May 01, 2019

Zentangle® - April 2019

May 01, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

At the beginning of April, I was in the Certified Zentangle Trainer class…creating tiles as we learned best strategies for teaching others the Zentangle® Method. The tiles were put into a journal with corners like were used for pictures in old scrapbooks. My two favorite tiles that I did during the class were the ‘creature’ tile and the triangular tile (the different tile shape and color).

I didn’t include the tiles from class in my 30 picks for April (I averaged over 3 tiles for each day of April…so had a challenge to pick just 30 for this blog post!). I’ve grouped them into 2 groups below:

The tiles I made on the iPad. I keep returned to black background and white ‘ink’ – even though I sometimes am in the mood for color…change up a little…temporarily.

The big experiment of the month was some round coasters I ordered from Amazon (here). They are 3-inch rounds rather than 4.5-inch that we did in class (and I found overwhelmingly large). The coasters are a good thickness and texture for Zentangle. I’ve used two pens: the Pigman Pen 05 (used for younger students…which I will have in summer campers this summer) and the Sharpie Ultra Fine (lots of colors). At some point I might experiment with a sealer and use them as coasters!

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.

April 26, 2019

3 Free eBooks – April 2019

April 26, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

All three picks for this month are groups of items rather than just one – two magazines and the last one a series of volumes from the late 1700s of plants and animals. So many freely available books…so little time!

52a 19 04.jpg — ***Shadowland*** (magazine). New York City: M. P. Publishing Company from 1919 – 1923. Most issues available from Internet Archive here. Shadowland was an American monthly magazine about art, dance, and film. I particularly enjoyed the covers by A. M. Hopfmuller. The sample image I choose to include with this post was one that reminded me of a Zentangle pattern….a very stylized ‘tree.’

Sunset (magazine). San Francisco: Southern Pacific Company. Issues from May 1898 – 1923 from Hathi Trust here. The magazine has morphed many times and continued to be published after these fully available online issues (expired copyright); check the Wikipedia info here for the history. I have perused the issues to 1904 so far. I was intrigued by the picture of oil production in Los Angeles from the year one of my grandfathers was born.

Shaw, George. The naturalists' miscellany : or Coloured figures of natural objects. London: Nodder & Co. 1789. 24 volumes available from Internet Archive here. The sample image I am including for these books is a cecropia moth; I’ll be starting my volunteering at the Wings of Fancy exhibit at Brookside Gardens soon and hope we have cecropia caterpillars again this year!

April 25, 2019

Ten Little Celebrations – April 2019

April 25, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

April has been a busy month – only at home for a week out of the month and not all at the same time. There was plenty to celebrate with spring in full swing and the travel to see it in different places.

Certified Zentangle® Trainer (CZT) class. There were so many perspectives of the CZT class to celebrate: the beauty of the creations everyone was making, the conversations, the food…the challenge of being a student…the Zen.

**Train ride home.** I don’t go many places where taking the train is feasible…but the CZT class was one of them. I celebrated the low stress hours going home…a fitting finale to the class.

2019 04 IMG_3992.jpg — **4th and 5th grade field trips.** The early April field trips happened with great weather and the students enjoying being outdoors to learn about the Patapsco heritage (land, water, and rocks) and BioBlitz. It’s always inspiring to see their curiosity and enthusiasm --- celebrating a spring field trip.

Getting to Dallas. I had to travel to Dallas quickly and it was easier than a thought it would be. And I celebrated that I was less stressed by the rapid change in plans (maybe the Zentangle class providing an added benefit.

Spring days. Noticing the rapidly developing blossoms of spring is fodder for many celebrations – oxalis is probably one of my favorites right now. It blooms when the sun is shining!

Rainy day (spent indoors). After busy days – having a rainy day spent indoors is something to celebrate…with homemade soup for lunch!

Josey Ranch Pocket Prairie. A little bit of prairie – carefully tended by volunteers – in a Dallas suburb! Right now it is a celebration of spring wildflowers.

2019 04 IMG_5834.jpg — **Cedar waxwings.** Birds are migrating and there are serendipity sightings of birds that don’t stay around the area long. I celebrated seeing a small flock of cedar waxwings last week.

Botanical reminders of my grandmother. Many flowers in my parents’ Carrollton yard were planted by my grandmother…good memories to celebrate.

Home again. Providence, Rhode Island to home to Carrollton, Texas to home to Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and Smith Island to home. I like to travel…but coming home is celebratory too.

April 17, 2019

Zentangle® Paradox and ‘Paradout’

April 17, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

Paradox is one of the Zentangle® patterns that is straight lines inside a shape; the link is to the Tanglepatterns site that includes links to illustrated instructions plus variations that have been developed over the years. Paradox can be drawn without lifting the pen and what emerges is often surprising: curved lines and metapatterns – particularly when multiple paradox patterns or used. I recently started making a pattern that is like Paradox (starting at a point of the shape as the bottom of a v, drawing a line to complete the V until another line is encountered…then repeat until the shape is filled) except it is

Made outside a shape (either closed or open) and
It is curves instead of straight lines and
I haven’t noticed any metapatterns although it does have a dimensional quality.

Sometimes I combine it as a frame for a Paradox series…but it works as a frame for other patterns as well. It can also be used to fill spaces with irregular curves as well.

April 11, 2019

A Student Again

April 11, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

The paper coasters and pencils in my room at the Biltmore Providence had the slogan ‘we are all students’ and it fit the week for me. I loved being a student. The middle two days (of the 4 day class) were intense and I was very ready to sleep by the end of the day. I woke up at my usual early time each day and saw the sunrise from the hotel room.

Over the course of the class, we created 24 Zentangle® tiles which eventually were attached inside our student journal.

My favorite tile creation of the week was a voice guided Zentangle meditation – not just the tile itself (I like all the tiles I create) but the way it was done. There was none of the usual visual demonstration of the pattern. It requires a lot more descriptive language from the instructor…and good listening skills from the students. I’m not confident that all patterns could be learned in this kind of session – but it was very easy to slip into meditation with this presentation of the Zentangle Method. The mosaic we made afterward (a tile from each student created during the voice guided session) had even more variety than other tiles from the class.

Here is the one I created. I photographed it after I retrieved it from the mosaic and put it into my journal.

April 10, 2019

Biltmore Providence

April 10, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

I started seeing patterns in lots of places in the hotel. In the room, it was the wallpaper on the upper part of the bathroom walls (shells with sparkle), the bathroom floor tiles, and the carpet.