And Zendalas, Too!

Thank you for all of the lovely comments. I am humbled.

Yes, I really am new to Zentangle. I should probably confess, I'm an artist with a BFA in Graphic Design and minors in Painting and Fibers. Coming from this background gives me a head start with regard to shading, coloring, and understanding the interplay of elements. But I still struggle with making nice neat lines; I mess up certain patterns, and I still sort of play by the "string" rather than going freeform and bleeding patterns all over the string boundaries and into each other. (Playing it safe, perhaps?)

I think I'm still approaching it with a good chunk of my left brain involved. This is supposed to be a right-brained process, right? I'm sure I'm over-thinking, overanalyzing, and focusing on the product more than the process. If this is anything like my ventures into Parelli Natural Horsemanship, I'm sure I'll learn more about myself than I expect to. (PNH: way more than riding. You just think it's about training and riding your horse. Then you get deeply into it, and find out it's really personal development packaged in a horse-shaped form.)

And I have learned to sketch quickly, which is counter to the idea of making slow, deliberate marks. It should be known, my late Mother was an artist (watercolors). She was very impatient and always insisted I learn to work more quickly. Zentangle would have "driven [her] to distraction", LOL, and it's one of the many artistic blocks I'm working to overcome.

It seems the trick would be to fall in love with the line. Just the line, and the making of the line. Perhaps if I think of caressing each stroke, rather than rushing to get it on the page, I will find the groove to fall into. Every now and then I hit that stride, then I catch myself "there", and jolt myself out of it.

So I've taken up the Zendala Dare now (as if a weekly Diva Challenge and One Zentangle A Day isn't enough to keep me busily tangling, LOL), beginning with Dare #1 from April  2012. (Erin says we can jump right in on the old ones, so I am.) Since there is an option to do a tile, a zendala tile (round) or a full sheet, I went with a tile of parchment-colored laser paper for my very first Zendala. (The initial thought was to combine the Zendala with today's OZAD assignment on mid-toned paper, but once I got into the tangle, I didn't really use the patterns the OZAD called for.)

Zendala Dare #1. Tangles: Kuke, Flux, Ynix, and a tangleation
of Flukes and Crescent Moon. Sepia Microns on parchment,
shaded with colored pencils in browns, cream and dark blue.

I learned that I probably should draw one element of a pattern, turn the tile, repeat, turn, repeat, turn and build that way rather than fill a quadrant, turn, fill a quadrant (darn it), turn, fill a quadrant (ARGH). It worked better building Flux in the center doing it one "leaf" at a time rather than working one quadrant's worth of Flux all at once.

I learned that the white gel pen gets really mad at you if you insist it color over the top of colored pencil. (It forgives you when you clean it off well.)

I learned that scanning parchment paper makes everything look yellower than it really is in real life. The finished product is a bit more antiquey than it appears, and my attempts to color correct didn't help so I posted the untouched scan.

I learned that Sepia pens and Sepia colored pencils are not the same color. Dark Brown colored pencil is closer to the pens. Sort of.

I learned that I really LOVE the challenge of a Zendala, while at the same time find the attempt to mirror my patterns in four quadrants (or more, as will be the case) to be equal parts fascinating AND irritating, LOL! But again, it's because I try to work too quickly. So my mantra for this weekend is,

SLOW.










DOWN.

And breaaaaaatttthhhhhhhheeeeeee...