ZIA tiles

Here are a few recent pieces of Zentangle Inspired Art (ZIA) on standard 3.5" paper tiles: two onion domes and a tree.

"BIGWIGS" (c) 2013 Margaret Bremner
Tangles: Black Pearlz, Cruffle, Lamar, N'zeppel, Paisley Boa,
Tidings, Tortuca, Verve, Yewdee

"OLD MOON" (c) 2013 Margaret Bremner
Tangles: Black Pearlz, Cruffle, Diva Dance, Many Moons, Puffle, Tipple, Zewm
and a variation of Unyun

untitled (c) 2013 Margaret Bremner
Tangles: Black Pearlz, Diva Dance, Emingle, Flux, Florez, Hollibaugh,
Hurly Burly, Knase, Lamar, Leaflet, Opus, Pearlz, Sanibelle, Wud

Bales

This week Laura has challenged us to use the tangle Bales and explore variations of it. The shapes in Bales often remind me of leaves, so leaves crept into my tiles this week. I also seemed to really get into doing extensions, or arcs, or Auras, around the 'leaf' shapes.

The first tile here is actually my third go at it, but I think it shows a number of possible variations better than the others. On the left side I tried using Bales with triangles. I cheated slightly and also used some Black Pearlz (can't resist those!) and a wee bit of Beadlines.

This is the first one I did. I had a couple of tiles with an irregular, square-grid-ish string and they looked good for this challenge.

I also wanted to try Bales in a circle. I found a round tile on which I'd drawn one of Erin the Bright Owl's mandala templates (#41).

Ebony and Ivory

Black and white. Half and half. 50/50. That's this week's challenge from the DivaCZT: try to keep the artwork in equal balance.

I haven't had much success with this (maybe I was trying too hard) although I don't mind my first effort. I chose tangles that were fairly equal black and white, but had to made a few adjustments once they were on the paper! I also tried out TanglePatterns string #53.

Tangles: Bunzo, Firecracker, Knightsbridge, Paisley Boa, Unyun

Then I thought of using a white tile and a black tile, half and half. I eyeballed a shape that looked to be about half the tile and cut it out with an Xacto knife. Then I drew an identical shape on the other tile and cut it out. Then I taped the black shape into the white tile and vice versa. Cool. I like the idea and may use it again, but I'm not particularly happy with the results in terms of this challenge.

The first one here is the white shape in a black tile. The equal black and white made the whole tile too monotoned so I grayed some of the background. Having darkened that, I thought I should lighten something else, thus the white dots in Bunzo (which I like!). Interesting, but still too monotone. On to the next one.

Tangles: Bunzo and Demi

Here's the black shape in the white tile. I did one tangle a much larger scale than the other, which I think helps a lot. I again added some gray on the background, and did some white highlights on some of the black squares. I found that if I let the white ink dry really well and went over it a second time it was whiter. I love what I've been seeing others do for this challenge and I'd like to tackle it again later.

Tangles: Bunzo and Dyzzee

But here... here's my idea of Ebony and Ivory in true perfection. These are the children of a friend, a fair-haired, fair-skinned Canadian married to a lovely dark Haitian. Aren't they absolutely gorgeous?!?!?

More Schway

It turns out I was rather captivated by this tangle. I originally wasn't sure whether I'd really like it or not. I felt I wanted there to be more to it and wondered about putting dark tangles in the dark arrows. I pulled out two bookmark starts and Schway'd them.

Tangles, besides Schway: Black Pearlz, Bunzo, Camelia, Drobbles,
Knightsbridge, stripes with highlights, etc..

I do a lot of wonky houses and buildings and it struck me how the squat-er arrow shapes resembled simple house shapes. I tried that idea on a regular size tile.

Tangles, besides Schway: Black Pearlz, Bunzo, Drobbles,
Flux, Knightsbridge, Paizel, etc..

Kuke

This was a fortuitous challenge. I've had the step-outs for Kuke near my desk since it came out, wanting to try it... soon... Here are my efforts for the Diva's weekly challenge 118.

Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Cruffle, Jonqal,
Knightsbridge, Kuke, Pearlz

Tangles: Crescent Moon, Florez, Kuke

Black and white zendalas

Tangles: Baton, Black Pearlz, Going Down, Paisley Boa,
and elements of Crescent Moon,

The next is from a small mandala template I made many years ago and recently rediscovered.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Lamar, Pearlz, Paisley Boa, Paushaluv, Tortuca, 

With this white flower I had quite a battle with myself to leave so much untangled white space! It's not my normal modus operandi. :)

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Deelish, Knightspeak, Msst, N'zeppl

Schway

A new official tangle (Schway) and another weekly challenge (#117).

I had a tile with a spirally string. I thought it would be interesting to have the arrows go in and out of the spiral... but I got them oriented in the wrong direction! Oh well. Live and learn. Now I know that the arrows will go perpendicular to the original lines.

Tangles: Diva Dance, Knightsbridge, Pearlz, Schway

I also had an ATC with some random gold swooshes handy so I decided to try to fit Schway's arrows among them. I also used colored ink, white ink, gold ink, and tried a Sharpie and a black Identi-pen to try to cover some of the gold (neither really worked).

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Gneiss, Knightsbridge, Romanancy, Schway, Tipple

Flower of Life

The traditional Flower of Life pattern is lovely, and can just keep on growing in any direction. All you need to do the circles is a compass, but it can also be accomplished using a lid. I tried this on a zendala tile and it developed into something quite lovely.

Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Lacing, Pearlz, Tripoli, Wud and more

I wondered how it would look if I started with an off-center circle. I had a tile with some gold wash so I used that, and various 'brown' inks. I wanted the one full circle to stand out a bit.

Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearlz, Cruffle, Knase,
Paisley Boa, Pearlz and more

I really liked that one, so I pulled out a zendala tile with an all-over purple wash and tried the same thing. The purple acrylic paint I used is a bit dusky, and gave the whole thing too much grayness for my liking, so I got out a white pen and white pencil and added highlights.

Tangles: Betweed, Black Pearlz, Cruffle, Fleurette/Florez hybrid,
Knase, Pearlz, Printemps

I was finding the size of the sections somewhat restrictive - I wanted more space to tangle! I'm going to try a flower of life design on a larger square paper. Stay tuned. 

A little aside: Molly Hollibaugh designed a tangle called Fife which is inspired by, or reminiscent of, the Flower of Life pattern. You can see the drawing instructions in the Zentangle newsletter here.

A tangled tree

I had done a turquoise and green wash, and tangled this tree a while ago but couldn't figure out what to do with the background. I felt that more tangles would detract from the tree. In the end I decided simply to stay with the washiness of the background, adding a little more wash and some colored pencil enhancement. It may need a bit of fine-tuning, but I'm quite pleased with it!

This tangled tree is done on 8"x10" illustration board.
(c) 2013, Margaret Bremner

Blind sighted

Weekly challenge number 116. I'm having trouble keeping up! I always label the back of my work with the challenge number and most times, when I double check, I find I've numbered it too low.

This week we're revisiting blind strings. I really like blind strings; they give me something wonky and unexpected to work with. I realized that I've never used a blind string on a round tile, so that's what I did this week. I did one with a string that is quite random and one that's sort of star-like.

Tangles: Black Pearlz, Crescent Moon, Daggerly, Diva Dance, Knase,
Knightsbridge, Mi2, Paisley Boa, Paradox, Pearlz, Printemps, Yew Dee, Zedbra

Tangles: Beelight, Black Pearlz, Flukes, Jemz, Knightsbridge,
Paradox, Tripoli, Warble variation, Yew Dee, Zedbra