old tile - new shading

This week I was challenged to take an older tile and redo it. As I flipped through a pile of tiles I found many I was happy with and some that were pretty hopeless but were fun to do at the time. Then I came across this one. It wasn't bad. But could I make it better? So here's what I came up with.

The string is the same. It uses fairly basic tangles but as I looked at it it seemed too crowded. So as I did it again I made several of the tangles bigger and eliminated one all together. That helped. Then I looked at the shading. It was OK but I felt it could really be played with and bumped up. What do you think?

Adding auras

I was at a meeting earlier this week and sometimes I find myself randomly drawing things. I was looking down at my purse and found I needed to deconstruct the pattern it had on it. So I drew it out during the meeting and then when I got home I tried it again and photographed the steps as I did it. As I did it I found adding auras was something that came naturally. More auras and shading made me happy.

The inspiration

The drawing I did during the meeting.

The start. A simple 4 petal shape with 'V' auras.

Pull down double 'C' shapes from all four sides.

Complete the other side of the 'C' shapes, Add half circles.

Connect the outer edge of the half circles in.

Connect the inner edge of the half circles.

Starting the auras. Add detail lines too.

More detail and more auras.

Needed just a little more detail - and another aura.

Shading!

Painted Portland

I'm continuing to share posts from the time I spent in Portland OR at Tangle U. This is from a class named 'Painted Portland' taught by Julie and Art Allison. It was a fun class where we learned how to combine traditional tangling with color and images that referenced landmarks or other aspects of the location.  Some of the places referenced are the Chinese and Japanese gardens, the river, 3 bridges, industry, horse rings, bubblers, and more. At home, I decided to add in a reference to Voodoo donuts.

We used a paint called Lumiere Metallic Paint. It's water based so it's easy to work with. It has a marvelous sheen that doesn't show up easily in photographs. So I tilted the paper until I got the sheen and took closeups - see below!

Thanks Julie and Art!

Peerless watercolors at TU

One of the optional classes I took at Tangle U in Portland was a class taught by Tess Imobersteg. She introduced us to a product from Peerless. These are small cards that have watercolor paint dried onto them. We took our strips of color and attached them to a folder along with a sheet of clear acetate. Then we played around with the colors and a waterbrush to test drive them.

This is the outside of my folder. You can see the info along with the website for Peerless.

Closeup of my folder, the waterbrush and two tiles I did in class. If you look carefully you can see the sheet of acetate that is taped into the center.

You can see by the lighter dots on the paint chips how little paint it took to color my tiles.

So, what did I think of the paint? Well, I found there was a little pilling of the paper as I picked up the color off the paper but I was told that as I got used to it I wouldn't need to use that much pressure to get the color up. I had mixed feelings about the color palette. I would have liked a more saturated color but it wasn't bad. We only played with the summer palette but if you look at their website you will see the complete range of colors.

Where this really shines though, is how wonderful this product is for travel. You can pack  this in a backpack and travel light but still have access to all the colors you need to embellish a journal or a couple of tiles.

linen panel from Kim

I've recently returned from Tangle U - a conference for CZTs where we have a variety of classes on Zentangle related subjects. I learned so much! I'll be showing you more pictures and telling you about the classes in the next few days, so stay tuned!

This class, taught by Kim VanZyll, had us tangling on a 10" x 10" linen panel. We were able to incorporate many of the same ideas we used on Renaissance tiles so it was still in my comfort zone. I was thrilled with the way it came out.

I photographed it several times. Usually I set my work on the slate, front walk to my house but this time the neutral tones of the slate looked so blah against the linen background that I looked around for something else. so I went to my garden and found some spring flowers. Perfect! Then I came back in and got a clear shot on the kitchen table so you could see all the detail.

Do you like my zenbutton in the center?