. Tripoli is in both the black and the red.

Tangles: TRIPOLI (2 variations), Florez, Munchin, Strircles, Striping, Up and Across

I've also been producing a lot of small (6"x4") illuminated letters for two events later this summer. Here's one using Tripoli. It's black ink on some parchement-y looking matboard.

Tangles: TRIPOLI, Chartz, Drupe, Flux, Hollibaugh, Miranda, Tipple, Up and Across

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Non-billboard showcases the sky

I love this!

I'm sure I'm not the only one frequently annoyed by billboards cluttering the view.  Non Sign II stands along the U.S.-Canada border in Blaine, Washington and promotes nothing but the beauty of the sky. It was installed in 2010.




Made entirely of blackened steel rods, it was commissioned by the U.S. government’s General Services Administration and created by Lead Pencil Studio in Seattle. Here's a close-up view showing the tiny metal rods that compose the 'mist'.


 What a wonderful piece of art!


Images courtesy of Lead Pencil Studio.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Still spinning

I did the spiral using a brush pen, then cleaned up the lines a bit.
I'm glad I realized that the spiral would be best left alone and didn't add
any tangles to it, just the area around it.

Spirals have taken over my brain. I'm still doing zentangle tiles for the Diva's 26th weekly challenge. You can see my first efforts here. I realized that there are a few things I want to accomplish with this spirals pursuit.

Here's a monotangle tile. I used only one tangle, Shattuck.
First, doing a series of anything is a good thing. You can do one piece on a subject and think you've covered it. Doing a series opens up a lot of possibilities, insights and learning. Series are pretty standard art school practice, one I didn't learn much about until after art school, but that's another story.

Having done quite a few spiral tiles so far I've tried one, two, four and five spirals together. (Hm, what happened to three?!)

I've investigated bold vs. delicate tangles and how they work together. Of course, side by side they make a better division than two bold or two delicate patterns, although shading can always help clarify divisions.


I've tried strings with my non-dominant hand, with my eyes shut, and with two connected pencils. I've done tiles with a single tangle pattern, tiles with lots of black and tiles with lots of white.

There have been bold results and delicate results. It's been quite interesting!

I tried a couple of square spirals and the pencil strings were very interesting, but they don't quite have the spiral effect I'm looking for.







Second, I certainly know that not everything I produce is really good, let alone excellent. I'm curious to know: what percentage of the work I produce do I consider to be rather terrific? What fraction of my output am I really, truly pleased with and proud of and should really be offered for sale?

I rediscovered an embossing template I'd bought a while ago for... something.
I used those spirals for the string, and Tidings and Tipple for the tangles.

Third, I've had an idea to present nine tiles on a theme as a single framed work, sort of like an ensemble except that the tiles don't flow into one another. I'd like to end up with nine spiral tiles that I'm really pleased with and frame them together. Then maybe I'll try that idea with other themes.

This one began with a blind string.
Tangles: Coaster, Parabola, Unyun, Wud

Thursday, June 23, 2011

SCOOPS tangle instructions

Summer is taking its own sweet time arriving in Saskatoon. However, the rhubarb is coming up and we've enjoyed ice cream on rhubarb crisp a few times.

I had this idea for a pattern in May 2010 at the Zentangle teacher training seminar in Whitinsville, MA. We didn't have ice cream; I don't know where the idea came from. The non-zentangle thing about this pattern is that it does represent actual objects, but I wonder if, perhaps, if it's done in a large enough section, or ends up sideways or upside down, it could become simply a pattern. Perhaps it could alter in such a way that it doesn't look quite so much like ice cream cones?


You don't have to leave most of them white. There are no Rules. Do as you like. Stripes, dots, cross-hatch... have fun! This might be fun to teach to elementary-school-aged kids, or would they think there's a "right way up"? Maybe it would work best on a piece of zentangle inspired art involving letters or words where there is a right-way-up.

Here's Scoops on a zentangle inspired art project by Marlene, one of the students at my Tanglicious class. She's doing initials for her granddaughter.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Ten tangled houses

A few months ago a customer approached me with the idea of doing a piece of zentangle inspired art for her 10th wedding anniversary in July. She wanted ten houses to represent the ten years they will have been married, and something to represent her family of four. For that we decided on four birds in a tree. She also likes yellow.

Below is the finished art. Well almost. I added a tiny amount more shading after this photo was taken. It's all done with a Sakura Micron 01, mainly black but with a wee bit of green in the tree on the right.



Here's how I went about it. We decided on a general size for the completed art. I settled on 14"x24" with approximately a 1" border.  I drew a few possible roof points in pencil, then added a wash of Payne's Gray acrylic and let it dry.



I added random pencil strings to divide the space further. I use the brush strokes as well as the strings for inspiration/guidelines. I started tangling. Here all the roofs are in place and most of the lower edge is complete. You can see where I've pencilled in an arched window.



Then I started adding color with Derwent water soluable colored pencils. The arched window has been added, as well as several others. There are two chimneys with smoke, and I've indicated the branch where the birds will perch. There were two, paralel, vertical lines in the lower left (just above the Lilypads tangle) that I was a bit concerned about; I didn't know what to do with them. You can see below that they've become a lamp post!



More tangles and details. I've added some gray pen in a few places and some more yellow. Some doors are present as well as some wisps of sky and the birds in their tree.



Finally, all the ink drawing is done...


...and it's time to add shading. I used Prismacolor's Verithin colored pencils which have quite a hard lead. At this size I didn't want any unintentional smudging! Scroll back to the top to see the finished piece, with shading.


Here are a few detail photos:

Roofs and sky (top middle)
A few little rain clouds (top left)
Door with stained glass window (lower left)
Funky lamp post (lower left)
Picket fence and curly tree with four birds (lower right)

For those interested, here's a list of the tangles used (48 if I counted correctly!):
Aura, Bales, Bevia, a brick pattern, Cadent, Caviar, Coaster, Coil, Cornerz, Cubine, Dex, Finery, Florez, Florz, Flukes, Flux, Gingham, Gneiss, Hibred, Hollibaugh, Huggins, Hurly Burly, Knightsbridge, Lilypads, Miranda, Mooka, 'Nzeppel, OoF, Opus, Puf, Purselane, Rain, Rick's Paradox, Sampson, Sanibelle, Shattuck, Skaylz, Soo Flowers, Strircles, Tidings, Tipple, Unyun, Up and Across, Verdigogh, W2, Xyp, Yincut, Zanella.
Plus the usual dots, circles, stripes, spirals, curlicues, and so on.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Salvage operations

I always find it difficult to let go of a piece of work that is not up to snuff. Sometimes there's an emotional reason and after a while I can put those pieces aside and keep them just for me. Others times perhaps it's the investment of time. I need to remember to look at the time as invested in learning, experimenting, trying, and that investment will pay off, perhaps not with this piece or the next one, but down the road.

More frequently, there are parts that are really, really good but the whole just doesn't hang together. In these cases there are two things I do. First, I attempt a salvage operation by trying to determine why it doesn't work and changing it. If that fails - and the work is on paper - I cut out the really, really good parts and save them for future collage projects. Often those collage projects don't succeed either. Maybe I should cut my losses earlier!

Today I want to share three of my attempted salvage operations, with some before and after photos.

First is a piece done in various Sakura pens with pink ink. There was a lot I liked about it, but I didn't like how the bottom corners seemed so pointy. Can't change that, but what if I made the top corners pointy too, made the whole image more square? I also added more shading, filled in some of the Knightsbridge squares, added Msst on the opposite side, and decided I liked it better turned 90 degrees. (Which means the title and signature are now up the right side. Gotta love that "no predetermined up or down.") :-)

"Pink Ink" before
"Pink Ink" after

I called this "A Box of Sunlight" because it looked rather light filled. It struck me that while I thought of it as a box, perhaps it didn't really look that much like a box. I needed to make it more box-like. Perhaps if I added a lid? I also made some of the corners more solid.

"A Box of Sunlight" before

"A Box of Sunlight" after

The last one is something I did in my early Zentangle, pre-CZT days, when I was still a little unclear on the concept and didn't do any shading. I sometimes use a wash of Payne's Gray acrylic as a beginning, which is what I did here. I called it "Alpha" because it looked like an "a". I just felt that it needed more.  I drew a border around it, added some pencil strings and went to play. At one point there were too many fine details developing so I added some wide bold stripes. Again, once I'd finished I preferred it turned 90 degrees.

"Alpha" before

"Alpha" no more

I would be very interested in your frank comments. Forget about the time investment. Did the salvage operation work? Are any of them worth saving? Or should I cut out the really, really, good parts and save them for future collage projects?

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Spiral crazy!

This is a long post. Get comfy!

This week's zentangle challenge is to use a spiral as a string. I found this particularly challenging because a spiral on the page only makes one section to draw in! (Some creativity required.)

I've always liked spirals. They're related to mandalas and labyrinths. In many cultures they are a symbol of rebirth, reawakening, insight, and so on. You start from where you are (the outside) travel inwards to the center (insight) and back out again, bringing your new awareness with you into the world.

I did a tile using Marasu. I've really liked the feathery kind of highlights I've seen some people use - much better than what I've been doing - so I tried that, adding tiny dots in some of the white stripes. Some of the dots spun out off the spiral.

Tangles: black Pearlz, Striping

One of the later ones I did began with four pencil spirals. I started outlining them and trying to overlap/underlap them and wondered what would happen because all the spirals were empty. Then it struck me: there's going to be a whole lotta Hollibaugh here!

Tangles: Hollibaugh. Yep, that's about it.

Previous to the four spirals I had tried one with two.

Tangles: Parabola and variations, Sanibelle, Striping, Unyun and dots

I liked the effect of the arches (the beginning of Parabola) going around the spiral so I used it again. This one also began with a blind string. They're always interesting. I think I'm finally getting the hang of using white on black as part of the art rather than as a fixit method!

Tangles: Caviar, Parabola and variations.

I thought using a double pencil for the string would give me some predetermined sections. Here's a very simple spiral with a 2-pencil string.

Tangles: Caviar, Chartz (sort of), Coaster, Krliqs (my own) black Pearlz,
Purslane (or Flux 'tongues'!), Tipple

Here's one I did a while ago where two spirals coil together. I like that effect and hoped to do it again during this challenge, but it didn't happen.

Tangles: Coaster, Zander, dots

I like the tangle Xyp and used it here. This reminded me that it works best on a straight or slightly curved line. As the spiral tightens the pattern deteriorates and eventually disintegrates. Here it became a wobbly square, then circles and the spiral almost disappears. Still interesting.

Tangles: Caviar, Dutch Hourglass, Munchin, Xyp

Most of the tiles I did used random spirals, but I wanted to try one with a nautilus spiral, sacred geometry spiral, golden mean spiral, whatever you want to call it. The challenge (I almost typed 'problem'!) I always have with this spiral is that is expands so quickly outward that I'm soon left with just empty space. I used two of these spirals just to give me a little more to work with. Also, I had thought from the beginning that Printemps would be a perfect tangle to use, so it's here too.

Tangles: Caviar, Printemps, Rain and variations, Tipple

Finally, here's a piece of Zentangle inspired art that I did some time ago, using a nautilus spiral (it's called that because nautilus shells grow using this pattern). It sort of includes the divisions of the outer shell, and two large circles overlapping the center of the spiral (I wanted more sections to work with!).

Tangles: oh my gosh... !

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Over-the-top strings

from the Knotplot site

I don't really expect anyone to use many of these possibilities for Zentangle strings (although some of them are a tempting challenge!) There are some simple knots here too - and the images are such fun to look at that I just had to share. There are a lot of mandala-type knots too. Enjoy a cruise through the Knotplot site!

decorative knot on white, 15sept03b, from the Knotplot site



from the Knotplot site

Friday, June 10, 2011

2-pencil strings

I've been using that 2-pencil string idea I posted about a while ago. That's what gives the ribbony effect in these tiles. In the first, I tried Marasu with dots in the stripes, but I don't like it much. I think the coiled spiral effect is largely lost.

Tangles: Diamond Panes, Florz, Marasu, black Pearlz, Strircles

I really like this next one! I think it looks like a tunnel or a vortex of some sort. At one point I was trying to coil a dark and a light spiral together. It didn't work, but I like it anyway. Notice Marasu in the center. It looks different with just stripes, doesn't it?

Tangles: Coaster, Coil, Finery, Hollibaugh, Marasu, Strircles, Zander

I'm finally getting around to using white on black! I also tried out something I've seen a few times recently. Here, it resembles Daniele O'Brien's Zen Buds, but this is less floral and looks more like paper scrolls.

Tangles: Crescent Moon, Inapod, Puf, Tipple, paper-scrolly thing



Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Vacation patterns

I'm convinced that being away from home makes me more aware of what I'm seeing. I should try taking my camera with me every day for a week here at home, and see what I notice! These are photos of some of the interesting patterns I noticed in Halifax and Bermuda.

A church in Lunenburg, NS.
Brick wall in Halifax NS

"Halifax" on an old map at the
Maritime Museum of the Atlantic
in Halifax NS


 















Hanging roots of a banyan tree in Bermuda.
Glassware at a glass-blowing shop in Bermuda.


Octopus climbing the glass wall at the Aquarium.




























The shirt on the man in front of me.
I'd like a dress like this.
 
Very interesting plant. Seed pods?
What an amazing pattern all over this puffer fish,  which is poisonous to eat.
(Thanks to Cookie for identifying it.)
A large chunk of coral in a garden.