June 2016 – A Tangler's Mind

Groovy – Square One Focus

This week’s Square One: Purely Zentangle focus tangle is Groovy by Eden Hunt. Step Outs for this tangle can be found here.

I have a very busy summer ahead so I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep up with the weekly posts for the Square One focus. I’m already behind and I decided I wouldn’t try and catch up. But first off here are the two tiles I did for last week’s focus: Rundl by Ela Rieger.

In the first tile I added Diva Dance to Rundle and did the background using pencil.

In the second tile I used rounding on the Rundl.

Now to this weeks focus tangle. Groovy, uses a wavy grid, also known as an Ogee grid. It looks like this. (Note: I mentioned this grid in my last post too.)

To warm up for this week’s tile I decided to do a “sampler” tile with several tangles that use this grid. It turned into a kind of Family Portrait. Tangles used are top & bottom – Bask-it by Anna Houston, left to right – African Artist by Tina Hunziker, Scrumble by Jane Monk, and Groovy by Eden Hunt.

After this fun warm up exercise I moved on to a mono tangle of Groovy. I started with the wavy grid but as you can see it did not want to stay together and instead pulled apart a bit at the edges.

Next came the diagonal lines that alternate back and forth. They didn’t want to cooperate either and one space got left blank.

Then anarchy ruled and some of the ribbons got loose and some of the shapes turned see through.

In the end I let Groovy have it’s way and I like what it did. What do you think?

As usual if you see anything in this post that you would like to try in your own work please feel free to do so.

Blessings,

Lynn

C-Wing – Square One Focus

This past week the Square One focus tangle was C-wing by Staub Korn. It is one I had never tried before so I practiced it a bit in my sketchbook in order to get to know it a little better. I noticed a couple of interesting things about this pattern. First, there is an Ogee grid hidden in the pattern (I’ve gone over it in red in the photo below) and Second, it can be broken down into a Fragment which when mirrored and rotated forms the tangle ( I’ve also indicated the fragment in red).

If you are unfamiliar with Fragments, they are a concept that Rick and Maria have introduced in their recent book Zentangle Primer Vol. 1. Fragments are elements that when placed in a grid create a pattern. Note: R&M refer to the grids used with fragments as Reticula. Different patterns can be created by repeating, rotating or mirroring a fragment. But more about that in a later post.

For this week’s tile I started with a dot grid since I didn’t want the lines from a lined grid to show. I chose to use a variation of the tangle that offset the overlapping shapes in alternating rows.

I did the main outline with a .05 Apprentice pen. Then I drew an inner aura in each shape with a .01 micron. Some shapes I made see-thru so the shapes behind could be seen. Then I added tone and texture through line and fill.

The shading enhanced the effect of the solid and see-thru, the foreground and background. Here’s the final tile.

What I like about this tile is that the tangle is very regular but the fill is unexpected.

As always if you see something in this post that you’d like to try in your own work, please feel free to do so.

Blessings,

Lynn