Thursday, April 18, 2013

Tangled Trees

That's the title of a large piece of Zentangle inspired art I completed recently. I showed it at a recent weekend art show and sale with a group of artists I work with.
"Tangled Trees" (c) 2013 Margaret Bremner

You can see some of the first tiles here. I just kept going and did many more tiles that could be taken for trunks and branches. Each tile was done individually, without consideration for how, or if, it would link with another tile. Once I had a small stack of tiles completed - probably about 50 - I began to arrange them.

I placed fuller, 'heavier' ones at the bottom, getting lighter going up. I didn't want everything to match spot on. It's more interesting with some breaks and gaps. However, some of the gaps were too much. In those cases I added more tangles, sometimes in gray so they'd seem to be more in the background.
Arranging the paper tiles.
It ended up being six tiles square. I mounted them on a 24" square canvas and tipped and tilted the tiles for some irregularity. I expected simply to paint the background canvas white, but no. Nothing is as simple as you expect! Of course, the Tiepolo paper that Zentangle uses isn't really white, more of a pale cream. So I had to mix paint to match. Well, that was actually simpler than I expected, and I now have a small container of what I'm calling "Meringue" color, should I need more later. Here are two detail pictures.
This tile is in the bottom row, third from the left.
This tile is in the third row, third from the left.
My little corner of the art show and sale. I sold 23 pieces!

I'm thinking of another forest, maybe in browns.

14 comments:

  1. Wow! That is excellent. I love the trees and congrats on the sales.

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  2. Very interesting, your tangled trees.

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  3. Love it. Beautiful,amazing art work. g.a.s.

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  4. Well, the art form is really very awesome. I had visited many exhibition of such art form. I had also even tried many such art form as a hobby.
    --Deepak Kamani

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  5. Margaret, these are so stunning!! I've stopped tangling recently but this makes me want to pick it up again and tangle some trees (love the browns idea!) Gorgeous!!

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  6. Oh my gosh, Margaret, that's astoundingly beautiful! I've never loved anything Zentangle more. You are a creative genius. ♥

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  7. Margaret, this is so moving. Thanks for showing this one up close. You've totally blown my mind:)

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  8. This is an amazing piece. It is really hard to believe you didn't sketch it out or match it up. It flows so well. Now I am going to have to try this too. :)

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  9. I love this piece and think it is just stunning! It would be beautiful in browns too. Thanks for sharing your process. When you mount your tiles and zendala's on canvas, what adhesive do you use? I wish I could have seen your art show, what a beautiful display! Congratulations on selling so many pieces!!!

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  10. This is a great piece! It's interesting how my brain, at first, seems to "connect" the trees as if this were a single image that you cut up into squares.

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    1. Many people asked if I'd done a large piece and cut it up! I started explaining, before they asked, that it had been done on a series of small squares and then put together.

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  11. I have said it before and I'll say it again...I want to be JUST like you when I grow up!

    Not only are you a wonderful artist (and tangler) BUT you have wonderful vision and extraordinary compositional skills.
    I can see I am NOT the only one that loves this! I've been asking a lot lately..."tell we what you do with your tangles" and this answers the question!

    You know we will all be trying out some like this. Tell me how you mounted the tiles.
    Did you apply glue? Did you use mat medium. Is the whole piece under glass (or plexiglass) or did you spray it with acrylic spray? and leave it uncovered?



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