November 02, 2015

Zentangle® - October 2015

November 02, 2015/ Gwen Morrison

The Zentangle habit is one that I even take on vacation! There is always enough room for tiles, a pen, a pencil, and tortillion!

Toward the beginning of the month I started experimenting with the patterns on soft drink bottles. My rationale was that making patterns on a curved surface rather than a flat tile would take some practice and I was considering making spherical Christmas ornaments for our tree this year; in the meantime, the decorated bottles could hold water for when I was hiking. I bought an ultra-fine point Sharpie. The ink did indeed stick to the plastic although I discovered that any residual oils (like from fingerprints) caused it to wear off. I also discovered that it pooled a bit if I didn’t pick up the pen fast enough so continuous line patterns were preferable. I am not back to tiles…and thinking of ornaments made out of paper coaster material – hanging diagonally ….I’ll have so of my early test tiles later in this post.

I am enjoying the colored pencils even though the patterns are made with the Micron pen.

I find myself using more open patterns so that I have spaces to add color. The group below includes a test of the Sharpie on a strip of plastic…before I used it on the soft drink bottles.

I like the flower fillers!

The group of tiles without color below is from when I was traveling. For some reason – I reverted to more traditional tiles while ‘on the road.’

Sometimes I use only one color…and in areas that I would have done shading.

Sometimes I think – after the fact – of themes for tiles…like the sea (upper left) or jewels and scarves (upper middle). I decided to start naming the tiles.

The names for this batch (starting at the upper left and moving to the right…then lower left and right): Opera house, Space I, D flower, Deed pods, Tri-red, D flower 2, 2015. The last one was an experiment on the coaster material to hang on the tree.

Below are three more with potential to hang on the tree. I started using a red Sharpie. I like the color but the lines are very fat! The lower right is a Zentangle with my name in hieroglyphs (one of the activities in the Coursera course on Ancient Egypt)…and I did auras around it to make a cartouche.

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.

October 17, 2015

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 17, 2015

October 17, 2015/ Gwen Morrison

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

One-Third of Cactus Species Threatened – The main dangers to cacti are illegal trade for horticulture and private collections. I was surprised that development in areas where they grow was not high on the list of dangers too.

How to tangle on glass Christmas ornaments – Wow! This is a project I want to try. I’ve already started practicing by tangling on soft drink bottles. It takes some new skills to work on a rounded surface!

Take Free Online Classes, Get Course Credit at MIT – The experiment is a one year program in supply chain management. The first half is online (and free); the second semester is on campus.

What Those Frost Patterns on Your Car Window Have to Do with Ice in Space – The patterns are like abstract art – I prefer to use the defroster rather than the scrapper…watch them melt slowly.

DuPont Predicts CRISPR Plants on Dinner Plates in Five Years –Improving crops by rapidly introducing beneficial gene variants found in other varieties of the same species.

Microsoft’s Very Good Day – Microsoft has a whole new vibe….that became a lot more apparent in early October.

Postcard from Cape Monarch – It would be wonderful to see this many Monarchs on goldenrod here in Maryland. We have seen the butterflies this past summer – but not in the numbers we observed before the mid-1990s.

Dying at home leads to more peace, less grief, but requires wider support -

9 Germ Fighting Facts – Well timed for the beginning of the cold and flu season!

Not your average peacock – Peacock images collect by National Geographic editors

June 03, 2015

Zentangle® - May 2015

June 03, 2015/ Gwen Morrison

May was my fourth month of ‘a Zentangle a day’ - sometimes more than one each day!

The last of the colored card stock in the house was used up in May.

And I moved on to experiments with different sizes of tiles.

Sometimes I use a pattern from the Tangle Patterns site and sometimes I start with a prompt from a botanical print or pottery design or an abstract painting or a carpet…..it seems like I see opportunities for new patterns in so many places.

I found several sets of colored pencils (one of which is probably over 30 years old) and have started experimenting with added color. More to come with that experimentation in June - I’m sure.

March 04, 2015

Zentangle ® - February 2015

March 04, 2015/ Gwen Morrison

The Beginners Zentangle class (posted about here early in February) was prolonged by 2 snow days so took 6 weeks to complete rather than the planned 4. I started daily tangling after the first class back in January - both for the Zen and the tangle benefits. The daily process when I first started was to:

Try 2-4 new tangles per day (generally from the Tangle Pattern site)
Create the tile in the early morning quiet at the kitchen table
Pick the patterns the night before

When I travelled to Dallas, I taught my mother about Zentangle (realizing how skilled the CZT class instructor was…Zentangle is not difficult but getting started is a change from the norm for most of us). Fortunately, my mother was receptive and is now enjoying Zentangles on her own.

By the end of the month, my personal process has been tweaked in several ways:

Pick at least 1 new pattern per day
Create the tile in the early morning quiet in my office where I can look at the pattern instructions on my computer screen and see the woods through the window (and sometimes birds too).
If I feel stressed or off-center during the day - take time out to create another tile
Try different tile material (so far I have tried paper coasters, card stock, heavy paper backing to paper pads….the coasters absorb the ink almost too easily). I also have experimented with different sizes - some that were leftover from cutting 3.5” squares…other I simply used material that were already close to the traditional size (the coasters were 4” squares)
Try different pens. I bought some other sizes of the Micron 01 pen I used originally. The finer tip works better on the paper coasters.
Work out simple ways to draw patterns. For example the pattern below was inspired by a drawing in a book about Assyrian carvings. It took me several tries to find the easiest pattern.

So - without further ado.....the my February Zentangles!

My plan now is to do a post each month that will include my Zentangle creations and at least one pattern created during the month. It’s a journey instead of a destination!

February 06, 2015

Zentangle® Class

February 06, 2015/ Gwen Morrison

I am taking Beginners Zentangle Art at my local Community Center and enjoying it tremendously. In some ways, it is very much like doodling but the myriad of patterns have me on a path of trying new things rather than sticking with too much of the same thing. I’m also learning more about shading, to list the pattern names on the back of the tile, and how to get the ‘Zen’ from the activity. When I doodled, I sometimes got the ‘Zen’ and sometimes not. Now I know that keeping my focus on the tangle - encouraged by the environment I choose for the activity - increases the value of the activity beyond producing the 3.5 x 3.5 square of artwork.

My favorite time of day to produce my daily tangle is right after breakfast - when the house is quiet (except for the birds getting breakfast at the feeder outside the window) and I don’t yet have anything else started for the day. The patterns I selected the previous afternoon are ready for me at the table as are all my materials. I have a pretty box I didn’t want to recycle after I’d mailed away all the greeting cards; it has found a new function: storing my Zentangles. Zentangle is also a way to utilize some of the card stock I’ve accumulated in my office supply cabinet; the 3.5 x 3.5 standard tile size is easy to achieve with a paper cutter.

What do you think of the results so far? The photographs are the tangles in the order I made them. I did break the rule about orientation (Zentangles do not normally have an orientation) when I added the spiders to the webs (day 3) - I couldn’t resist.