Zentangle® - September 2015

Zentangle-a-Day is becoming a well-established habit for me. The day is not complete without at least one. In September I continued my experiments with color. I also decided to cut the whole 8.5x11 inch pages into tiles (no left over skinny strips) and continued to use old business cards. The net result was a lot of variability in size.

My husband a virtually new set of Crayola Erasable Colored Pencils that I started using. They have a different ‘feel’ than the older pencils….the colored part of the pencil seems softer.

I experimented with overlaying colors (in the bottom right below, there is a yellow overlay on all the colors. One of my favorite tiles of the month is the middle left one – with gingko type leaves – and left black and white.

I tend to like tiles with one or just a few colors the best. The simple business-card tile with green triangles is one of my favorites.

As the month progressed – I started thinking about using colors at the edges and in spaces of tiles….as in the upper left (below).

The tile in the lower middle below was the same ‘ribbon’ pattern repeated 3 times….the color made a difference!

My most favorite tile of the month was done on a paper coaster (upper left). I think of it as The Flaming Spiral.

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Zentangle® - July 2015

It’s hard to fathom that I have been doing ‘a Zentangle a day’ for 6 months already. The ‘Zen’ part of it is a welcome part of my day and the art that it produces is gratifying. I have collected the June and July tiles in a file box and am contemplating what to do with them - whether I should put more under the plastic on the breakfast table or make a cover for a scarred desktop with clear contact paper holding tiles in a long ‘runner.’

The tiles made in July include some work with colored pencils, pens and markers….but I find the black pens (various thicknesses) are still appeals to me the most. I occasionally give in to make something more ‘real’ looking - like a dragonfly.

I have a red pen that is not as good as the black Micron pens…but I like using two colors. I’ll add some high quality colored pens to my Christmas wishlist.

There is still a lot of experimentation to do with pencils and markers to add color - but I am not as please with the results most of the time.

Sometimes I get ideas from looking at pottery or design books on the Internet Archive.

Sometimes I start out with a botanical idea…other times I realize that what I’ve done looks botanical even if I didn’t start out with the intent.

Looking at it again - the pink and purple floating flowers appeals to me more now that right after I created it.

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Zentangle® - March 2015

March was my second month of ‘a Zentangle a day’ - and I’m planning to continue for the foreseeable future and limit myself to one blog post about them each month. Sometimes I create more than one tile in a day…just because I feel the urge or because I need the Zen the activity brings.

After the first week of March - I decided to use the letters of the alphabet as the ‘string’ and quickly discovered how easily the string can disappear. Do you notice the A - B - C in the three tiles at the bottom of this group?

What about the D - E - F and G - H - I?

And the J - K - L and M - N - O? The K and the O are pretty clear.

P - Q - R  and S - T - U. I noticed after the fact how much the Q ended up looking like a dream catcher.

V - W and X - Y -Z. The Y looks so delicate.

I discovered the plastic that comes with Health Choice Café Steamer frozen entrees makes a great stencil. The first time I used it was for the O string tile.

The one on the upper left was another attempt to use it.

And a more complex tile using more of the strainer ‘holes’ is in the lower row - middle.

As you can see I occasionally am using red pens and cleaning out various colors of card stock from the office supplies that have accumulated from years of school projects and - I’m not sure what else.

By the end of March - I had quite a pile of 3.5 x 3.5 inch tiles and I begin experimenting with displays for groups of them. I taped a bunch together and suspended them from a strip of balsa wood using binder clips as a first attempt. I’m sure I’ll come up with some other types of displays over the course of April.

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.