5 year Anniversary

This month I celebrated my 5th anniversary of becoming a CZT (Certified Zentangle Instructor). Zentangle has given me so much since I learned the method. I genuinely enjoy sharing it in my classes. As I was chatting with other CZTs that were in my same class, we all felt the same and wanted to celebrate.  Sine it is our 5th anniversary and we were class #5, we decided to do a swap among ourselves.

We decided to each create 5 tiles and somewhere on the tile to include the number 5. I decided to use the number 5 as my string. I used my orange colored tiles and a brown Micron pen. Shading was done with a colored pencil and highlights were added with a chalk pencil.

Here are the tiles before I added the background tangles - you can see the '5' string a little more easily. I challenged myself to find different tangles for each tile. It took a little longer than I thought.

Here are the last two of the group of five - with and without their background tangles.

And a group photo.

Ghosts of Tangles Past

This post is sort of a 'Before and After'.

It includes a Zentangle I did yesterday and a tangle I did back in 2010 - shortly after I discovered Zentangle. I used the tangle I did back in 2010 as an inspiration for the new tile. It has a similar string and similar tangles. But I found ways I could improve on it and use some of the skills I learned since then.

Since it is my own work, I don't have to be polite. I can - and will critique the heck out of it. 

The tangle from 2010 was done on the back of a flimsy index card. I know now to use quality, archival materials. I now use quality paper and pens that will not fade over time. Thankfully, this piece was in a binder, so it wasn't exposed to sunlight.

I had learned a few of the tangles back then as I surfed the web. Some of them you will recognize, and some - I have no idea where they came from! I like that there are so many tangles that have step-outs online so I can really expand my selections. I tried to use the same tangles I used in 2010 but some I had to revise.

I was able to create a string within a circle. I used a circle template to draw the circle with my pen. I don't do that anymore. It looks almost machine made and doesn't have the handmade look that I value. Now I draw a circle in pencil first and then use my pen freehand. The string is OK but has so many tiny sections that created problems for me.

As I drew my piece in 2010, I tried so hard to get tangles into all the tiny places within the string that I ended up drawing the tangles tight and small. If you look at the new piece on top, you can see that I took the tangle patterns and drew them bigger. When I had the freedom to draw bigger, some of the 'tightness' disappeared.

The 2010 piece doesn't have any shading. I didn't understand that back then but now it's my favorite part of the process. My new piece also uses highlights since it's done on a Renaissance tile. That's something that didn't even exist back in 2010. I really like how it expands the piece and gives it depth.

I invite any of you who have been tangling for a while (even if only for a couple of months) to revisit one of your early tiles and redo it!

Valentangle

Valentines Day is tomorrow. So this valentangle is for my husband - my valentine for 42 years now. I did this while I was with him in the hospital. I wish I could take his pain away but it looks like this roller coaster that we are on will be a long ride. Your prayers for him would be appreciated.

I started with one of my hand colored pink tiles. I colored it all one light shade first and then did a second layer of color on the inner circle. I left the heart in the middle with no tangles and just shaded and highlighted.Tangling was done with a pink Micron. Shading used a Prismacolor colored pencil. Highlights were done with a white charcoal pencil.

Molygon

Molygon is the newest tangle pattern from Zentangle headquarters. It was published in the last newsletter and the stepouts can be found there.

I've had fun playing with this tangle and it is the current challenge on the "I am the Diva" website. If you want to see a wide variety of takes on this tangle, click over there. (Link in the right hand column.)

I tried doing Molygon both inside a large molygon shape and then echoed it. Added some extra line details, shading, and done!