This year I’ve decided to do a post each week on the tiles I do for the Square One: Purely Zentangle FaceBook page. If you are not familiar with the Square One page, each week they post a focus tangle which you are then supposed to use some way in a tile. The tiles must be 3.5″ x 3.5″ white tiles and you can only use black pen and graphite for shading.
Some weeks the focus tangle is one I know really well and sometimes it is one I have never used before. In any case I always start out by exploring the tangle in my sketch book so I get to know it a little better and/or feel more comfortable drawing it.
The focus tangle for this week is Umble, here is what I drew in my sketch book.
There were a couple of effects I liked and wanted to incorporate into a tile. Following are Work In Progress photos and some explanation of my thought process along the way.
I started with looping bands around a circular shape.
The bands seemed plain so I added what I call Ant Trax down the middle. This adds a little interest and I think it helps emphasizes the over/under layering.
I felt it needed some contrast so I started filling in the spaces between the loops with black. I got about half way around and then thought “If I continue to fill all the way around it will be too much black and not very interesting.” so I stopped.
Then I had to balance out the light and dark so I added the black and white crescent shapes to either side. These help to define the edges of the circular shape.
I played off the light and dark separation again when adding a couple more Umble variations to the outside area of the tile.
This is the final tile with shading, which you can see does a lot to define overlaps, shapes and edges.
If you see an effect you like, please feel free to explore it in your own work.
Tangle On…Lynn
This is a great way to familiarize oneself with tangle patterns and come up with something different. Looking at how others take a pattern and give it a little twist that gives it an entirely new look is very interesting and encouraging.
Being new to Zentangle, I sometimes feel that I have to do the tangle according to the step-outs only; that’s limiting and requires a lot of fighting with myself to go beyond the basic pattern.
Love this idea. Thank you so much for your ideas and how your mind works. Thought processes really help a lot. (And I love what you did with it!)
Kathy, I’m so happy you feel you’ve learned something from my post. That’s my goal. Now if I can keep up posting once a week. : )
Love this post, and will look forward to your square one posts this year! Very inspiring to see your thought process and the photos. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Lynn,
I am enjoying your Tangle Deck and now this lovely post – I will definitely be giving this challenge a go – having finished my last book I feel I need time to devote to ‘playing’. I love R & M’s new tangle Molygon, so I hope you will explore that one.
Happy New Year, I look forward to meeting you again in Maine.
Jane
Wow, Lynn! So great of you to share your process. Very helpful to me . Thank you so much. Love the Umble in the round
Nice to see the progression. I too, am looking forward to your weekly posts!
This is a great idea!…Love seeing the progressions!
Lynn …Happy New Year…Thank you for taking me through your tangler mind thought process. Look forward to your weekly posts and sharing!
I think this is a terrific idea Lynn! Looking forward to watching the progress.