Bejeweled Black Zendalas

I had fun yesterday working up some designs for my next weekend's class at Two Hands Paperie in Boulder, where we'll be working on black Zendalas. I wanted to experiment with more than just the traditional white on black (though I LOVE that lacey look.) My last experiment is a good representation of a "monotangle."  These were made using Rick and Maria's pre-strung tiles and lots of Gelly Roll markers and colored pencils (Prismacolor and Faber-Castel)l for shading.

Bejeweled  tangles: Florz, Finery, Shattuck, Crescent Moon, Circfleur, and Purk were tangled
with metallic and sparkley Gelly Roll markers.

Here I used the white Gelly Roll and shaded with the Zenstone.

The center of this monotangle is a "Cruffle". I think I made up the other tangle - or
it's just innate from my repertoire of flower shapes used in the
botanical illustrations I do. I'll call it "Sepals".

Color swirls with shading.

Happy Valentine's Day!

One of my favorite school day memories in good old Ktown at Visitation Grade School was searching all the closets at home for just the right shoe box that I could take to art class the week before Valentine's Day. Why? To decorate of course! With construction paper, sequins, paint, doilies, markers, crayons, even little heart candies, we patiently drew, cut and glued; turning our Buster Brown boxes into little treasure chests that had a slit cut in the top.

 Even more fun was sitting around the kitchen table with my siblings or giggling girlfriends, writing our cards, licking the little envelopes and hoping that our sealed messages to friends, schoolmates, and secret "loves" were perfect.

Today I still love the tradition of Valentine's Day - not for the commercial hype, but because I like to pause during my otherwise somewhat crazy busy life and tell those around me that I love,  treasure, and appreciate them.

So here for you my family and friends, distant, and close, are my (still hand-drawn, cut and glued) Valentine's Day greetings and a request that you share the love.  Sorry the box is missing!

First Tangle a Day 2015 Calendar Posts

I was elated when my stepdaughter, Bettina, who is also one of my star Zentangle students gave me this blank calendar book by Carol Ohl, CZT for my birthday. It's called, "tangle a day 2015." Since my birthday was in late January, I've still got some catching up to do (to draw my own tangle each day). But I will post my tangles as I finish them. Here are the first 12 days of January.

I encourage anyone doing Zentangle; novice or profi to relax with the quick and spontaneous challenge of entering something each day.  It's a great way to journal your internal well being. You can see where you have "good days" and not so good . . .  But EVERYDAY is better after doing a tangle! Here's a link to Carol's site where you can buy her book. It's not too late to start!!
http://www.greydenpress.com/Store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=184

P.S. I'm proud to announce that Bettina will become a Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT) after her training with Rick and Maria (founders of the Zentangle drawing method) in April. Yeah!

Monotangles Continued

As promised, here's the monotangle of "Swirls" that I'm still working on.  I still have a lot of shading and coloring to do. I might use rainbow colors - or just stay tone in tone with the blues. Stay tuned for another post with the finished product. I just love monotangles and encourage you to try experimenting with them!