Category Archives: Zentangle

Using Art to De-Stress for People of All Ages

Thoughtful Thursday, Wonder Wednesday, Zentangle

Art is a great de-stressor. I’m guessing that during a time like this, even children can use some de-stressing. :)

I highly suggest introducing them to Zentangle. Look at most of my Wednesday posts or ones tagged zentangle, to get an idea of what it is.

It is simply a process of drawing simple patterns together. There are some websites that have a collection of these patterns.

  • Pattern Collections This one has skill level groupings of the patterns so that you can start with easier patterns.
  • Tangle Patterns There is a selector on the left side of the webpage, which allows you to select patterns of a certain type among which include hearts, orbs, diamonds, grid based, and a number of other ways.
  • Musterquelle This one is in another country and language but it also includes fragments and reticula, which are fun to play around with.

The basics of drawing a tile are to

  1. take a three and a half inch square paper (but you can use any size you desire)
  2. put a dot in each corner
  3. connect the dots, in straight, curvy, wavy, or even loopy lines
  4. draw a string be it a Z or X or loops or whatever (those sites have some string suggestions as well)
  5. then choose a pattern and fill a section the pattern
  6. add a little shading, either simple or more complex

It really is easy and can be quite fun. I hope you and your children will give it a try.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

 

Zen-Untangled Week 14 Tile: Stricles, Squill, Printemps

Wonder Wednesday, Zentangle, ,

I got lucky this week and only had to draw the step-outs this week, which were Squill and Patena, the latter of which I’d never even heard of before. The other tangles were all familiar to me already: ING, Munchin, OOF (out of focus), Patena, Printemps, Squill and Strircles. I’ve got to say Stricles is my favorite, by far. Actually, most of them are tangles I don’t like very much, although I do like Squill somewhat, now that I’ve learned it.

Here is the string suggested for the week. It was suggested to use at least three of this week’s tangles on this week’s tile. (Yay! I remembered to take a picture before I did any tangling. :) )

I’ve been looking forward to using Stricles, so I’ve included it. :) The X section just lended perfectly to Squill. Then I was stumped as to how to add a third tangle to the tile since all the sections would be full. Then I realized that I’d put a border, so I could use some of that space. But what to put there? Hello filler–Printemps. :)

Here is the scan and then picture taken in natural light (it was a nice sunny day here, finally).

Here it is after I did some shading (scan first and then natural light). I also thickened the lines for the first cross lines of Squill and I think it looks better.

I like how it turned out. Squill looks kind of puffy and a few of the printemps look a bit raised. :)

Well, that’s my artistic endeavor for this week. I hope you are making time for art. It isn’t something that comes readily to me; I have to make time for it. At the very least, I hope you are taking time to do some things that help to de-stress you and bring you joy. :)

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Braze, Eke, and Y-Not Tile

Wonder Wednesday, Zentangle

Week 13 of the Zen-Untangled project consists of Braze, BB, Eke, Pinch, Y-Not, Glace and Impossible. I had to do the step-outs for five of the tangles. I had BB and Eke already but had never even heard Glace, Braze, and Impossible.

So, Impossible was not easy for me. I tried the step-out and it just didn’t work for me. So, I did what I do when a tangle stumps me, I searched for it. I found the Kitchen Table video where Rick shared how to do this tangle. Then I found this blogpost by Linda on Time for Tangling where she wrote about the process of this tangle but also a good way to make the grid to begin with. :)

We were asked to use three of the tangles in the tile this week. Blaze and Eke were easy picks. I chose y-not for the third one but struggled a bit with it because it was a bit difficult to follow behind the other sections. ;) I also forgot to take the a picture of the string before I started but I did get a picture near the beginning.

So then here is the tile before shading.

Here’s the scan of the tile before shading.  I’m very thankful for shading because my lineart is not that beautiful, especially under the harsh light of the scanner. ;)

Here’s the finished tile. After taking pictures I think it could’ve used a bit more shading.

Here’s a picture I took of the tile outside in natural light. It’s so much softer than the scanned piece.

I’m always impressed with how the angle of the picture can really make a difference in how it looks.

Well, on second thought, I guess it doesn’t make that much difference on this one. :D

Thanks for stopping by. I hope this encourages you to try your hand at some art. :)

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Drawings Diva Dance: Rock ‘n Roll Zen-Untangled 12

Wonder Wednesday, Zentangle

This week I’m doing the twelfth week of the Zen-Untangled project in the Tangle All Around facebook group with Alice Hendon. Last Saturday she started week 13 after taking a week for catch up the week before and I did nothing artistic at all. I’ve been reading. :)

So here I was without anything to show for myself once again and almost shared the lettering I’ve been doing this year but decided that I really want to continue with the project and not get behind (any more behind). So I got out to ATCs and did the two step-outs that I needed to do for the week: Drawings and Noom.

I must have been in just the right head space because I was able to do them both without much frustration at all. I tried to make friends with Drawings some time ago for a Diva Challenge and it turned out pretty nicely but I haven’t played with it at all since then.

Here are the two step-out atc I did.

And this week I even did the sample on the front of the atc step-out. :D I have about four from week 11 that I need to finish. :p

So this week I remembered to take a picture (but not a scan) of the string before filling in the sections. But then I completely forgot to take a scan of the lineart before shading. My my my . . .

I actually had no intention of using Drawings in this week’s tile. But that line in the string just screamed Drawings to me, so I did. I also had no intention of using Rock ‘n Roll in this week’s tile, even though it seemed perfect for that circular section, because again, that is not one of my comfort tangles. But I did it anyway. :)

Here is the picture in overcast natural light of the tile before shading.

I ended up erasing the parts of the string and border that were unusable.

Here is the scan of the tile after shading.

We watched a video on youtube the other day of a gal harvesting lotus seeds. Michael said that the Diva Dance here looks like that and I agree, it does resemble it. I like Drawings best without all the detail lines in it.

Here is the finished tile in overcast natural light. It interests me how shooting the picture from a different angle changes how it looks to some degree.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope that sharing my artistic endeavors encourages you to pick up a pen and put it to paper. It really is easy, just follow the steps. (Go to youtube and type in the tangle you want to learn with the word tangle and you should get a decent tutorial. :) )

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Zen-Untangled Wk 11: Dribbetz, Cadent, Tidal, and Aquafleur,

Wonder Wednesday, Zentangle, , , , ,

This week’s tangles in the Zen-Untangled project are Auraknot, Aquafleur, Bunzo, Cadent, Dribbetz, Finery, and Tidal.

Once again I had three of the seven tangles already on ATC cards with their step-outs. The other four I ended up getting the step-outs done but didn’t get the sample drawn on the front of any of them. :(

I decided I wanted to draw on a gray tile this week. I’ve been seeing so many lovely tan and gray tiles and have some here, so I pulled one out. They are definitely not my comfort zone.

Here’s the scan of my tile before shading.

Here’s the picture in natural light.

I’ve always drawn Cadent with circles instead of squares and I have to say that I definitely prefer it with the circles but now I’ve tried it with the squares.

I think Tidal looks very much like Tagh. Tidal is the first step in Tagh. Some think that Dribbetz has to be in a comma shape but from what I’ve seen, it really is just a series of dashes made to fill a section, which CAN be made in shapes.

I watched a few videos for aquafleur because I haven’t used it much. I opted to go with the version that is kind of like Pepper and not the one that spirals in on itself.

Part of the joys of gray paper is using white pencil or ink to make some pretty highlights. I decided to add some white Dribbetz to the remaining section of my tile. And then I added a little highlight and some graphite shading to each tangle or section too.

Here’s the scan and the natural light picture of the shaded tile.

It turned out okay. There’s definitely a learning curve to shading and highlights. :) Have you tried a gray tile?

Thanks for stopping by, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Zen-Untangled Week 10

Wonder Wednesday, Zentangle, , ,

This week’s tangles were Arukas, Spoken, Ennies, Chartz, Fife, Hazen, and Sampson. I’ve tangled four of them before (arukas, ennies, fife, and sampson) and have seen chartz in my zentangle box.

Spoken Tutorial Found

I don’t do very good with the squiggly lines of Sampson but it turns out decently. Spoken was a completely different situation. I just wasn’t quite sure how to tangle that one. So, after checking out the comments, I realized that nobody else really knew either. So I did a search and found that Melinda Barlow has a video for this one. It made so much more sense after watching her do it.

Basics of Spoken

In case you are not familiar with Spoken, it is like the spokes on a bicycle. First draw the circle for the center where all the spokes come from. Then it is one of the “take off and land” sort of tangles. The idea is to first do all the spokes going in one direction around the center be it clockwise or counter-clockwise, and then do the spokes in the other direction, all the way around the center orb.

Before watching the video, I thought maybe the second round of spokes were just the continuation of the first round of spokes from behind the center orb and then there were a couple extra spokes that didn’t match up. So glad the video cleared it up! :)

Homemade 3Z Tiles

This week’s tile was to be done on a 3Z tile but alas, I didn’t have any. So I set out to find a template to cut my own. I know that the 3Z tiles are equilateral triangles and each side is 3.5″ long. This makes the height a tiny bit over 3″. I found a video showing how to cut one for quilting. (Note: equilateral triangles have three 60º angles.) I got a nice rotary cutter set for Christmas, so I pulled it out and cut my tiles. I now have a nice pile of them from only one sheet of watercolor paper. Now, I want some in grey and tan. I do have both papers here. It’s just a matter of taking the time to cut them. ;)

Here’s the string:

I thought that since spoken and arukas both have a center orb, I could put the orb in the center of the tile and tangle each of those in a section. Then I decided that since ennies has some orbs in it, that it could fit in okay, so it would go into the third section.

Here is how it looked before shading.

It was dark out by the time I finished tangling, so the best I could do for a picture was on the table.

I wasn’t quite sure how to shade this one but I gave it a shot. ;)

Here’s the scan.

And here’s the picture.

I feel like this one could benefit from a splash of color but am too chicken to try it. :D

I hope you are enjoying this time of social distancing. Not much is different for me–I’m an introvert and enjoy being at home. :)

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Zen-Untangled Week 9: Cogwheel, Cirquital, and Ravel

Wonder Wednesday, Zentangle, ,

I’m happy with my new organization where I work on step-outs three to four days and then work on the string over the next two days. I’m not perfect at it yet, but it is helpful. :)

The tangles this week are Ravel, Cogwheel, Cirquital, Rixty, Courant, Rumpus, and Chillon. Thankfully I had three of these already down, so that just left Ravel, Cogwheel, Courant, and Rumpus.

I have to tell you Rumpus kicked my rump. I was struggling to follow the step-out, as it appears that step 4 was rotated a bit. Then someone on the facebook group shared this youtube video where Maria talks through tangling Rumpus. NOW I get it. It is quite lovely and I didn’t do it justice but at least now I know how to tangle it.

Alice shared the step-out by Holly Atwater for Chillon. There is one variation there that looks soooooo nice! It has a completely different look. (It’s the one on the upper right hand corner.)

I have to say that once again, there are a couple tangles that resemble each other so much that I would probably not name them correctly if I saw them in a tile or zia. This week those two tangles are courant and cogwheel. Now, if you search for cogwheel, the one Melinda Barlow does looks nothing like the official step-out. I saw on the group that someone said hers is called Wheel Cog . . . I don’t know who the creator of that one is though.

Well, this week’s string is a blind string. That means to put your pencil on your tile, close your eyes and draw a string. I do start by putting my dots and borders first though. As usual, I forgot to take a picture of my string before I started tangling.

Here is the scan of my tile before shading.

You can see some of my string but I marked it in red here.

As you can see, I opted to ignore part of the string. :) It was just too good of a place to put Cirquital. When I tangled Ravel, I added the striping as soon as I drew those first two lines, so I wouldn’t lose the middle. :D I much prefer the tangle with some kind of filler added to it than without, which is what I did for my step-out and didn’t care for it as much. Here’s the picture I took in natural light before shading.

Yeah, it’s another overcast day. ;)

Then I added some shading. Here is the scan of the shaded tile.

I was at a loss on how to shade cogwheel. I tried adding some graphite and ended up erasing it . . . yeah, I know, no erasing . . .

Here is the same scan only smaller, because it is so much kinder to my lineart. :D

Here is the picture taken out in natural light, where the sun did break through the clouds for a few minutes. ;)

I felt something needed to be done with cogwheel, so I added some red/pink watercolor pencil.

Yeah, the sun went back behind the clouds. :D

I considered blackening some of the white space but just wasn’t sure. And I’m still not sure about the pink. How would you shade cogwheel? Which one do you think is better, with or without the pink?

Well, that’s all for me today. Thanks for stopping by.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Zen-Untangled Catch-Up Week 2

Wonder Wednesday, Zentangle, , , , , ,

Alice provided us with about five strings including a zenbutton template. I drew them all out but only got two done. But hey, I got two done this week, instead of my usual one tile. :) She said to use any of the tangles we have already covered or any we want to include. I stuck with ones we’ve done so far in the 8 weeks of this project.

I did intend to try my hand at a zenbutton but the week got away from me before I got around to doing it. So, maybe I’ll do that in a future week. :) I currently have three webpages open in my browser with fragments and reticula to use on one.

I’m looking forward to putting my new routine into practice this week. I’ve glance at the tangles for week nine but have since forgotten them. ;) I’ll get organized later today and do a step-out for one new-to-me tangle.

Any way, here is a scan of the first tile I did. I used Nipa, Echoism, Florz, and Cubine.

I forgot to take a picture of the string. So I marked the string in red on this one.

As you can see,  I carried Nipa and Florz over into a second section of the string and opted to leave four sections empty. I didn’t want it to get too busy. Here is the picture in beautiful sunshine. :) (It’s nice to have sunshine again.)

Here is the other tile I did: scan, string, and then natural light. I used Xircus (or the idea of Xircus), Hollibaugh, and Festune.

The borders on this one were really different. I liked it. Then the string was loopy, which I also liked.I know it isn’t exactly Xircus and there is probably a tangle that it is more like but Xircus is what inspired me. I don’t think it is important to have a specific name to each piece of my tile. :)

Here are the finished tiles, first the scans and then the ones taken outside in the sunshine . . . I’m so thankful for shading.

Zen-Untangled Week 8

Wonder Wednesday, Zentangle, , ,

This weekend I sat down and worked out a schedule to do these step-outs and tiles throughout the week instead of at the last minute the day before this post is up. Since my post comes out on Wednesdays, I’ll use that as my first day. My plan looks something like this:

  • Wednesday: organize (if I didn’t do so on Saturday when the new week’s tangles and string were posted), seeing for which I already have step-outs made up, and do the step-out for 1 tangle.
  • Thursday-Saturday: draw 2 tangle step-outs each of these days for tangles that I don’t have step-outs made.
  • Sunday-Monday: Do the tile and the dare or tangleations, if desired.
  • Tuesday: write up blog post. :)

This week’s tangles were Amaze (aka Stiritup), Bucky, Cyme, Dewd, Evoke, Floo, and Gust. Amaze is one that I learned years ago and really enjoy it. However Bucky and I are not very good friends. ;) Cyme is nice but there’s a point that I don’t know exactly where to put the next round of ‘petals’.

There there is Dewd, Evoke, Floo, and Gust. I do not care for Dewd at all. Evoke and Floo seem to be variations/tangleations of Dewd or vice versa. And since I don’t like Dewd, I don’t care for these either.

I never even knew Gust existed. It’s is kind of nice because it is kind of shaped like a bracket with a loop in the middle. I’m not very good at auraing so that is probably one reason why I don’t care for these tangles.

So, here is the string.

Since I enjoy Amaze, I knew I wanted to include it in this tile. Cyme seemed like a good fill for the bottom section. And of the remaining ones, Gust is my favorite, so it will be used too. I decided that I didn’t need to fill all the sections.

Here’s the scan of the tile after the lineart.

Here is the picture I took outside, although it was overcast, so not much sunlight at all. ;)Then I went to shading it.

That white section kept nagging at me. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to blacken it, shade it, or leave it alone. I finally decided to blacken it. And it didn’t look quite right, so I flared it out to the edge of the tile.

That is the scan and next is the picture I took outside.

Well, I thought it looked a bit odd and maybe even regretted filling it in. So, I blackened the rest of the border. Here’s the scan of the finished tile.

And here it is in natural but overcast light.

So, which way do you like it best? I think I prefer the end result with the black border even though it seems that Gust lost something after blackening the border.

Next week will be another catch-up week where Alice provided several strings to play with. I don’t know if I’ll do more than one or not yet. We’ll just have to see.

Until next time, Thanks for stopping by,

Michele ºÜº

Zen-Untangled Week 8

Wonder Wednesday, Zentangle

It’s funny; when I looked at the tangles for this week in the Zen-Untangled project I thought I was going to have to do the step-outs for most of them. But then when I went to start tangling them, I realized I had all but one of them. :) And I hadn’t even heard of it before.

Enyshou is that tangle. I struggled with it from the step-out. So, I did a search for it and found a couple of youtube videos featuring it. I really liked the look of it from their videos, especially the one by Melinda. Hers are quite pretty. :)

To say that I’m not friends with Enyshou yet, is an understatement. ;) But Melinda’s video gives me hope that I can actually make something pretty with it one day. Although I have to admit that I think it looks best upside down. ;)

This week’s tile is to be done on a Bijou tile. I’ve never done a Bijou tile before. The only difference in a Bijou tile and a regular tile is the size. The standard tile is a 3.5″ square tile with rounded corners and a Bijou tile is a compact little 2″ square with rounded corners.

When I went to Pamela Newman’s Zentangle gathering at the library in Tulsa, she gave me a Bijou tile. Then I found a 2″ square punch that I requested for a gift and received. :) But I still haven’t used it. :D

I really liked having a much smaller drawing surface for this one. With the string provided, I decided to go with some tangles I’m familiar with. I almost went with Knightsbridge because it is one I use frequently but I decided that the shape of the string lended itself to a basket like shape, so I went with Huggins for part the string. Hibred is another tangle I’ve used some and thought it would look nice on the side. Then I thought Festune looked like it could be an item in a goodie basket. But Festune and I are not very good friends, so it didn’t turn out as good as I had hoped. ;)

Here is my bijou tile  before shading.

Here is the picture I took of it before shading and in natural light. :)

I added some shading and some blackening around those orbs of hibred (is it Hybred or Hibred?).

Here is the scan, followed by the picture in natural (but overcast) light, of the finished tile.

I definitely need to practice with Festune, not to mention Enyshou. But I will another day.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope this encourages you to try your hand at some Zentangle. Have you tried Enyshou? Check out that video above. Let me know if you give a try.

Until next time,

Michele ºÜº