This falls into the "you never know what you are going to get" category. Except. When your ScratchArt tiles are all ten years old or older, you can be pretty sure that over time the black coating will have adhered itself like super glue to the surface of the paper and scratching will be about 40 times harder than it should be. Such was the case here. Using an extremely dull piece of wood was also a factor. As was lack of practice. Result: a vibrant candidate for the Museum of Bad Art. (Which is one of my all-time favorite places to go when I need a mood booster. Do check out that link--it's a real place.) And I am still laughing. It's similar to meditation: the process can dig up some very stuck stuff and the results aren't pretty at times (even when run thru an iPhone filter, which, alas, no meditation app can do). A sense of humor really helps. Yup, I'm gonna keep on practicing. Stick with me, ok? PS, if you'd like to try your own hand at ScratchArt, click that link to get the cheap stuff at amazon. Note that my set is so old it doesn't even look like this anymore but it's by the same people. If you prefer to work with better quality materials, just google "scratch art paper" and you'll find some high-quality options that will make a huge difference in the quality of your finished product. Tools really do make all the difference. Search the web and you'll see some stunning art made this way, using better tools (and more consistent practice).
 Tangles used: Punzel, N'Zeppel, Tripoli, and random lines. Graphite, Black & Brown Micron 01s, colored pencils on a cardstock cut tile. There are so many surprises in life. This was certainly one of them. Zentangle® can be counted on for providing surprises on a regular basis. You never know where you're going to end up once you begin. After yesterday's post I thought I would try another mandala but this time I would attempt to place the more complicated Punzel tangle in the round. Success! However, I ended up with something that reminds me of Brutalist-style architecture, my least favorite style of all time. You could say this got the job done, but although I technically succeeded I'm not in love. Which leads me to wonder: what would this look like if I ran it through an iPhone app? Let's see:  Goldfish in a pond with rocks visible through the water?  Leeches debriding a wound here? Not a pleasant association!  Ah. My favorite by far. This somehow, for some reason, reminds me of a turtle, even though it clearly isn't one. I do love turtles. In part of Mary Oliver's Poem, "The Turtle," she says: ...Crawling up the high hill, luminous under the sand that has packed against her skin, she doesn’t dream she knows she is a part of the pond she lives in, the tall trees are her children, the birds that swim above her are tied to her by an unbreakable string. For the entire lovely poem, see New and Selected Poems: Volume One (Beacon Press) or go here. I think I like the iPhone variations better than the original in this case.
 Got up this morning thinking I'd do something on the back of that bookmark from the last post. I had dropped some watercolor on the back and was not best pleased when I noticed how the paper crinkled and--even after being flattened under some heavy books--wouldn't straighten out. So I set to work this morning intending to practice my Punzel tangle some more. Only-- I got distracted. Um, really distracted. So what you see here isn't even close to Punzel. Oops. When I realized how I'd messed it up, I thought about throwing out the entire thing. But I like the other side, so in the spirit of Zentangle®, ("There are no mistakes"), I kept going. Result: Looks like a cobra laying eggs in a flowerpatch, right? Or might it be peas ripening in some type of excessively weird peapod? Whatever. I like it anyway. (How many times do I find myself writing, "I like it anyway" on here? But it's always true. Time to go get this bookmark laminated, now that both sides are done.  Same exact drawing, run through an iPhone app. Always interested to see the difference. Tangles: "not-Punzel," and Sanibel with embellishment. Original photo above.  This is the finished version of the tangle I began yesterday. However, it has been altered by an app on my iPhone. The original is below.  Tangles: Pangea fragment, filled with Mrth. "Maptangling" on a Renaissance tan tile sprayed with Lindy's Magicals, then drawn with a nearly-empty brown Micron 01. Graphite and white chalk pencils.
After watching my friend Jo Quincy, CZT, create a Mooka-Tipple combination tile, I thought I'd have a go. I've done this tile before but not for ages. Jo has damaged a finger on her dominant hand very badly and has been tangling with her non-dominant hand and producing work as gorgeous as if she was using the dominant one--she is really amazing. (NOTE: I used my dominant hand to do this one and it's not half as good as hers, done with her "wrong" hand.) I tangled with a blue Micron 05 over a pre-prepped watercolored Zendala--on the left. And then tarted up the piece with some watercolor pencils and gold gellyroll, on the right above. Which one do I prefer? Don't know. My tile is totally inspired by Jo's piece, but of course it came out differently as tangling is like handwriting. Hers is much more subtle. To see hers, go HERE. And as you watch, be aware she's using her "wrong hand." Amazing! Imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery. Finally, I had to play with them on my iPhone apps and producted these 2 versions:
Playing with "special effects" is always fascinating, especially any shift in color. Knowing that we don't always see color the same way makes this even more intriguing. Which version(s) do you prefer?
 Gray Zendala with Micron 01 and 05, watercolor pencils, and white gellyroll. Tangles: Naaki by Nadine Roller CZT and LunarFlux by Debbie New CZT.  My linework before coloring. It felt great today to just sit and tangle awhile. Quiet and relaxing. I'm rusty but the annual 'Inktober" Challenge adapted for tanglers got me going and I couldn't be happier, even though we're already nine days into the month. I plan to do what I can and thoroughly enjoy doing it. It's good to be back.  Ran the first photo thru an iPhone app. Stark, but interesting. Sort of Steampunk-y. The phrase "throwing shade" has an entirely different cultural meaning, but I thought it would be fun to graphically show three versions of the effects of shading a piece of work. A different meaning to the phrase for sure.  Drawing on an Apprentice Tile with a Black Micron 01, 08, and graphite. This was then run through an iPhone filter that tinted it towards sepia. I noticed that much of she shading in this version was much lighter and more subtle. The original black and white shaded tile is below.  This is what the tile actually looks like; it's black and white. Dramatically different than the sepia version. The original, unshaded linework is below left.
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
--William Blake Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see. --Martin Luther King, Jr.  A Zendala tile prepped and waiting to be tangled. I almost don't want to do any tangling on this one--I just love the look of adding metallics. I'm leaving it to think about for a good while. Watercolor paint and Fine-Tec Gold Metallic mixed a la MapTangling Method. I did this the day after a class on using the metallics with Map Tangling. Class details below.  This is another MapTangled Zendala, mixing watercolor + metallics and then tangled with a new-to-me tangled called SeaWave. Done during a class with Nancy Domnauer on Metallic MapTangling.  Another metallic MapTangle-prepped tile waiting for some decisions about what to tangle on it. Did this one on my own the following day.  Also done during the class. Prepped with a pink watercolor MapTangled base and then mixed with Silver FineTec paint, then tangled using Crescent Moon. I added some Lemon General's Chalk Pencil to the very large white space surrounding the MapTangled part. After taking the class with Nancy Domnauer, during which we prepped and completed the tangling on three tiles (I only showed two of those), I spent just a few minutes the following day to produce the two UN-tangled tiles above. I'm learning as I go. People get obsessed with MapTangling, and I can absolutely see why. It's a surprise every time; results are always unexpected and ever-changing. Just like our day-to-day lives. But with MapTangling, results are likely to be beautiful every time, even if tangling on them can turn out to be tricky and challenging. That's half the fun. Now, if I could only learn to be as calm in daily life when presented with a challenge as I am while doing this.  With a hint of Gold Gellyroll. Here's a tiny tile I did just before bed last night. It took about ten minutes. This was done on a Bijou tile (2"x2") which I'd prepped a background on earlier in the day. This is simply more linework from one of Jo Quincy's lovely soothing videos, just what I needed before trying to sleep after a wild couple of days in my life. Once again I combined a video from Jo with my own "take" on it, by using MapTangling. Ahhhhhhhhh.  To finish up, here's an iPhone-app "distressed" version. I can never resist those iPhone apps.  Monotangle (done in MapTangling style) of Betweed. Using Micron 01 in black; shaded with General Chalk pencils. Shadow tangling in the background just using a tortillion (same tortillion used for shading, so had some shadow color on it from the chalk pencils). Inspired by Zenjo's YouTube video. I noticed my British friend and teacher extraordinaire, Jo, has a YouTube channel (why didn't I know this before?) and I took a look today. She did a lovely job demo-ing one of my old favorite tangles, Betweed. I've loved this tangle forever and used to use it all the time. Why did I stop? Like a lot of things, it just passed out of my consciousness at some point and I haven't done it in years. What a welcome reminder. I had time to experiment this afternoon and decided to use her video to do this monotangle version of it. Soooooooo relaxing. But rather than do it plain, as she did, I used a tile I had previously prepped for MapTangling, and used that as a technique. Well then I couldn't leave well-enough alone so I did some shadow work in a couple of the negative space surrounding the motif. This was totally fun. I liked the depth and subtlety. Ah, but I thought I might run it through an app on my iPhone to see how it would look. Holy crow! It went from subtle to glaring. You had better wear your darkest sunglasses for this version below (altered by the iPhone app).  Same photo as above, altered by a filter on the iPhone app. Yikes! Very bright and the background shading is gone. Once I start playing with the iPhone to alter a photo, it turns into a project all on its own. Using another iPhone app, I came up with all of these:  Variation #1. Like the distressed look of this one.  Variation #2. Somewhat smeary but I like it, and can still see the shadows in the negative space.  Variation #3. This was a surprise! Much smearier and closer to a painting, but I like the altered colors and negative space shadows.  Variation #4. Also fun use of different colors and the effect it had not only on the tangle but also on the negative space. There is something to be said for each of them. Besides, it's so much fun being able to play with alternatives. It's even more fun greeting an old friend--this tangle--one I haven't seen for awhile. I imagine we will all feel that way once the pandemic is over and we are able to see each other in person again. We can Zoom, and that's helpful, but to be able to spend time with old friends and hug each other again...priceless. “Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.”
– Woodrow Wilson “A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside.” – Winnie the Pooh  Tangle: Garlic Cloves. On a white tile with just a Micron 01 in black, and graphite. After such a long time with no time for tangling, I went back to basics again with this highly meditative and simple tile. It allowed for the focus to be on the meditative aspects of tangling, not on the tangling itself. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... Ran it through an iPhone app next and got this silly version:   I ran my original photo thru an iPhone app and got this. A lazy way of adding color. See details on the original photo below.  For Day One of the Inktober Project (the tangle version), the prompt was Printemps. Tangles are: Printemps, Shattuck, and Flux. Micron 01 and 1, graphite, white gellyroll. Ahhh, the start of October and cooler weather. I hope. It's also the start of the annual drawing event, Inktober. There are many versions of this, and a few of them focus on tangling. I used today's prompt (the tangle Printemps) as the string for this tangle, then put more Printemps inside it, along with Flux and Shattuck. I like the result but I also ran in thru my iPhone app and the color version was very fun.
 This one is my first try at the tangle called Windmill, by CZT Hiroko Matsuo. That's where the "Testing Testing" title of today's post comes from. Done on a Renaissance (tan) tile with Micron 01 in black, graphite, and some light chalk pencil. This one has so many possibilities. I did it in one of my Bitty BookZ™ I'd made last month--this book is nearly full now. I ran the same photograph thru an iPhone app, Painnt, and got this.  Maybe my creative mojo is starting to sneak back? I would love to get some textile projects going, especially a rug.
 The tangle is Travistar by Jenny Peruzzi CZT. This was my first try at this tangle. I did it on a Renaissance (tan) tile with brown and black Micron 01s and plenty of chalk pencil. I used the tangle itself as a string and put some other tangles (such a Betweed) inside. I've lost all my mojo! All my creative mojo, that is. No textile work of any kind is underway. I've barely been able to tangle at all. I am uninspired. This has been going on all month. Mercury Retrograde? The sticky weather? A less-than-pleasant though not at all serious recent medical adventure? All of those things? I dunno. But I sure hope I can find some mojo soon. At least I managed to get this done today. Some knots can only be resolved and undone with relaxation and patience. (Sridhar Ramasami) The great advantage of being in a rut is that when one is in a rut, one knows exactly where one is. (Arnold Bennett)  The same photograph of my tile, run through my iPhone app. More life-busyness means less posting. The good news is that I'm feeling better. I've continued to play with art tissue paper, the type of tissue paper that comes in dramatic colors and bleeds when wet. I've been wetting it, then squeezing it above wet Zentangle® tiles to see what it does, and/or crushing it and smashing it around directly on the tiles. This first tile was the result of the "dropping stain onto the tile from above" method:  Tangle is "Icanthis" (I-can-this, after the very complex Icanthus leaf), an ironic title for a tangle that I-couldn't-this draw, until recently when it sort of clicked. Black Micron 01, graphite, chalk pencils. I still feel a bit wobbly about the Icanthis tangle, so it will probably show up here more often while I practice it. More tiles below. I switched tissue paper colors and both dropped color on and also mashed it on. This was violet-colored tissue paper and it was interesting to notice how as the staining dried, some pure blue began to seep out. There was absolutely no way I could avoid seeing these backgrounds as moon-and-sky (the first one) and evening sky. So, I built some Moon Bridges and left the tiles as mostly background, minimal tangling. Great fun with this art tissue, as you never know what you're going to get.  Moon Bridge #1: Background created from Art Tissue Paper, aka Bleeding Tissue Paper. Tangle is "Bilt." Blue Micron 01, chalk pencils,  Moon Bridges #2: Created with Art Tissue for the background (the same piece of tissue re-used from #1 above), Blue Micron 01, chalk pencils, a little Signo White Pen. I was so surprised by those two. Well then, of course I had to experiment some more, so I ran Moon Bridges #2 through a mirror app on my iPhone and was startled to see some figures emerge. See the result below.  The Moon Dancers tile. These figures mysteriously emerged when I mirrored the tile on my iPhone. The destination cannot be described; You will know very little until you get there; You will journey blind. (T. S. Eliot) ZenLinea posted a wonderful video on Instagram on how to draw this knot, so two nights ago I decided to try it at about 2 a.m. when sleep was eluding me.  This was my first effort and I'd like to play with it a lot more, if I can ever find the time. I started off thinking it would be black and gray on the white tile, but somehow I began adding other lines and colors to the outside of the knot (the gold gellyroll, the yellow Prismacolor) and then the colors also crept slightly inside the knot as well. I think I finished around 3 or 3.30 a.m. and was able to go right to sleep afterwards. Of course this afternoon I was looking at it again and wondered what it would look like if I ran it thru an iPhone app, so I gave that a try using the same photo:  Rather reptilian, don't you think? And soooooo different. But interesting for sure.  The tangle around the edge and around the circle in the center is called Skye; the central figure is a Celtic Triquetra with a few added things. Micron 01 and graphite with colored pencils.  The same photo as above, run thru an app on my iphone. I hadn't intended to draw today as I had too much else to do, but I just couldn't help myself.
Tiles from today's work on the Zenuari2019 Project.  Zenuari2019 Project, day 4, "Biggify." (Take a tangle & enlarge it) Tangle is Shattuck done with a black Micron 01 and a General's white chalk pencil plus graphite on a Strathmore 3.5" tile.  Zenuari2019 Project, day 5, "A Hint of a Tint." Tangle is a variation of Printemps, done very large. Micron 01 and graphite; the tint comes from rolling my Rainbow Lead Pencil's lead slowly over the surface.  Zenuari2019 Project, day 6, "Use a Blind String" (a string you draw with your eyes closed). Micron 01, graphite, General's white chalk pencil. There is no purple on this tile--I ran it through a filter on this website and that's what created the tint. The original tile is black and white with gray graphite. I titled this post "What Falls Out of the Pen" because whether I like the results or not, what ends up on my tiles always surprises me. As all three of these tiles did.
Yesterday's tangle was titled Rain, and as if invoked, it has been pouring all day today, including thunder and lightning. We've had a rainy spring, a heavily rainy summer, and now a very rainy autumn. We have had more than enough rain. So for today's tangling I decided to use a Bronze Stardust Gellyroll pen in an effort to invoke the sun. It's still pouring, and heavy rain is forecast for tomorrow so I'm not hopeful.  Tangle: Pepper. Done for the Gratitangles2018 challenge. On a Zendala tile with blue watercolor wash. Bronze Sakura Stardust Gellyroll pen with graphite. This is still part of the "Gratitangles2018" challenge. Today I am grateful that my friend who just had surgery is beginning to feel better. And that the heavy cold I have had for weeks now is beginning to lift. Just for fun I ran the original photo above through my iPhone app and got this, which I like equally well:  JEEZ. Six miserable days in bed, coughing and hacking away. Too sick to tangle. Ok, end of whine...let's just say the last week was memorable and not in a good way, but it's in the rear view mirror now and I'm thrilled about that. Finally today I was well enough to sneak in a tangle (or rather, 3 of them). Ahhhh! Feels great. Textile work will have to wait a couple of weeks, for unrelated reasons, but I look forward to getting back to that as well.  Tangles: Abeko, W-2, Hamadox. Part of the Inktober2018 series, days 19, 20, and 21. Micron 01 and shaded with graphite on a regular white tile. Then the original photo was run through an iPhone filter, which added the color. INKTOBER 2018, days 4 & 5 (two for one today): Ginili and Facets Here is the original tile below. I like it, though I'm not absolutely crazy about it. And you know what that means: experimentation with an iPhone app again. Two other renditions are beneath the original.  Done on a Strathmore tile with a black Micron 01 and graphite. Tangles: Ginili and Facets.  Same image run thru an iPhone app with interesting results.  Same app, different filter. All glammed up! The question is, is it a form of cheating to alter something digitally? Or is it a valid way to make art? I confess I wouldn't want to give up either method, the "Plain Jane" version or the digital experiments. In this case, my favorite is the glammed-up version. I should know better than to start these challenges, as I never finish them! So right here, right now, I'm declaring that I'll do what I can but I'm not going to stress out over it. Here was my plain Mooka tile (underneath which you can see how I tarted it up repeatedly with an iPhone app):  Mooka and also Easy Mooka, done on a black tile with a gold gellyroll pen and a little "Nord" in the background. Also used a General's Gold Chalk pencil for a further bit of color and shading. I do love Mooka. Of course, I can never leave well enough alone, so I had to mess around with the original on my iPhone. Results below. I rather like both the plain and the fancy.. What did we do before computers? (We had much saner lives, methinks.)  Some insomnia going on here, so I am tangling to relax. I think it worked. Will post this and then head to bed. Sometimes we wear ourselves out so much we are too tired to sleep, yes? I am in that state.  Black Micron 01 on a white Strathmore tile. Although I like Strathmore drawing papers, I don't like their tiles; shading them is pretty difficult. Tangles: Zinja, and Mooka Easy. Plus some random linework just thrown in for fun and relaxation. And then I made a mosaic on my iPhone, just to see how that would work:  Kind of fun! And now: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...I hope.
 Black Micron 01 and graphite. The rosy glow is from a camera filter. See the bone-white version below (the original). A few years back, I was fortunate enough to get a copy of C.G. Jung's The Red Book. It is a gigantic, larger-than-coffee-table volume. I just acquired a music stand/lectern-type piece of cherry furniture on which I can finally display it and have begun looking through it. It is inspirational--just for the paintings, and I haven't even started to read yet. One of the paintings inspired me to do this sun-and-moon linework on a Zentangle® tile. It's my second entry this week for Diva's Challenge #368, in which she asked us to focus on straight lines (see yesterday's post for the first version). It is so relaxing.  This is the original tile, without the rosy-glow added by the filter. I like them both. The essence of drawing is the line exploring space. Determined not to be late again for this week's challenge, I decided to do a second tile and post twice in a day. The challenge was to use tangle 'Nzeppel and/or Crazy 'Nzeppel on a tile. I believe these are the "least 'Nzepp-ly" 'Nzeppels I have ever drawn, partly because I thought I'd try both types ('Nzeppel and Crazy 'NZeppel) within an orb. The orb softened the grids so much the tangles are less recognizable than normal.  'Nzeppel and Crazy 'Nzeppel each drawn in an orb with gold Gellyroll pen. Four Mookas are on the outside of the frame, and the Betweed tangles are done with Gold General's Chalk pencil, then smudged with a tortillion. (Yes, the gold chalk looks green on the black tile, but it is in fact, gold)  Here is the same tile set into a mosaic created with an iPhone app using the original photo above. Of course, this is only one possible way to rotate the tile.  Black Zentangle® tile with Gold Jellyroll pen and Gold General's Chalk Pencil (found at a fabric store). Tangles: Sandswirl, Icantoo, and Therefore. I wanted to try out my new Gold (or yellow) General's Chalk Pencil to see what it could do. Very pleased with it. Of course I couldn't leave well enough alone and had to take the original photo above and run it through some iPhone apps to see what would happen. The two resulting versions are below. I love them but I also just like the original tangle above.  The same photo as above but run through an iPhone app. Reminds me of something celestial (but then so does the original, come to think of it).  Same photo as the original but run thru 2 iPhone photo apps. So interesting to see what using apps can do. And finally, at a meeting I went to last night there was a wonderful celebration of a special member, a woman who died last week. I had only met her once, but the other group members have all known her for years and just treasured her. Because I didn't know her, I couldn't contribute but the group told wonderful stories about her talents, loving kindness, generosity, and eccentricities. I think everyone had a terrific and healing time. In her honor, someone had brought the floral arrangements (gathered from everyone's backyard gardens--she adored flowers) which had decorated her funeral service, and flowers were set around the room, including in the chair that she usually occupied. At the end of the meeting, the flowers were offered to all of us and we were encouraged to take some home in her memory. I chose these beauties below, and felt lucky to have met this woman even once. This is just a tiny sample of all the floral bounty, one last gift from a woman who apparently never stopped giving to others.  |
ABOUT ME I'm a textile artist (traditional rug hooking, punch needle rug hooking, and other textile arts), a long-time meditator, a certified meditation teacher and coach, and focused on learning about the interplay of art, creativity, and mindfulness every day. 
Certified, 2021
Certified Zentangle® Teacher, 2013
Certified by AmyOxford.com at The Oxford Rug Hooking School, 2016
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