March of tiles, tiles of March

Here are some tiles created in March - ones I'm particularly pleased with of course! (Giving them names helps me file them.)

I call this one FUJI as the white shape reminds me of Fujiyama. 

Also, many of the tangles seem to me to be sort of oriental in style. 

It includes my own tangles Lilypads and Screen.

Tangles: Florez, Keeko, Lilypads, Screen, Shattuck, Tidings, Tipple plus dots and circles

Here's one I've called TWO MOONS. 

My tangle pattern Diamond Panes is at the top left. 

Yep, I used a circle template for the 'moons'.

Tangles: Beeline, Diamond Panes, Florez, Hibred, Knightsbridge, Meer, Rick's Paradox, Strircles

This next one is REALLY GNEISS  :-)

Tangles: Finery, Gneiss, Pearlz sort of, Purk sort of

Here's a tile with only two tangle patterns, Zander and Coaster (by Carole Ohl).

I shaded outside the tangles to fill in the other three corners of the square border.

I like the double spiral.

I like to leave blank spaces sometimes. 

It gives it a whole other look, and provides some visual resting space. 

In this tile they look like holes. There are a few variations of my tangle Ninja Stars here.

Tangles: Chartz, Meer, Ninja Stars, Rick's Paradox, Tipple and tiny circles

I think this one started with a blind string. 

I wasn't sure where it was going, but it looks a bit like a DAISY.

Tangles: Cubine, Marasu, Rick's Paradox, Striping, Pearlz

This one's quite Gneiss too, but not quite as Gneiss as the other one. :-)

Tangles: Crescent Moon, Gneiss, Ixorus, Tipple

Curvilinear

After all straight lines last week, this week's challenge is to go all curvy. Personally, I'm currently making an effort to diminish some of those accumulated curves, but on paper... I'm fine with that!

I did a blind string and used a Brush pen in the lower right; for a while it looked like an off-stage unicorn's horn. I really like the shading in this one! Here's my contribution:

Tangles: Beadlines, Flux, Ixorus, Opus, dots (sort of: Pearlz, Striping)

C & R: the letters and the people

My eldest daughter's wedding was January 8 this year. I did their initials in Zentangle-inspired art and you can read about that project here and see the finished art here.

The wedding was lovely and fun and elegant and hilarious, with peacock feathers and dinosaurs as themes. They went to the Geology building at the university to have photos taken amongst the pterodactyl and the tyrannosaurus rex skeletons. The vegetarian dinner was delicious and they had a gingerbread castle instead of a cake (constructed by Chloë and Robin's sister, with some help). Robin's mum baked 12 of his favorite crumb cakes for dessert. One of the guests remarked that it was the most fun wedding he'd ever attended!

Had to share: here's a photo of my daughter and her new husband, and the letters I did for them.

Chloë and Robin, two of my favorite people.

They're back in Halifax and my husband, Bruce, and I are planning a little holiday at the end of April. We'll visit Chloë and Robin in Halifax for ten days, then on to Bermuda to visit Bruce's sister and her husband for a week. Atlantic here we come! Lookin' forward to that!

Metaphors Galore! And the winner is...

Wowee! Many thanks to everyone who participated in my contest and gave me more to share with my zentangle students. You have my permission to scoot to the bottom and find out the winner. Just scoot back up and read all the other wonderful contributions! In some cases I have done some minor editing; I do hope you don't mind.

There were over 60 submissions from 28 people. Approximately two thirds were deemed really to be metaphors. Those that weren't nonetheless conveyed some really wonderful thoughts. 

Jill wrote that "The inability to draw a perfectly straight line is not a barrier to amazing art" - Zentangle is certainly proof of that. "Every Zentangle is perfectly imperfect." said 'Ajvanart', and it's probably just as true to say "imperfectly perfect.' :-)  Carol in Wales suggests that "Zentangle is focused freedom." Martha finds that "Zentangle illuminates the path of life - shining light onto, and exposing the surprises that emerge from the shadows." 

Sandra expressed what I think we all felt upon learning some of those tangles: "Zentangle is the complex made simple." Another contributor said that "Zentangles illuminate individuality." We see that every time we have a class put their finished tiles together on the table. Byrd advises, "Get lost in the tangle - a blissful moment of creator and creation being one."

Kit in Australia wrote that "Tangling is truly 'living in the present moment'.  Your world is reduced to a 3.5" square, to a section of that 3.5" square, to a tangle in a section of the 3.5" square, to a line in the tangle in the section of that 3.5" square. There's really no way to worry about the future or grieve the past when you achieve that level of concentration and focus." (It makes me want to sing: There's a line in the tangle in the section of the string in the tile on the table!)

A number of themes came up regularly:

Music and dance

Zentangle is singing silently. 

Zentangle is a visual song. 

Zentangle is a symphony on paper.
Zentangle is the instrument that lets you play the music in your soul.

Zentangle is fire and music.

Zentangle is dancing while sitting down. 

Zentangle is a ballet with ink.

Zentangle is ballet with a pen.

The brain and thinking

Zentangle is a massage for your mind.

Zentangle is a massage for your brain.

Zentangle is water cascading over my right brain.

Zentangle is a light in the dark, cluttered corners of my brain.
Zentangle is a step off the hamster wheel of the left brain.

Zentangle is a tune up for your think tank.

Food and nourishment

Zentangle is the dessert of the food that feeds my soul!

Zentangle is a smorgasbord on paper.

Zentangle is wine in an art form.

Zentangle is manna for the mind in the boring desert of the media-dictated world.  

Zentangle is the apple of the art world, because a zentangle a day keeps the doctor away!

Travel and movement
Zentangle is tai chi on paper.
Zentangle is an escape from reality.

Zentangle is my escape into silence.
Zentangle - a journey of intimate detail to exquisite beauty.
Zentangle is a space shuttle en route to the moon of creativity.

And others that defied categorization:

Zentangle is a captured moment.

Zentangle is my morning delight!
Zentangle is an addiction without drugs.
 Zentangle is the explosion of my inner artist onto paper!
Zentangle is a game you can't lose.

On March 20 I had a dozen favorites. 
I narrowed it down to seven. 
I decided I'd have to award some Runner-Up prizes too. Woohoo! So-o-o-o...

The Runners-Up are:

5. A zentangle is a commentary on change.  -from Kit Murdoch

4. A zentangle is the fingerprint of the Artist's soul.  -from Joni Feddersen

3. Zentangle is a bridge to my inner self.  -from Stephanie Kukla ("Phine")

2. Zentangle is a road with no wrong turns.  -from Shelly Beauch

1. Tangling is a ticket for an artistic journey.  -from Susan Stewart ("arts-4-all")

(Each of you, please send me your mailing address and your first three choices of artwork. I really hope I can send you at least your second choice, but we'll see.) 


Whenever this contest popped into my head over the past month, one submission frequently came to mind. I like the relationship it makes between the process of creating art and meditation. It may have something to do with my long connection to mandalas. I like the combination of auditory and visual. I like its simplicity. As it happens, the person who submitted it also submitted another favorite:

Zentangle is an art retreat on a paper tile.
  

May I have the envelope please?

*Dr-r-rummm  R-r-rol-l-l-l*

And

the

winner

is...

ZENTANGLE IS 'OM' WITH INK. 

Sarah Garrity!  

Which mandala do you want?  

Send me your address and it's on its way!

Thanks again everybody! 

YABBUT tangle instructions

The other day I came up with a new tangle. It went through a few phases before I arrived at this one that I like. A while ago some family members were having a conversation and one said, "...yeah, but..."  I thought, "Yabbut? Yabbut! That would be a great tangle name." I wrote it down, waiting for the right time.

Here's how to do Yabbut. In step 5, note that the small black squares co-ordinate with the black triangular areas already created; they make the third point of the triangle.

There's a tile that uses Yabbut in my 'Walking the Line' post here. Here's another example:

Tangles: Dex, Drupe, Hibred, Knightsbridge, Up and Across, Yabbut

Walking the Line

The Diva's 14th (!) weekly challenge is to create a Zentangle tile using only straight lines. There are plenty of tangles that use only straight lines, but we could also try straightening out some tangles that are normally curvy.  I did straight-line strings too.

I find, with these challenges, that if I do two or three (or four...) I get a better handle on the concept. I wasn't very happy with my first attempt, even though I used Drupe and it had a circular feel. Here are my more successful attempts: numbers two and three.

Tangles: Cubine variant, Dex, Hibred, Yincut

Tangles: Cubine and variants, Dex, Ixorus, Munchin, Rick's Paradox, Yabbut

I'd also like to introduce a new tangle: YABBUT. You can see it in the lower left of the second tile. How-to and why 'Yabbut' in the next post. Stay tuned.

PARTAY!

It's almost the official first day of spring! We've had a number of melty days here in Saskatoon but it could get cold again; you never know with March. In some cultures the spring equinox signals the new year. Somehow, the first day of spring just makes sense for a new year, rather than the middle of winter!

I woke in the night not long ago and had this idea for a tangle, an extremely simple tangle with basically one step! It looks rather festive so I'm calling it Partay. It's in the background of my title tile below.

As Baha'is, my family and I will be celebrating the New Year on March 21... having a PARTAY! We'll be starting the year 168. This is a holy day for Baha'is so family and friends are welcome to join the festivities!

Here in Saskatoon, on Sunday evening we'll have a pot-luck dinner and the organizers have asked people to bring their own dishes and cutlery to avoid the garbage produced by disposable things. Following that there will be musical presentations, a PowerPoint show of events of the past year, dancing and games. It's a family-friendly event with no alcohol and I expect there may be 100 people attending. Should be fun!

It ain't no Fabergé egg

I love sparkle. And glitter. Iridescent paint. Rainbows. Stones with mica. Metallic thread. Shiny things. I must have magpies as distant cousins. I sometimes need to restrain myself when putting gems on my artwork. That's one reason I opt for very tiny gems; it helps keep me from going over the top.

I was doing this drawing a while back and decided to heck with it. Over the top we go! Gems galore, large and small. Glitter paint. Iridescent paint. Gotta get it out of my system from time to time. My tangle Gingham is at the bottom.

It's much more sparkly in real life, but still, it ain't no Fabergé egg so I call it "Fabergéain't".

Fabergéain't - 8"x10", pen and ink, colored pencil, acrylic paint, gems gems and more gems
(c) 2010 Margaret Bremner

A bit gauche but not sinister

Entirely with my non-dominant hand, you say? I've been waiting for this challenge! I've been wanting to try this method, but not quite enough to go ahead unprovoked.

In the end it was great! I noticed a few things:

1. I turned the tile a lot more than I usually do.
2. Curved lines are way harder than straight lines. Circles are quite tricky.
3. I had to move my lamp to the other side of the table, which caused me to twist in my chair.
4. Filling in black was difficult! I tended to move my whole hand/arm rather than just my fingers. Had to keep a vice-like grip on that pen. :-)
5. I thought the shading would be harder than it was.
6. It took me a lot longer.

In my first attempt I used tried-and-true tangles, ones I'm familiar and comfortable with, and also fairly simple. I sometimes like the wobbly line effect in mine and others' tiles. I also like the slightly hairy look it has with the occasional stray lines!

In my second attempt I tried other tangles, a little more complicated. It seems appropriate to display these at a slightly out of control angle. :-)

This challenge gave me the opportunity to empathize with those with MS, Parkinson's Disease, or tremors. It also put me in the mental space of a child learning to wield a pencil or an adult who doesn't do art.


On a tangent:
I find it interesting how some English words have roots on the left side, and they're generally negative. We use gauche (the French word for left) to mean unsophisticated, lacking culture or un-politic. Adroit (from the French, literally "at/to the right") means skillful. We use sinister (Latin for left) to mean nasty or sneaky. We use dextrous (from the Latin 'dexter': right) to mean having fine motor skills.

Nick Veasey's X-ray photography

Nick Veasey produces wonderful x-ray photographs of insects, fashion, toys, and more. The x-ray technique, resulting in layers of transparency, gives the works a great delicacy, even for an image of a backhoe.

All the images on his site are locked so I can't show you a sample, but go here to have a look. Click on the 'Projects' label in the upper right corner to see the images.

CONTEST UPDATE

Wow, there are some great ideas and connections flowing in! I now have about a dozen favorites, up from five not too long ago.
You have until midnight Sunday wherever you are to send entries to the metaphor contest. You can enter as often as you want and you might win art!

Twitterpated

On the second tile I did for the "blue challenge" (remember the Strange tile?) I used a bit of collage. What a great way to hide something I don't like and take the work in a slightly new direction.

I thought you might like to see a piece of zentangle inspired art I finished a while ago that also uses collage. It was done on a six inch square of beige mat board. The collaged bits here are beige paper-punch spirals that I used to tone down the very bold black-and-white pattern (Jitterbug) at the top, bottom, and sides. This piece also has some very small, round black and dark copper brads.

It will be going in an exhibition I'm having in June and July. I call it Twitterpated. Have a great weekend!

TWITTERPATED - 15 cm (6") square, (c) 2010 Margaret Bremner
(Tangles: checkered Aura, Beadlines, Daggerly, Hibred, Jitterbug, Rick's Paradox, Striping, Up and Across)

Tangled up in blu-u-ue

Yes, I'm married to a Bob Dylan fan.

The diva's zentangle challenge this week is to use some color, specifically blue. In my first attempt I used my trusty Sakura micron pen - blue of course. I tried Coil (by Sue Jacobs) and have been enjoying Finery lately. I looked up the name of Marasu, having done it a few times but not knowing what it was called. This tile initially had a bit of Payne's Gray acrylic wash. I finished with some shading in blue pencil.

Blue challenge 1: Betweed, Coil, Finery, Marasu, Pearlz, Tipple, Xyp, checkered Aura, dots

On the second tile I used a heavier paper. I did a string in blue watercolor pencil and brushed all over with water. It was kind of pale, so I added more pencil lines. They were too prominent so I brushed more water on and let it (almost) dry. I drew some lines on the damp paper with an aging black Brush pen. They were rather dark; I'd have to deal with that later. I tangled away.

It wasn't developing particularly well and I made several rescue attempts. I tried one pattern and then another behind Gneiss. Neither worked and I filled it all with black. But then the star-point halves were too dark so I used a metallic blue pen to lighten them. The Finery at the bottom was too much so I got out my envelope of Saved Bits of Failed Art, found some blue snippets and stuck one on between the blue and black Finery. It looked better, but it wasn't enough. I glued on more blue-and-black bits. That was a definite improvement, but the initial wash had left some not-particularly-nice-looking color out to the edge of the paper. I did blue and black shading outside the border to disguise it.

I'm not sure yet what I think of it, but it certainly holds the title of the Strangest Zentangle Tile I've ever created!

Blue challenge 2: Betweed, Finery, Flux variation, Gneiss, Perfs, Pearlz and something I might call Ashbee.

Two pencil strings, wide apart

In an earlier post I mentioned placing an eraser between two pencils in order to have a more widespread double string. One of the first I did this way is the last tile shown here. Below are three recent tiles using this string-making method.

Gneiss, Hibred, Hollibaugh, Tipple, Pearlz sort of

Crescent Moon, Ixorus, Rain, Pearlz sort of

Beadlines, Hibred, Paradox, Striping, Pearlz sort of
(I really like those white circles in a black band!)

 CONTEST UPDATE

Thanks to everyone who's sent contributions to my metaphor file. I wonder if someone who loves metaphors is a metaphorphile?

I've been reading a lot of wonderful thoughts - some metaphors, some not - so many that my brain goes fuzzy and I can't be sure anymore! I enlisted the assistance of my eldest daughter who works as an editor, and my husband who is a writer, poet, editor and translator. My daughter sent me this definition of a metaphor from Abrams Glossary of Literary Terms: 

"A comparison or analogy stated in such a way as to imply that one object is another one, figuratively speaking. When we speak of "the ladder of success," we imply that being successful is much like climbing a ladder to a higher and better position. Another example comes from an old television ad from the 1980s urging teenagers not to try drugs. The camera would focus on a close-up of a pair of eggs and a voice would state, "This is your brain." In the next sequence, the eggs would be cracked and thrown onto a hot skillet, where the eggs would bubble, burn, and seethe. The voice would state, "This is your brain on drugs." The point of the comparison is fairly clear."

There are still two weeks left! in the Contest.

Brian Dettmer, book surgeon

I've been interested in the idea of altered books for some time and have thought about trying it myself... until I saw this work! (Maybe I'll still give it a shot sometime.)

Webster Two Point Oh, 2008, Altered Book, 11-1/2" x 19" x 11" by Brian Dettmer

"A lot of my work is intuitive when I'm developing it 

and then chance plays a major role before I begin carving 

so I never know where something will end up."

Originally from Chicago, Brian Dettmer currently lives and works in Atlanta, GA. He has been working with old books as his art material for about ten years.

Using knives, tweezers and surgical tools, Dettmer carves one page at a time. Nothing inside the out-of-date encyclopedias, medical journals, illustration books, or dictionaries is relocated or implanted, only removed. He manipulates the pages and spines, folds, bends, rolls, and stacks multiple books to create his book sculptures.

See 15 of his astonishing pieces here. See more art, and read a short interview here. His website is here.

I'm blown away.

Kingdom, 2008, Altered Books, 9-5/8" x 10-3/4" x 9-3/4" by Brian Dettmer

Kingdom, 2008, Altered Books, 9-5/8" x 10-3/4" x 9-3/4" by Brian Dettmer

ST. JOHN'S CROSS (a Florz tangelation)

I was all set to call this tangle ST. JOHN'S CROSS or DOUBLE FLORZ and to ask you which name you prefer. It was partly inspired by the Florz tangle but with double lines. When it's on a 45 degree angle the St. John's Cross aspect shows up.

Then along comes the word tangleation which Rick and Maria define this way:
"tan-gle-a-tion  (tan-gəl-ā-shən)  noun 
1. A noticeable variation of an existing tangle."
Read more about tangleations in the Zentangle newsletter here.

So, in fact, this is perhaps really a tangleation, not a whole new tangle. So much for my cool names for it, but it IS a cool tangleation!

UPDATE on May 16, 2011:
Based on encouragement from readers of this blog, I've decided to call this St. John's Cross and to consider it a new tangle.

The Big One Zero Zero

100!

I now have 100 blog followers, and one of them isn't even myself!

Unbelieveable. I thought about starting a blog for quite some time before I took the plunge. I had read in an art marketing newsletter that to be taken seriously as a blogger one should post at least two or three time a week. I thought, "I don't have that much to say!" - or at least, not that much that's interesting to say.

With the all-day Zentangle workshop coming up in the middle of last October, it seemed a good time to kick off a new venture. That was my first real post.

A big thank you to everyone who's become a Follower. I'm so happy that you find enough of interest here that you want to know when there's something new. I am really enjoying myself, and I seem to have plenty to share after all!

CONTEST UPDATE

Remember to send your ideas to the metaphor contest! There are thirty-some metaphors so far and there's still plenty of time. Here's a thought about metaphors from Rick and Maria on the Zentangle website: "We believe that life is an art form and that  

Zentangle is an elegant metaphor for deliberate artistry in life."

Monotangles

(Last week I didn't participate in the challenge. My husband's oldest brother died - not at all unexpected, but still a surprise somehow - and we had the funeral, and family visiting from elsewhere. I had mostly prepared this post a little while ago and, given this week's zentangle challenge, now seems an appropriate time to post it!)


A fun way to give yourself a bit of a challenge with a Zentangle tile is to use only a single tangle pattern. I find this forces me to be more aware of scale which I tend not to think of enough. You can do some very small tangles and some much larger ones.





Here's a tile using only Coaster (thanks Carole Ohl!). Well, except for a tiny spiral at the top. You can see how the size of the tangle makes a difference.

This one uses only stripes in 

various directions and widths.

Here I used only the tangle Drupe (thanks Rick and Maria). Instead of varying the size, I tried a different fill in each section.

And finally, here's quite a simple one using only a drawing technique called stippling - all tiny dots done with the tip of the pen.

You can see one of Shelly Beauch's tiles using only Umble here.


I had been going to suggest that you choose a favorite tangle, or one you've never done before, and do a tile entirely with that pattern.  But Laura beat me to it! This is the zentangle weekly challenge number 11, and the technique now has a cool name: Monotangle. Have at it!