October 02, 2016

Zentangle® – September 2016

October 02, 2016/ Gwen Morrison

I averaged almost two Zentangle® tiles per day during September – so I had a lot to choose from for the slide show this month. It surprised me that there were so many because I usually make fewer tiles when I travel and I was away from home for more than a week during the month.

I am still enjoying different colored tiles and ink…trying to remember to add shading before I declare it ‘done.’

I noted some event of the day on the back of a few of the tiles – particularly if I savored what happened while I was creating the tile: a birthday, a hike, a particularly good meal. It was not so much that the event inspired the pattern or design; it was the emotional aftermath that the tile commemorated.

Enjoy the slide show of 30 Zentangle tiles for September 2016!

The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

September 01, 2016

Zentangle® – August 2016

September 01, 2016/ Gwen Morrison

The time spent creating Zentangle® tiles seems like islands of calm focus that fit within the context of the rest of life so easily. Perhaps they fit because they are not overly time consuming….or because the rhythm of creating at least one a day has become a habit…a habit that I enjoy.

I’m still cutting tiles from folders with battered edges from my daughter’s years in public school. The boxes of old school paper are finally being cleaned out and we are only keeping a few mementoes rather than every paper. I enjoy the colored tiles.

Different colors of ink are a change too. I may go through a stage when I am back to off white tiles and black in sometime too --- but not in the near term.

Enjoy the slide show of 31 Zentangle tiles for August!

June 03, 2016

Zentangle® - May 2016

June 03, 2016/ Gwen Morrison

2016 05 s img626.jpg — I’ve selected 31 Zentangles to include in this post since there are 31 days of May. Five that I chose were made on the back of old business cards – so did not display well with the square slide show of tiles. I liked them too much to pick others so I’m displaying them first. Some are plant like…

2016 05 s img979.jpg — Others start out as webs….

Or loops.

I was inspired by art nouveau books I found on Internet Archive and Hathi Trust as well.

Those same themes show up in the tiles as well. The tiles also are some new colors this month. I was cleaning out boxes of brochures and old folders; instead of putting everything into recycling, I used some of the heavier paper to cut tiles: red, yellow, and rust. I also found some dusty poster board that had probably been on the shelf for 10 years that I cut up into 3.5 x 3.5 inch tiles!

Enjoy the May slideshow!

May 02, 2016

Zentangle® - April 2016

May 02, 2016/ Gwen Morrison

Several changes this month:

I am doing a selection at the end of the month – forcing the number of Zentangles® in this post to be no more than the number of days in the month.
I bought some colored pens used them for the tiles I made while I was in Texas then left them as a gift. I’ll buy myself another set sometime in May.
Toward the end of April, my husband and I bought a scanner to digitize all our older pictures and slides….and it works for Zentangle tiles as well. This is the first month for scanned versions of the tiles and they do look better than the photographic method I had used previously.

Enjoy the slide show of the April Zentangles!

April 03, 2016

Zentangle® - March 2016

April 03, 2016/ Gwen Morrison

I tended to do more than one Zentangle each day in March. I continued to experiment with color and plant inspired patterns. I also name each tile – but sometimes when I look at the name later I realize that I have completely forgotten what I was thinking about when I selected the name!

Most of the time I am using card stock tiles cut to a standard 3.5 x 3.5 inch size. But I also used a pad from a hotel when I travelled in March…and old business cards.

I chose a project to make the alphabet using the same pattern for all the letters. I finally used up one of my Micron pens (some of the lines got very faint but I decided I liked the effect of the sputtering pen). It felt good to finish all 26 and move on to other patterns again.

As the month progressed, the trend seemed to be toward more color. I told myself that I was trying to us up the colored pencils that are over 40 years old…but it might just have been the moved I found myself in. After finishing the alphabet!

I did try another experiment in March - photographing tiles before I colored them with the idea of creating pages suitable for coloring. The white tiles were not bad but the off white ones were too gray looking. When I use up the card stock I have, I'll switch to white and it will be easier to create those coloring pages!