Tag: Zentangle

My sixth Zentangle turned out well, I think. It has Vega (snake looking tube), Festune (blood-cell looking things) Purk (bejeweled grenade in the middle), Amaze (scribbly lines), the still-elusive Mooka (on the right) surrounded by Tipple (tiny circles), plus a tiny little Flux popping out on the left.

I ordered the first Zentangle project pack so I could start to experiment with black tiles and white pens and was very pleased by the first exercise. It started with a spiral and then circles tracing that spiral, and then aura-ing the circles. It was very simple and looks great. (It looks better at its real size and held at arm’s length.)

This size tile is called a Bijou tile. It’s quite small, maybe 1.5 inches square.

This lesson was about combining tangles.

From the top: Flux (plant leaf) with Fescue (stalk with seed); Knight’s Bridge (checkerboard) with Tipple (circles); the still elusive Mooka (wormy looking thing in the center) with Nekton (hashmarks); Isochor (curved lines) with Tipple (circles); Hollibaugh (pickup sticks) with Printemps (oval spirals); Shattuck (triangles) with Amaze (squiggles).

Overall, I think these things shared this space very well.

More fun with shading.

Here we have Tipple (the small circles) surrounding Mooka (the circle-y things), Flux (the plant leaf looking things), and Amaze (the topographic map looking things).

I had a really hard time with Mooka, and I don’t think it’s exactly in my Zentangle quiver yet. I will keep practicing.

When I bought my super expensive (but amazing!) pencil holder at Kinokuniya, I also bought a Zentangle kit that came with pens and artist trading card–sized Zentagle tiles. I don’t know if ATCs are really a thing outside the Zentangle world (a brief skim of the Wikipedia entry tells me not really) but it is a nice size to work in for Zentangles.

Here we have (from the top) Printemps (spiral things), Nekton (stacked alternating lines in groups of three), Static (nicely shaded zigzags, if I do say so myself), Knights Bridge (diamond checkerboard), Crescent Moon (half moon with radiating lines) and Nipa (spheres and wavy lines.)

I think I’ll send the finished ATCs along with my correspondence.

I’ve learned that I need to be better at rotating the picture before I export. Tilt your head to the left to see the correct orientation.

These tangles are Shattuck (wavy triangles), Festune (circles that look a little like blood cells) , Poke Root (blobby-type things), Jonqual (stair step checkerboard), Crescent Moon (half moon with lines), and Hollibaugh (white pickup sticks on a black background), Nipa (spheres and wavy lines in the middle).

I especially loved Shattuck, and the good practice I’m getting shading.

Zentangle No. 2 builds on Static (wavy one), Tipple (circles), and Crescent Moon (the half moons) by adding Fescu (the plant-like one), Knights Bridge (checkerboard) and Nekton (hashmarks.)

Zentangle No. 3 includes Knights Bridge (checkboard), Festune (the blood-cell looking thing), Hollibaugh (the boards and darkness one), and Poke Root (the plant looking ones.)

I really enjoyed how shading Hollibaugh made the boards look layered.

In 2013 I got a postcard from Germany that introduced me to Zentangle (yet another good thing to come from Postcrossing). Not long after, I was in Powell’s and bought a Zentangle kit.

Like many impulse purchases, not much came of Zentangles in 2013, and I eventually donated the kit. But in December, I was aggressively doodling during a work meeting and remembered the existence of some focused doodling thingie. One google search later I was reminded of the name. From there I bought a used book, One Zentangle a Day: A Six-Week Course in Creative Drawing for Relaxation, Inspiration, and Fun by Beckah Krahula.

And here’s my first tile with tangle Static (the Z one), Tipple (the circles), and Crescent Moon (the one that looks like half moons).

I won’t be doing one Zentangle a day. But I will use the book to slowly learn about Zentangles. This is something I can do while I’m waiting for Sentinel to finish eating. I had been playing minesweeper, but this is more fun. Plus, I’m getting to practice shading, which has always been a drawing thing that has eluded me.

I also like how it’s a small art form (the tiles are 3 inches by 3 inches) and doesn’t come with a lot of accoutrements (a pen, pencil, and some paper can get you started.)