Thursday, February 26, 2015

Zendala tool - Free


This Zendala was made with a free (well, almost free) template tool. A while back I told you about a Zendala maker that you can purchase on Amazon (link in the side panel). But this Zendala can be made with something you would normally throw away.

I purchased a package of the Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers in the frozen food section of my grocery store. There are several different options to choose from. Go ahead and cook your food as directed on the package. When you are done, wash out the steamer basket from the package.
Here is what the steamer basket looks like. It's a hard plastic. It's probably not great for the environment but it makes a nice little tool here. Because you see the circular perforations in the middle? Well they fit perfectly over a regular size Zentangle tile. Just lay your tile underneath it and use it like a stencil to pick out the holes you want.

The perforations are almost a rice shape but I'll call them dots here.

Here is what I did for this tile. I stenciled all the holes from the inner circle and skipped the middle circle. On the outer circle I stenciled one dot, then skipped two dots, and so on.  I did this first in pencil but later as I worked on the Zendala I ended up doing them in ink. The nice thing about doing them in pencil though, is that it leaves you options as you work.



I then connected the dots. 1) I connected the dots to each other. 2) I added a curved line to connect the tops of the dots. 3) I drew a curved line that angled from a dot on the inner circle to a dot on the outer circle.

Every time you do this you can choose different perforations and/or you can connect them in different ways. So you can make a variety of  Zendalas with this tool.

From here on out I tangled away as I normally do. The tile above uses Striping, Purk, Meer, Flux, N'Zeppel and Paradox. An aura around the hole thing and pencil shading completed it.

15 comments:

  1. Wow! Great idea! I use the steamers occasionally, and now I have a creative use for the bowl. Thanks for sharing.

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  2. Well, isn't that clever!? I'll have to ask someone to eat the dinner because I have Celiac Sprue, Then I get the basket! Thanks, Sue!

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  3. Nice Zendala and creative reuse of the steamer. Wonder if it will catch on.

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  4. I want everything you draw... everything! ;-)

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  5. Quite inventive, Sue, to re-use this basket and the result is beautiful. I have trouble buying this mandala designer here in the Netherlands. Ordered one, but I got a different one (with horses) that I returned. Maybe I'll try Amazon now :-)

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    1. After writing my comment, I went searching for this mandala designer and .... found (and of course ordered) it by a huge web shop here. I'll have it tomorrow :-)

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  6. So clever idea! And your zendala is beautiful!

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  7. So creative idea! Thanks for sharing :) Your Zendala is beautiful :)

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  8. Fantastic idea ! Thanks for sharing.

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  9. Great way to reuse the steamer! Fun tile as a result!

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  10. What a brilliant idea. will see if I can find something similar here in South Africa

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  11. Awesome recycling! Love the effect. Reminds me of Rick's seeds.

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  12. Thank you Sue. Today I shared your fun Zentangle tool on my blog: http://nourishyourmindandbody.blogspot.com. Very clever!

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