Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Tackling Tangling Weave

Been a little slow around the ol’ blog lately. We were getting ready for our first Spring trip to Hilton Head Island (have been going in the Fall for years, in January for years before that). In among cleaning, planning and teaching Tai Chi, I snuck in a few procrastination sessions of Zentangle.

This series I called “Tackling Weave.” Helen Williams published the stepout for Weave on her blog, A Little Lime, and I was enchanted by it. First I did Weave in a grid:

Weave on a grid
  
Then I did a gridless free-form version. Clearly, there’s a bit of a learning curve here. I love this pattern, though, and will keep practicing until I’m happy with the process. I say that because Zentangle is a process, not a result. There’s no good or bad, no happy or unhappy with the final tile, just playing.

Weave, no grid

Finally tried putting it into a tile with other tangles.



Random Weave, Akoya
Random Weave, Akoya, Flux, Amaze, Arukas, Bunzo


There will be more practicing Weave, and more tangling in general, once we reach the Island. Oh, and before we left, I ran by the Art Center and put a couple of tangled vessels (vase and a coffee mug) on the bisque shelf. I’m really anxious to see how they turn out.
Next post – Hilton Head


Monday, March 16, 2015

Changing my Life, One Tangle at a Time

Did you ever feel like the Universe was trying to tell you something?

I wrote in an earlier post about using the Tangle-a-Day Calendar. Unfortunately, I have been very spotty about that “-a-Day” part.

Then late Thursday night I checked in on Facebook, and found a link posted by my ceramics teacher. That link led me to a Youtube video, which led me to another video, then to another, and…you know how Youtube is.

The final link was a TEDx talk, “How doing a Drawing a Day Changed my life.”

Jeepers.

So I’m going to set my alarm for 1 hr earlier (I’m retired, and old – I don’t usually set my alarm. Huge sacrifice for the sake of art) and start doing a tangle a day. We’ll see if it changes my life.






By the way, I highly recommend you watch that original Youtube video linked above, made by Ayume Horie (Hor’-ee-ay), a potter who does dry throwing and Mishima. Mishima is one of the techniques I am trying to learn to combine my love of Zentangle with my recent obsession with pottery. 

Thursday, March 12, 2015

The Diva Challenge - Poke Root and Cubine Duotangle

Challenges are just not my thing. Rules disturb my Zen – assuming there is such a thing as a Zen that can be disturbed.

It’s like staring at that infamous sheet of white paper, which the Zentangle™ process so cleverly circumvents by having one begin by drawing four corner dots on the tile, then connecting them with an outline:


Step 1 - pencil dots in corners


Step 2. Pencil Outline (drawn darker than usual for visibility)

Voila! No more blank sheet.

But as soon as you tell me I have to do a tile with only one tangle (a “monotangle”) or that I have to use a blue pen, I am paralyzed by indecision. I just can’t deal with constraints.

There are several Challenge sites on the Web. I follow some of them, I look at the submissions, I admire them. I just don’t do them. The exception to all this angst is a Facebook group called SquareOne: Purely Zentangle. You can pretty much share any tangle there that conforms to the original Zentangle concept as described by founders Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts. Once a week, the group focuses on a single tangle. Note, I said “focuses on,” not “is challenged by.” The idea is to use that One tangle as a jumping off point, a tangle to play with, a tangle to practice and exercise your personal creativity on. Yes, a subtle difference, but for me, it makes all the difference.

Here, for example, is Assunta, the One tangle from the week of Nov 22. Once I drew Assunta (in the middle), I could add anything that struck my fancy. And I did.


Assunta, with Hurry, Bunzo, Printemps, and Bronx Cheer



In contrast, here is the one and only “challenge” that I have done to date, from I am the diva where we were tasked to only use two specific tangles: Poke Root and Cubine. It took several aborted efforts, but I finally came up with this one. Do you see what I mean by constraints? I couldn’t help myself – I had to sneak in a little Poke Leaf over on the bottom left. So I have failed the Duotangle Challenge, although it’s a perfectly fine tile, isn’t it?



 Challenges are just not my thing. 

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Tangling the Calendar

After taking Carmen’s class last Sunday, I decided I liked the idea of doing daily Zentangles when I could. Carmen uses the Tangle-a-Day calendar from Carole Ohl. I had purchased one to use this year, but then promptly forgot I had it. The beautiful finished calendars that Carmen showed me in class were inspiring.



There are several ways to use the calendar. One thing the author suggests is to draw a continuous string across the three days on a page, then try and make the tangles flow from one day to another. I did that for March 1 - 3.

"String" drawn in pencil across the three dates.


I also decided to start with a tangle or two that we worked with in Sunday's class, so I chose Crescent Moon and Knight’s bridge, and added Sez and Pearlz to them for the first date.

Here is March 1st. Not wild about the tangle called Strircles. If you are a 60+ woman, looking at the diagonal, bottom left to upper right, might make you uneasy!



Crescent Moon, Strircles, Black Pearls, Knightbridge

I decided to continue with those two primary tangles for the next two days, maybe trying a variation or two.  



Crescent Moon, Golven, Msst, Hollibaugh, Fescu, White Pearls, Mooka, Amaze

Crescent Moon variation, Mooka, Aquafleur, Huggins, Tipple, and Knightsbridge
And here are the three tangles together:


To be honest, I'm not feeling terribly creative doing these daily Tangles. It may take a while before I'm comfortable enough with the concept and with the format. Right now, the artistic challenge is to learn how to connect the three squares on a page. I realize that's not a requirement, but I like the idea.  Anywhere the string crosses from one square to the next is a potential location for a connecting tangle. You can see the connection between March 1 and March 2 - the tangle Golven crosses the dividing line between the two days. That required a little advance planning. What I did was leave the small area right above Knightsbridge (the "checkerboard" at the lower right in the March 1 square) empty, filling it in when I did March 2.
.
Making the squares relate to each other is one of two challenges here, the second being finding the time to do the tangle of the day in addition to the "regular" tangling I like to do. So don't be surprised if there are gaps here and there.

 As usual, most, if not all of the Tangles used here can be found at Tanglepatterns.com

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Starting Over, Part 2

Continuing the tale of my Beginning Zentangle class....My next assignment was to learn and use (counter-clockwise from the right side tangle) Bales, Nipa, Static, and Puf.



 Class Tile 2 - Counterclockwise from right side: Bales, Nipa, Static, Puf

Static is deceptively easy, but actually pretty difficult to do well. I’ll have to practice that one. A lot. The important points (no pun intended) are First,  to make sure you change direction with a point, rather than rounding or curving it. Then Second, not to make the “teeth” too close together as I did. When they are small and close together, the illusion of 3-dimentionality is lost.

Puf  is just wonderful – one of those “magic” tangles that results in a surprise pattern after you have finished.

On to the last tile. Of the three tangles, I had done Cadent (bottom) and Mooka (at the right) before. Mooka is a tangle that I’ve used a lot, but liked not at all and never did well - I think the absence of a "joining" at the bottom really bothered me. Carmen was able to show me a way to draw it so that I understand its popularity with tanglers.



The new one is Socc, and it’s a wonderful, wonderful tangle. I’ve fallen in love with it! It’s related to Puf (Tile 2) and Garlic, but is very organic and different every time you tangle it. I can see myself using this one a lot.


 Class Tile 3 - Clockwise from right: Mooka, Cadent, Socc



All in all, the class was worth every minute, and every dollar I put into it. Carmen Burgos is a great teacher – I’m looking forward to more classes with her. For anyone who is self-taught in the art of Zentangle, no matter how experienced, I recommend Starting Over.

Monday, March 2, 2015

Starting Over, Part 1

One thing I’ve never done is take a beginning Zentangle class. I’ve been largely self-taught since my sister introduced me to this art form this summer. Most Certified teachers require a student to take a beginner class before taking other classes, and this is true of CZT (Certified Zentangle Teacher) Carmen Burgos.

So I signed up for a private lesson and spent yesterday afternoon with Carmen. In spite of having a few months experience in tangling, there was a lot for me to learn, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

We started by discussing the concepts behind Zentangle, and the method itself. Then we moved on to learning the first four tangles, drawing them on a tile, and shading them. All of the supplies (pen, pencil, blending stump or tortillon, official zentangle tiles) are included in the price of the class. 

The first tile included tangles Crescent Moon, Knightsbridge, Hollibaugh, and Msst. All of these I’ve used before, but I still learned a lot, including a way to draw Crescent Moon without hating it! Look how shading the Crescent Moon makes it look like you are looking down from on top of stacks of coins. I do wish I had been able to take a picture of the tile before shading, since adding a little graphite makes such a huge difference in the finished tile..


Class Tile 1, counterclockwise from upper left: Crescent Moon, Knightsbridge, Msst, and Hollibaugh

I love that she encouraged me to fill the areas behind Hollibaugh with different fill tangles. I attempted to have them gradate in value between black (at the top) through Amaze, Tipple, to a simple open crosshatch. Looking at the tile now, I probably should have reversed the order of Amaze and Tipple, since Tipple “reads” darker than Amaze.


On to the next tile in Part 2