Technique – A Tangler's Mind

My Tangled Floor Cloth Project

Recently I posted on Facebook about my Tangled Floor Cloth Project, and many people were interested in the materials I used and the process of making the floor cloth. The story is a little long for a Facebook post, so I’ve written a blog about it.

I have been intrigued by floor cloths for some time. I spend a week each summer at an Art Camp where you bring your own projects, and each year I try to bring something I have never done before. This confluence of interests and events seemed the perfect opportunity to tackle creating a floor cloth. I currently don’t have the space to work on a project this size at home, so taking advantage of the space provided at camp seemed like a great idea.

Materials:

The material was a bit of an experiment. I got a 5′ x’ 5′ remnant at a local non-profit textile recycling shop called the Ragfinery for $5. It was not the usual numbered cotton duck used for floor cloths but was, I believe, a material used either for upholstery or awnings. It was a heavier synthetic material with a vinyl coating on one side, but it still had a woven texture and lay flat on the floor, so I tried it.

The cloth I bought was wine-red, but I put a coat of white primer on it, so the color didn’t matter. I bought some recycled latex paint at the local Habitat for Humanity store for the base color of the cloth (green). I planned to put this cloth in my kitchen when it was finished, and I had a turquoise paint sample that matched the kitchen walls, so I added that to my painting supplies. I dug out various acrylic paints and paint pens I already had for additional accent colors. I also selected several brushes from what I already had on hand. I experimented with different ways to add shading details, and in the end, I used Faber-Castell Pitt pastel pencils and Pan Pastels (more about that later). I bought a quart of triple thick matte finish Polyurethane to seal and protect the cloth when I was done painting it.

Process:

I cut the cloth from 5′ x 5′ down to 3′ x 5′. The 2′ x 5′ off-cut gave me some cloth to experiment with when deciding on colors and technique.

After painting the cloth with a white primer that promised to stick to practically anything (remember it was already coated with vinyl), I taped off the border area and created the background. It turned out that the color of the green paint I bought wasn’t exactly what I wanted, so I added some of the acrylic paint I had to create a color I liked. I wanted a simple and quick technique for the background because I wanted to spend most of my time on the border. What I came up with was to paint a section with green paint, then go over it with a smaller brush using a swirling movement. This was quick and gave a mottled swirly effect that was interesting but subtle enough to let the border graphics take center stage.

I had a vague idea of the design for the border, and I knew I wanted to use an alternating-color Knightsbridge-ish pattern somewhere. I decided to add a border that alternated white and turquoise in a thin stripe around the outside and inside of the main border area. I was getting some leakage under the painter’s tape, and it was at this point I remembered the trick of laying down the tape and then painting over the edges with a clear acrylic medium to seal the edges. Worked like a charm. Once this narrow border was completed, I used a brush to fill in the main border area with green.

Now came the tricky part, laying out the border elements. I measured the length and width of the border and calculated a measurement for the large Mooka I thought would work as a repeat element around the border. Never having tangled this large before, I was a little unsure of myself, so I cut out a paper template and did a test layout to see if it would work, and it did! I then transferred the template onto some stencil material. I used this stencil to draw the large Mookas around the border. Once these were placed, I filled in the remaining elements freehand. All this was done using a pencil.

To define the border elements, I painted around them with a darker color. I created this color by mixing dark blueish-green and purple acrylic paints. This resulted in a dark blueish color.

Once the dark background of the border was complete, I felt like the design needed more of the turquoise color to tie the cloth to the turquoise wall of the kitchen, so I painted all of the Damsel Leaf turquoise.

Now came the shading of elements. I have to admit I am not an experienced painter. I tried several techniques for adding shading but didn’t like the results. I often use pastel pencils to add colored shading to my Zentangle tiles, and I wanted something similar to that process. I decided to experiment with my Pan Pastels. After all, they call them pastel PAINTINGS, don’t they? I did some tests applying the Pan Pastels with the sponge applicators, then blended them with some large tortillons. This worked incredibly well, as the pastels stained the underlying paint. I was even able to make some adjustments with an eraser. This worked for everything but the white highlight. I ended up using a white paint pen along the edges and spraying the white highlights with acrylic sealer. I knew the pastels would be fine when I added the polyurethane because I wiped the cloth with a wet sponge, and the pastel colors didn’t diminish at all. This was an experiment that was very successful. I also wanted to mention that I used the same blue-ish green and purple colors for the shading that I used to mix the dark blue background. This resulted in a very harmonious color palette.

I should mention the books I read and the videos I watched all recommended that you hem the cloth before any painting is done. I did not have the opportunity to do this before I left for art camp, so I waited until the cloth was completely painted, and I had no problems doing it this way. I used my early 1990s-era Bernina (inherited from my Mom) with a leather needle. I finished the cloth with three coats of triple-thick outdoor-rated polyurethane.

I am so happy with the final outcome, even though I deviated from some of the standard procedures recommended for floor cloths. My first attempt at making a floor cloth turned out beautifully; it lays flat on the floor, is flexible, and I love seeing it when I walk into my kitchen. Many have said they would find it hard to walk on. My response to that is, do you feel the same way about walking on a specially designed area rug? Rugs are meant to be walked on, and so are floor cloths.

I hope you enjoyed this telling of my floor cloth journey and are inspired to try something similar. I think my next “big” project will be a table runner.

As always,

Blessings,

Lynn

Dorian’s Star

This year I’ve been participating in the 12 days of Zentangle, a series of projects presented by Rick, Maria, Molly and Martha from Zentangle HQ. They have thoughtfully provided a project pack with all the supplies needed to follow along with the YouTube videos they have posted. Project Pack 02 can be purchased from their web site, however, you can also choose to use what supplies you have on hand, which is what I decided to do. The day 7 project makes use of a pre-strung Zendala so off I went in search of my pre-strung Zendalas. Well I couldn’t find them anywhere but I did run across a pattern I had printed for a 3D star that was posted last year by Dorian Eng, CZT. I could see that it could easily be substituted for the Zendala used in the day 7 project. Well the resulting 3D star has received a lot of attention and many people have asked for the instructions for making it, thus this post.

Dorian has graciously given permission to duplicate her pattern and provide it to you. I’ve created a PDF with two sizes that you can download from this link DorianEng-3D-Star. (Note: it will open in your browser and you can save or print from there.) They are designed to be printed on 8.5 x 11 paper. I recommend a heavier weight paper, at least 60 or 70 pound, but not too heavy or it will be hard to fold.

UPDATE: Apparently this PDF is not displaying or printing correctly in some browsers (Firefox). A temporary fix for this issue is to view the file from another browser or download the file and view and print it that way. I’m pretty sure I can fix the file but will not be able to fix it till after Christmas.

UPDATE: The PDF has been fixed so that you can now view it using the FireFox browser.

So here are the steps to create these stars:

Print the size star you want on a heavier weight paper and then cut it out along the solid lines. Don’t forget to cut the 5 outer diamond shapes in half along the central line.

I found that it is much easier to fold the star shape if you score all the lines. To do this you will need some kind of scoring tool. Here are a couple of examples:

Anything with a fairly narrow blunt point will work.

Using a straight edge I scored along all the printed lines.

Next I folded back and forth along each scored line in both directions, with the exception of the small central star.

For the small central star flip the paper so that the printed lines are to the back. Then carefully fold along the scored lines that outline the small star so that they are a mountain fold.

I drew my tangles on the unprinted side. You can see the basic shapes where the tangles go as defined by the folds. I drew over the folds to further define the sections.

I further broke down the larger sections into three smaller ones.

This is the point where I added my tangles. You can use any tangle you want to fill in the star. I followed the instructions from the day 7 video to add my tangles. Here is a link to the video. If you haven’t seen it I encourage you to watch it, you might recognize the interweaving of auras as the same technique used in my tangle Fassettoo.

I used two colors of blue micron and gold Gellyroll.

To make the star 3D fold as indicated on the printed template. You can finish the star in two ways.

Fold the outside sections back under each arm of the star and glue.

Or overlap the outside sections and glue to form a pentagon shape.

Here’s my final star. I chose the second option. I like the way the gold accented the large star shape and complemented the small inner star.

Hope you all have fun with this and thanks again to Dorian for sharing.

Blessings and Happy Holidays,

Lynn

TransluZENce

I’ve been wanting to share the technique of TransluZENce and this week’s Square One Purely Zentangle focus, Membranart by Tomas Padros (step-outs found here), has given me the chance to do so. TransluZENce is a cousin to TranZENding, a technique recently introduced in a Kitchen Table Tangles (KTT) video by Rick and Maria on the Zentangle Mosaic app. While TranZENding is based on drawing one tangle on top of another and then using white to highlight and graphite to shade, TransluZENce is based on drawing behind and then using graphite to make it look like you are viewing the background through a translucent media like tissue paper or frosted glass.

I decided to create an example using Membranart and Hollibaugh as everyone is familiar with the draw behind aspect of Hollibaugh. Instead of Membranart appearing opaque it appears translucent, giving a glimps of what lays behind.

Here is how this illusion is created…

With your pen, start Membranart as normal.

Again with your pen and using the principle of drawing behind add Hollibaugh in the background.

Using a pencil on top of Membranart, connect up the lines of Hollibaugh that would normally be hidden.

Using your pen, fill black in the areas between the Hollibaugh lines in the background.

NOTE: this technique will be more effective if you use high contrast tangles in the background.

Now, to make Membranart look translucent, use your pencil to lightly and evenly add graphite to the spaces between Hollibaugh on top of Membranart. Smooth out the graphite using a tortillon or paper stump.

Finish the tile with shading to create 3D and layering effects.

Here is another example using Membranart (makes me think of something spilled on the kitchen floor.

And another example I did using Puffin and Showgirl back in June, 2017.

As is usual, if you would like to try anything in this post in your own work please feel free to do so. If you post your work, please use the hashtags #transluzence or #transluzent where they are allowed and let people know about this post. Many thanks.

Blessings,

Lynn

haKrall and Friends – Building Bridges

I recently created this tile for the Square One Purely Zentangle Facebook page. The focus tangle was haKrall (deconstructed by Holly Atwater, stepouts here) and I paired it with Stoic (Zentangle®, AKA Twile, stepouts here) and B’Twined (deconstructed by Pegi Schargel, stepouts here). This tile was a real meditation for me and it turned out to be a sort of square zendala with a maze-like feel to it.

I had several people ask if I had work-in-progress photos of this tile so they could see how the tile developed. I have to admit, I was so absorbed in the zen of this tile that I did not even think to stop and take photos as it developed. However, thanks to some digital magic I have created some graphics that will help to explain the process.

This tile was started with a simple pencil string grid, 6 squares by 6 squares, recreated here in red.

This layout can be broken down into three rings (for lack of a better word, square rings? oh well) starting from the outside perimeter and working toward the center. One for each of the three tangles I’d chosen.

Stoic on the outside ring

haKrall on the middle ring

and B’Twined in the center

As you can see from these graphics each tangle is simply drawn on one of these three concentric rings. The magic happens for this tile because there is a relationship between these tangles. Both Stoic and haKrall have the center square with arms radiating around in slightly different ways. All three are really fragments that when put together on a grid have an over and under woven appearance.

These tangles work so well together on this tile because connections or as I like to call them BRIDGES are created between the tangles. To create the bridges I was mindful of two things as I was drawing, proportion and orientation.

The parts of each tangle that connect with the tangle in the adjacent sections need to be roughly the same dimension.

The tangles in each section needed to be oriented correctly to align with the tangles in the other sections.

This is not as difficult as it may look or sound. You just start with one tangle. I started with stoic around the outside. When you start the next tangle in the next section it will be obvious how to orient it to match up with the adjacent section and the proportion it needs to be so that a bridge is created. Visualize extending lines from the first tangle into the next tangle. Just work slowly and mindfully.

The point here is that nothing special was done to these tangles to get them to flow together, it is simply a matter of being mindful of their similarities and how they can form connections. In fact there’s a good chance you have already done this on some of your own tiles.

I also feel this is a good life lesson too. We would all be better off if we were more mindful of our similarities and used them to forge connections. Something to think about anyway.

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

Blessings,

Lynn

Man-O-Man to Celtic Knots

There has been a lot of interest recently in drawing Celtic Knots and there are lots of techniques for drawing them. In my opinion, most do not really follow the Zentangle® drawing method, they involve too many steps or are just too complicated.

Here is a simple three step method I’ve come up with that originated with the tangle Man-O-Man. If you are unfamiliar with this tangle here is the card from my Tangle Deck that shows the step-outs:

As you can see this tangle starts with a square and then squares are drawn next to each of it’s sides to form a cross. Note there is an equal space left between the squares. Triangles are added to fill in the angles formed by the cross, again leaving equal space between the shapes. You can continue adding shapes out as far as you want, building on the previous ones and leaving equal space between them.

Let’s take this one step further. Start by drawing steps one and two in the man-o-man step-outs.

Then draw an aura around the perimeter of these shapes that is offset from them the same distance as the space between them. What happens when you do this is that you can begin to see the squares and triangles as spaces and the space between them as a kind of lattice above them.

I call this Lace Lattice because it reminds me of the holes and strings that make up a piece of lace. Here I’ve added some Beadline behind the Lace Lattice to make it more visible.

With the right configuration of hole shapes, aura and one final step, you can easily and quickly turn the resulting Lace Lattice into a Celtic Knot. Let’s start out the same way we would with the Man-O-Man tangle, with five squares in the form of a cross.

Then add rounded triangle and semi circle shapes as shown.

Turn this into a Lace Lattice by drawing an aura around the outer edges.

To turn this into a Celtic Knot, draw lines to connect the Lattice, alternating between
horizontal and vertical to create the over and under of the knot.

Ta Da! a Celtic Knot

I’ve spruced it up a little with additional auras and shading.

Here are a few other simple configurations.

And something more free-form starting with a loopy string.

Final drawing with perf line, aura, rounding and shading.

The possibilities seem endless with this technique and you can go as simple or complex as you want. The trick is to keep your spacing between the shapes as even as possible so that they will align when you connect them, but even then it doesn’t have to be perfect. I should note here that just drawing a bunch of shapes next to each other won’t work every time to form a knot. Play around with the technique and you will soon see what will work and what won’t. Finally, here is the drawing I did for the ShamWayRockBop challenge from Rick and Maria using this technique for the border.

I hope you give this method a try and I look forward to seeing all the Celtic knot variations you come up with.

Blessings,

Lynn

Zentwining

I discovered the technique of Zentwining as I was working on the drawings for the fronts of the Tangle Deck cards. I needed a drawing for the tangle Onomato. I picked up a piece of paper that I had drawn some random overlapping curved pencil lines on and began to draw ribbons wrapping around the lines. I then filled each ribbon with a variation of Onomato. I really liked the result and thought “this could be a technique that could be repeated easily.” I decided to share it and call the technique Zentwining.

1. The first step is to draw some overlapping curving pencil lines as in the following examples.

2. Next start drawing in ribbons that wrap around these lines. The ribbons are drawn in a similar way to the technique used in the tangle Aquafleur. I’ve used both re-curve and c-curve versions as shown below.

Here is an example.

3. Ribbons can go in any direction, extend off the page, and even cross lines. Using the Hollibaugh method of drawing behind makes it even more interesting.

4. Once you are satisfied with the quantity and placing of your ribbons, the next step is to draw over the pencil lines with pen making sure you stop at the edge of each ribbon and then start up again on the other side. Here is an enlargement so you can see what I mean.

Here is the drawing with all the lines drawn in pen except where the ribbons cross.

5. Now start adding tangles to the ribbons. You can use variations of one tangle as I did for the Onomato card or use different tangles.

As you can see, any remaining pencil lines are beginning to disappear into the tangles.

6. The final step is to add shading. I add shading to the tangles themselves first, then I add just a touch of shading to each side of the string lines to add a little 3D effect (makes the shapes formed by the strings kind of puffy.) Lastly I add shading to the ribbon shapes if I think it needs it.

Here are a couple of finished examples.

I will admit that this technique can take some concentration as it can get kind of busy as you work on it. Just take it slowly and be aware of your strokes and you’ll do fine. Hope you have fun playing with this technique and I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Lynn Mead, CZT