Shading the brown pens

When the new Renaissance tiles came out from Zentangle I was a very happy camper. Shading and highlighting are some of my favorite things to do on any tile and now that the tan tiles encourage us to use the brown Micron pens - well I had to shade them too! But how? And what color to shade them with? 

There are many possible ways to shade them - watercolors, pastels, markers, etc. I choose to use colored pencils. There too, there are several good brands of colored pencils available. The brand that I have on hand is Prismacolor. I set out to see what color would work best.

First off, I want to be sure you understand WHICH Pigma Micron pen I'm using. There are two brown colors that are on the market. One is this reddish brown color, and the other is a very, dark brown (they call it sepia). If you look at the barrel of the pen in the store, look for the number XSDK05 #12 - The #12 is the important number. You can use an 01 or 05 size. (My preference is the 05.) Good art supply stores will sell the pens. Some of the big box art supply stores may have them too.

I picked out every single color that I had on hand that sort of looked like it might work and made up this chart. (Keep scrolling for bigger pictures) With the brown pen I made a series of lines and below that I did a solid patch with the brown pen. I repeated this for each test sample. With the colored pencil I lightly added color over the series of lines and also to the side of the solid patch. I stress the word lightly because I always start my shading off with a very light touch. It's easy to add more color if needed but hard to take it away. At the right of the color name I used the color full strength. I seldom use a colored pencil full strength, but I wanted to have it as reference.

If you want to see a color chart online for Prismacolor pencils, here are two links.

http://www.dickblick.com/products/prismacolor-colored-pencils/

http://www.prismacolor.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/prismacolor-soft-core-colored-pencils-lightfast-color-chart.pdf

By the way, the paper I used is a pure white - not a grey as it appears in the photograph. Be aware that the colors you see on your screen may be slightly different when you do them at home.

Also, you can click on any picture and make it bigger.

These colored pencils all have sort of an orange tint to them - and surprise! They ended up being the ones I liked best.

These colored pencils were more reddish. The Henna one might work, but I didn't like the others.

These colors are the ones that are more typically thought of as 'brown'. I wasn't really liking any of these. The Chocolate color though, might be useful if I want to add an extra dark color in small places.

Here are my top choices on the back of a Renaissance tile. My top choices are the Terra Cotta or the Burnt Ochre. The other two colors are ones I will also use but more for my colored tiles or for layering colors.

This is one of my hand colored zendalas where I did the tangles using the brown pen, highlighted it with white and shaded with one of my colored pencils. I did this a while ago so I can't be sure, but it was probably the Terra Cotta pencil.

Have fun playing with your art supplies and finding the best color for you!

Ornaments

Now that Christmas is over I'm trying to get my house back in order. For a procrastinator like me, that's not easy. I was looking at the tree last night, thinking about when I wanted to get started on taking it down. (Probably not soon!) So I thought today might be a good day to show you a tile I did last week that I call 'Ornaments'. It's not complicated and was fun to use it as a sampler to put different tangle patterns in each ball. I used a lot of stippling (many small dots) to do the shading between the balls and around the holly leaves. Stippling takes quite a bit of time but I do love the way it looks!

Peace - Love - Joy

Wishing you the best for the holiday season!

These tiles started from an inspiration I got from Ellen Wolters. She provided the template for the Love tile. After I did that I wanted to go on with other sentiments for the holidays. I looked through the books I have by Joanne Fink - 'Zenspirations' and 'Dangle Designs'. That's where I found ideas for the lettering.

Each of these tiles started out with a tile I had previously hand colored with water color paints. I did the line work with whichever Micron pen coordinated best with the background color. The colored pencils I used for shading were chosen based on the background color also.

Baby, it's cold outside!

Erin at The Bright Owl posted a new zendala template with the extra challenge to use the cold as an inspiration. It's a great template that I really enjoyed working with.

Blue watercolor paint was used for the background and I ended up lifting color out of the white(ish) ovals.  I used a white gelly roll pen and a blue Micron pen for the tangling.

The reason for the season two

Earlier today I posted a zendala I did using mooka as the basis for a contemporary nativity (Joseph, Mary and the Babe). I enjoyed doing it so much that I wanted to try another variation on the same theme. Here I started out with a white tile. After doing the basic Mooka tangle I added halos with a gold Gelly roll pen and then had fun adding color with various colored pencils.

Have a Blessed and Happy Holiday!

the reason for the season

When I first saw the tangle pattern 'Mooka' demonstrated I was struck by the basic simplicity, the continuity of the line, and how it flowed together. It also struck me that it looked a little like a nativity scene, so I wanted to wish you all holiday greetings by playing up that idea. My 'Mooka' has three heads with halos, to represent Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus. I only tangled the halos with a metallic gold gelli roll pen and added some highlights and shadows to keep the basic theme as simple as possible. (I started with a blue round cut from posterboard.)

May you all enjoy a blessed and very happy holiday.

Mundelein girl scouts 12-15

The girl scouts in Mundelein worked on their drawing badge today as they learned zentangle. We all did the same basic tangles but it was wonderful to see how each of the girls had their own style and interpreted the tangles in her own way. A few of the moms sat in back and commented on how quiet and focused the girls were as they worked. We created our mosaic and had a little art show at the end. Thanks ladies!

Visions of Sugarplums

I love Christmas! So there is lots of Christmas imagery sneaking into my tiles at this time of year. It's not pure Zentangle because it's way too representational (it looks like something). And of course my use of color veers away from pure Zentangle too. But it's fun!

I used a pink hand colored tile and a purple pen. I highlighted with both a zenstone and a white colored pencil. Shading was added with two shades of pink and purple colored pencils.

string 20 - Mooka + Moving Day

Adele Bruno over at Tickled To Tangle has been giving out new challenges every week now. She picks a string and a couple of tangles that usually use the letters of the string creator's name as inspiration. This week it's a string from Margaret Bremner and the tangles are Mooka and Moving Day.

String 20 is a beautiful string to work with. I love the simplicity and the way you can fill the sections with tangles. But these two tangles? Yikes, I didn't think these two worked together and putting 'Mooka' inside the lines of the string didn't appeal to me. So I started thinking outside the box like I often do. That's how I ended up with 'Moving Day' as my string. Then I could simply weave my 'Mooka' in and out.

I also tried a new technique here that I learned from Cris Letourneau. The ghost Mooka that you see in the corners was done by using just my dirty paper stump. So simple!

bubbles

This zendala was a fun one for me. I liked the template but felt I just needed to do a little tweaking to it. And since I always tell my students that the strings are just suggestions, and, it's not a coloring book where you have to stay within the lines, I really played with the original. I made my circles much bigger - and I actually had one less circle in each line. 

You see, when I looked at this template I saw bubbles. My granddaughters love to blow bubbles with the wand and soap solution. They chase them until they can pop them. And I love to see the iridescent colors that the bubbles have if they catch the light just right!

One of the sheets of hand colored papers I did had that magical combination of colors so I used it as my background paper. I did just a smidge of tangling on each bubble. The shading was done with colored pencil and highlights were done with my zen stone.

Boo Kee and Fremont

This tile features a tangle called Boo Kee - named and stepouts by Laura Harms CZT. As I played with this tangle I kept seeing pearls - and what goes with pearls, diamonds of course! I looked up images of diamond drawing on the web to get ideas of how to draw the diamond shapes. And the lace tangles I played with behind just seemed to enhance the theme. 

These pictures are from the presentation at the Fremont Public Library in Mundelein last night. We used basic tangles to create a card for the holidays. I am always so excited to put all of our cards together to see how everyone uses the same tangles but comes out with so many wonderful tangleations.

heartstrings

Heartstrings is a tangle pattern from Helen Williams. It's easy to draw and when you get going it just flows - just as any good tangle pattern invites the 'zen'. I did it using string 18 from Tanglepatterns.com. However, rather than try to fit different variations of the tangle into each section, I decided to simply change the color of the pen I used whenever I came to a string line. I used a purple colored tile and shaded with coordinating colored pencils.

well + pea-nuckle

This tile combines two tangle patterns 'well' and pea-nuckle' When I look at the pea-nuckle tangle the first thing I see is lots of texture. I guess I'm still in thinking about that bug challenge last week so I thought a reptile's back would be perfect for the texture of pea-nuckle. And 'well', worked out reminding me of a fancy tiled floor.

Thankful zendala

The Bright Owl presented us with a new zendala template this last Saturday. It had numerous crescent shapes in it but as I played with it I decided the shapes almost looked like half a heart. So I modified the crescents to make my half hearts. I was thinking of all the love we share with our family on Thanksgiving so I went with a pink hand colored background. I didn't get too complicated with the tangles, just simple grid patterns. By doing basic tangling I could focus on everything I'm thankful for this year.

Pink micron pens on a pink colored background, shaded with magenta colored pencil.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Zentangle ornaments class next Sunday

 This is the time of year I really start working on ornaments with a zentangle influence. I even have a class coming up next Sunday called 'Zentangle for the Holidays'. It will be at Banbury Fair in Bartlett, IL. There are a few seats still available but don't delay - call Banbury today! -Banbury Fair - 211 Railroad Ave. Bartlett, IL 60103  630 837-1727
Contact Banbury Fair to register/sign up for the classes.  

In the class we will be working on simple ornaments and then ... thanks for my fellow CZTs ... I'll share the method to create the fantastic dimensional ornament shown above. I was surprised at how easy it actually was!

'Lanie' and string 19

This tile is done using string 19 from Tanglepatterns.com.  it uses the following tangle patterns;

Lacy by Sandra Strait

Lanie by CZT Adele Bruno 

Lokomotive by Stephanie Kukla

Longwood by J.J. La Barbera

Looplopp by Ksenija Vojisavljevic

As I started with the sting I reminded myself that, The string is only a suggestion. and It's not a coloring book, it's OKAY to go outside the lines!

When I do a tangle that's new to me I like to practice it a few times. So this was how I practiced the 'Lanie' tangle. It came out differently than the instructions but I'm happy with it none the less. Plus now I have another ornament made!

Ornament production starting

It's time to start production of ornaments with zentangle techniques. I decided the one featuring 'Quib' would be a good one to start with. 

These are made with basic posterboard that I punch out with a giant paper punch. I use a white or gold Sakura Gelly Roll pen to do the tangles. On the light blue I added shading with colored pencil.

This one uses a gold Gelly Roll pen.

The three pictures below are from the 'Zentangle for the Holidays' class at McHenry County College Monday night. Didn't they do a great job!

Tangle card contest winner

Yesterday my blog rolled over 400,000 page views and to celebrate I had a contest to give away a set of tangle cards to one of those who commented on my page. I also allowed people to comment on the link to my post on Facebook as the link to the blog wasn't allowing them to comment here. There were some wonderful comments, I appreciate them all!

The lucky winner is;

Jane MacKugler

Jane, I will be contacting you privately for your address.

Thank you everyone else. I promise to have some fun posts coming in the next few days!

Today might be the day! Tangle card contest

Tangle Cards Contest!

UPDATE - It's official - I'm over 400,000!!!

I started this blog back in November of 2010. I was so excited when I saw 1000 people had seen my blog. Who would have thought I'd ever get so many page views. The page counter is clicking away! 400,000 page views is likely to happen today. As I post this at 7:50 in the morning it's at 399, 833. From all the comments I get today (and the next 24 hours). I will use a random number generator to pick a winner. I will reply to you to let you know so be sure I have an email. 

The winner will receive a set of Tangle cards. They are the newest thing out in Zentangle and they are so much fun. They are from Sandy Steen Bartholomew. Each card pack includes tangles from Sandy's books in a way that makes them easy to pick tangles to use and easy to take your cards with you!

The tile I posted today at the start of this blog entry shows one I just did that I'm particularly happy with. It uses the new Renaissance (tan) tiles from Zentangle. These tan tiles let you use all your usual tools but then you get to use color (brown Micron) and both highlight AND shade. I did this tile in  Trompe l'oiel . Trompe L'oiel is a term that means 'fool the eye'. There is only one tile here but hopefully you will look twice to see that!

class pictures

This class was at the Antioch Public Library Thursday evening. We did ornament shapes with tangle patterns and a white pen. I know it's not quite Thanksgiving yet, but this is a good way to get started on those Holiday projects while still keeping the 'zen'.

Today I had a class at Harper College for their current art students. They came up with some really creative ways to interpret zentangle patterns. Thanks everyone!

And don't forget about my Tangle Cards Contest!

If you have ever scrolled down this page to the last entry on the right hand side, you will see an entry called 'Total Pageviews'. I've been watching it and seeing the numbers grow. Since it looks like it will be crossing 400,000 soon, I am having a contest to celebrate. On the day that the counter changes to 400,000, I will pick one person at random from the comments on that day and send the winner a set of the Yoga for the Brain Tangle cards. (hint - I am currently at 399,616 page views and I usually get 300-400-or more, page views each day.)

Going Buggy

Zentangle.com has come out with a new product - Renaissance tiles - also known as TAN tiles. At this time they are only available through Certified Zentangle Teachers. I got mine earlier this week and couldn't wait to play with them. They are FUN! They give you the opportunity to shade and highlight together. And when you add some pen work with a brown Micron pen - well - I'm having fun.

My bug was trapped with lacing over an N'zeppel background. In addition to the black and brown Micron pens, I shaded with both a black pencil and a brown Prismacolor pencil. Highlight were done with a white colored pencil.

Come see me at upcoming classes (or just contact me) to get some Renaissance tiles of your own.

And don't forget about my Tangle Cards Contest!

If you have ever scrolled down this page to the last entry on the right hand side, you will see an entry called 'Total Pageviews'. I've been watching it and seeing the numbers grow. Since it looks like it will be crossing 400,000 soon, I am having a contest to celebrate. On the day that the counter changes to 400,000, I will pick one person at random from the comments on that day and send the winner a set of the Yoga for the Brain Tangle cards. (hint - I am currently at 398,327 page views and I usually get 300-400-or more, page views each day.)

blue zendala

This tile uses the template from Erin at the Bright Owl. Usually her templates are wonderfully complex. I love them but because they are so detailed I find them difficult to use on a regular square 3 1/2" tile. This template was simpler and my mind could visualize all sorts of possibilities.

I saw this colored tile in a pile on my desk. I had hand colored it a while ago and pulled it from the tiles I have for sale because I didn't think it would sell with the odd dark areas. The tangles were done with a white gelly roll pen and additional shading and highlighting were done with a blue colored pencil for the shadows and a zenstone for the highlights.

And don't forget about my Tangle Cards Contest!

If you have ever scrolled down this page to the last entry on the right hand side, you will see an entry called 'Total Pageviews'. I've been watching it and seeing the numbers grow. Since it looks like it will be crossing 400,000 soon, I am having a contest to celebrate. On the day that the counter changes to 400,000, I will pick one person at random from the comments on that day and send the winner a set of the Yoga for the Brain Tangle cards. (hint - I am currently at 397,605 page views and I usually get 300-400-or more, page views each day.)

string 10 and Banbury basics

The tile here today was done using string #10 from Tanglepatterns.com and only two tangles; Antidots and Angelfish. I wasn't sure how I was going to approach this challenge because this string has several sections and with only two tangles ....??? But, as we say in Zentangle, just start, just go for it and let the magic of Zentangle work with you. When I finished the tile with the pen I looked at it and felt it was sooo busy. I knew it needed something but I wasn't sure if even shading would do it for me. So I added color. Now the tile is still busy but at least it's a HAPPY busy!

These are the tiles from the basics class at Banbury yesterday. They did beautiful work. Liz, a repeat student, participated too and I had to laugh at her tile. (hers is on the left) Liz is not fond of doing Tipple so when she did her string, she purposely made her last section tiny. As a result, she had very little Tipple to do. She also did some beautiful shading too!

And don't forget about my Tangle Cards Contest!

If you have ever scrolled down this page to the last entry on the right hand side, you will see an entry called 'Total Pageviews'. I've been watching it and seeing the numbers grow. Since it looks like it will be crossing 400,000 soon, I am having a contest to celebrate. On the day that the counter changes to 400,000, I will pick one person at random from the comments on that day and send the winner a set of the Yoga for the Brain Tangle cards. (hint - I am currently at 397,244 page views and I usually get 300-400-or more, page views each day.)

Cruze away!

This zendala incorporates a new tangle pattern from Caren Mlot. It's named 'Cruze'. Caren was inspired to create it by patterns she saw all around her on her last cruise trip. The tangle Cruze was seen in the tile by the pool. She broke down the steps for it and posted it on her blog here. http://tanglemania.blogspot.ca/2013/10/cruze-new-pattern.html

I decided to do my cruze on a curve - and that made it harder of course. It took me a while to get it to where I wanted it but it was fun once I got going. I almost reminds me of gold braid on an officer's uniform.

And don't forget about my Tangle Cards Contest!

If you have ever scrolled down this page to the last entry on the right hand side, you will see an entry called 'Total Pageviews'. I've been watching it and seeing the numbers grow. Since it looks like it will be crossing 400,000 soon, I am having a contest to celebrate. On the day that the counter changes to 400,000, I will pick one person at random from the comments on that day and send the winner a set of the Yoga for the Brain Tangle cards. (hint - I am currently at 396,158 page views and I usually get 300-400-or more, page views each day.)

Tangle Cards Contest

If you have ever scrolled down this page to the last entry on the right hand side, you will see an entry called 'Total Pageviews'. I've been watching it and seeing the numbers grow. Since it looks like it will be crossing 400,000 soon, I am having a contest to celebrate. On the day that the counter changes to 400,000, I will pick one person at random from the comments on that day and send the winner a set of the Yoga for the Brain Tangle cards. (hint - I am currently at 395,885 page views and I usually get 300-400-or more, page views each day.)

The tile above shows what I did with a couple of the cards from the Kidz edition. The Tangle Cards are by Sandy Steen Bartholomew CZT. They are a great way to pick a few tangles to work with as you do your tile. The stepouts are all there and the box is about the same size as a deck of cards so they are really portable. The backs of the cards have basic info on how to start out creating a zentangle tile. AND, as an added bonus, 6 of the tiles can be put together like a puzzle to find an awesome piece that Sandy created.