Wholehearted Advent Project

Hey there tangling friends!

I have created an Advent Zentangle Project to take us through to Christmas Eve. It is based on the song The 12 Days of Christmas and I hope you will join with me and use the prompts suggested below. Participants may choose which prompts they wish to do and those with more time or larger Zen needs may choose to do all of the prompts. I don’t want anyone to feel they have to do everything, or feel guilty that they’re not ‘keeping up’ - the idea is to have fun and find our Zen.

Participants may start any time during December, but it’s not necessary to start at the beginning. The idea is that by December 24th you should have 12 individual tiles/drawings. You could do them on a calendar, put all of them on one larger piece of paper, or put 12 separate traditional Zentangle tiles into an album. You can draw on whatever you like - traditional 3.5” Zentangle tiles, white paper, coloured paper or digital Zentangle. Please post your work to the group - we love seeing how everyone interprets the prompts differently! And please add the hashtag #AdventProject so we can easily find everyone’s beautiful contributions.

There will be a variety of prompts through the project ..... You can choose however you feel led by the prompts...

1. Partridge in a Pear Tree - Pear shape string - draw the outline of a pair and tangle anyway you want! 

2. Two Turtle Doves - Hearts - any way you want to interpret this - Heart String, Heart Patterns, heart shaped paper...

3. Three French Hens - Take Inspiration from the French Flag, the Tricolour. You could do a string like the flag or red, white and blue

4. Four Calling Birds - Feathers

        Find some inspiration here

5. Five Golden Rings - start with 5 circles on your page and see where it takes you!

6. Six Geese a Laying - egg string... draw an egg shape on your tile and decorate however you feel led.

7. Seven Swans a Swimming - water 

        Some ideas here

8. Eight Maids a Milking - white on black paper

9. Nine Ladies Dancing - take inspiration from the world of music - incorporate some musical notes into your tile, tangle a musical instrument, take some words of your favourite carol...

10. Ten Lords a Leaping - jumping beans pattern

Here’s the stepout...Jumping Beans

11. Eleven Pipers Piping - steampunk - Some great examples here

          

12. Twelve Drummers Drumming - Henna Drum

Find the stepout here

I hope you enjoy this little project and I can’t wait to see all of your beautiful art. 

Inktober ZIA prompts

Hey there tangling friends!

This will be the 3rd year I have joined in with Inktober and I decided to get organised and create prompts ready for the beginning of October. Inktober was created in 2009 by Jake Parker and the idea is to fill the 31 days of October with 31 ink drawings. I hope you will join with me and use the prompts suggested below. Participants may choose which prompts they wish to do and those with more time or larger Zen needs may choose to do all the prompts. I don’t want anyone to feel they have to do everything, or feel guilty that they’re not ‘keeping up’ - the idea is to have fun and find our Zen.

I will post the first 15 days prompts here and the remainder in 2 weeks time, Participants May start any time in the month, but it’s not necessary to start at the beginning. The idea is that at the end of the month you should have 31 individual tiles/drawings. You could do them on a calendar, put all of them on one larger piece of paper, or put 31 separate traditional Zentangle tiles into an album. You can draw on whatever you like - traditional 3.5” Zentangle tiles, white paper, coloured paper or digital Zentangle. Please post your work to the group - we love seeing how everyone interprets the prompts differently! And please add the hashtag #Inktober so we can easily find everyone’s beautiful contributions.

There will be a variety of prompts through the month, which will include, but not to be limited to, duo tangles, strings, a word or quote, colours, reticula or fragments, blogs or videos, favourite artists and patterns..... You can choose however you feel led by the prompts. So the first prompt for the 1st October is Pastel - you could use pastel coloured paper, pens or pencils, watercolours or Distress Inks. The 2nd of October Prompt is Cadent - there are loads of different ways to draw this pattern, you can keep it simple by just doing a Cadent monotangle with its variations or you can add Cadent into a ZIA (Zentangle inspired art) with other patterns. I hope this explanation has helped you to understand how to join in. If you have any questions, please shout and we’ll help.

1st October
‘Pastel’ - see above explanation

2nd October 
Cadent by Maria Roberts
Find the pattern step out and variations here

3rd October
Waves - you can choose anything that you feel drawn towards... do a seascape tile, use the pattern Wavz, use colours you associate with waves...
Click here for a Pinterest board with lots of ideas.

4th October
Stars - use a pattern to create a star shape
Eg, Betweed, Footlites, Stella, Spokies, Oringel
See my Betweed star here.

5th October 
Grid patterns - choose any grid pattern you like. Maybe try a new to you pattern? And just use your black pen and graphite to shade today.
Loads of patterns to choose from here.

6th October 
Use one or more patterns beginning with G
Find a comprehensive list here.

7th October
Green - choose however you feel led... green paper, paint, pens, pencils, inks, incorpate a green leaf into you drawing...

8th October 
Triangles - use a triangle shape tile, string or patterns
Find some ideas here.

9th October
Official tangle pattern Pepper
Step out here.

10th October
Any pattern by Helen Williams (A Little Lime)
Find her board here.

11th October
Renaissance tiles with sepia pen - these are tan coloured paper.
Alternative prompt if you don’t have any tan paper - use a coloured pen on white paper
For both prompts - you have free reign to draw whatever ZIA you like, just keep it simple with one colour pen though

12th October 
Choose any 2 patterns from these...
Botanical patterns

13th October 
Purple -  choose however you feel led... purple paper, paint, pens, pencils, inks, maybe try dying your paper with some blackberry juice...

14th October
Yewdee by Peg Farmer
Step out here.

15th October
Flowers - use any flower patterns you like
Eg, Panzee, Laflor, Hennadrum, Laceflower, Sheleaf, Florastella

16th October
String 249

17th Take colour from these beautiful birds

18th Zendalas - there are some wonderful examples here

19th Keep it simple today with black and white Knightsbridge.

Here’s my board

20th Take your inspiration from Margaret Bremner

Find her patterns here

21st Duo ZIA of Flips-C and Pomcoco, both by YuRu Chen

22nd Tangle on something other than your usual paper choices.

Examples - sheet music, magazine, a page from an old book (dig out your Mills & Boon!), napkins/serviettes, a recipe, a photograph.

23rd Feel the love today and tangle a heart - use heart patterns or tangle inside a heart shape, or both!

24th Neon colours - show us your brightest hues today!

25th String 126

26th Use circle patterns today

Lots of ideas here.

27th Tangled letters today - Draw a letter and tangle inside the lines.

Some ideas here.

28th Black paper - draw any patterns you like on black paper with white or coloured pens and pencils.

Some examples here

29th Aquafleur - this is one of my favourite Zentangle patterns. Do an Aquafleur monotangle today.

My board is here

30th Feathers - create some feathers either by tangling inside a feather or use feather patterns like Featherfall

Examples here

31st Halloween - draw anything you like inspired by Halloween. E.g. purple, orange, the pattern Gourdgeous, tangle on a pumpkin, draw a ghost shape and tangle inside.

Lots of ideas here

Bonus day 1st November

All saints day - draw anything you like inspired by a saint. For example, St Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland, so I’d draw the Scottish Saltire flag and tangle inside using blue. St Paul - perhaps take inspiration from the dome at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. St Valentine - hearts and love! 

I hope you have fun with these prompts.

Zentangle and Quilling

Hey there tangling friends!

I've been very busy this week - new tutorial ebook on how to make Distress Inks Style backgrounds in Procreate (get it here) and I've been having huge fun learning about quilling, which is a form of paper art. I've been wanting to try for ages, but never got round to it. It is really fiddly to begin with - making the curls is super easy, but when it comes to sticking it down that's when the fun starts! The tweezers that came with the kit have been invaluable!

My aim has been to quill and tangle together, as I thought they'd go perfectly together. I would love to make a logo for myself  this way.

The pictures below are my first try at quilling and tangling together, plus my first goes at quilling by itself. I'd love to know what you think.

Find the link to my Pinterest board on quilling here

New Tutorial Ebook - Learn How To Make Distress Ink Style Backgrounds in Procreate

Hey there tangling friends!

I'm very excited to share with you my latest ebook tutorial - it's all about using the Procreate App to make Distress Ink style backgrounds, ready for tangling on with the Apple Pencil. It is at a special introductory price, so get your copy now - click here

I have loved making Zentangle Inspired Art on Distress Inked paper tiles in real life and wanted to learn how to make them digitally. This tutorial is the result of me having lots of fun with the Procreate app.

I've had lots of fun trying out colour combinations, different brushes and layers. There really is lots to learn, but the Procreate app is very intuitive and the free handbook makes things nice and easy to understand.

The tutorial ebook will show you which brushes are best to use, how to use those brushes and how to layer the colours and textures to give you the best results. Get it here.

Here are a couple of backgrounds I have made...

Below is a beautiful inky background with a shiny Zengem and some tangle patterns. I have found that it is easier to colour the gem if you fill the gem area with white before you start colouring it. It makes creating the highlights much easier.

Click Here to get my Tutorial Ebook

If you don't have an Etsy account, get in touch and I can do it through PayPal.

Wholehearted Patterns

Hey there tangling friends!

I was looking back through my drawings and came across a couple of my old patterns that I'd completely forgotten about.  So I decided to draw a small A5 size picture with as many of my patterns as I could fit.

Here's the patterns I used from left to right...
Spokies
K9
Fingerbobs
Mallow
Roodee
Kobweb
4Rosie
Kristilis
Panzee
Spiralinka

I'd forgotten about Spiralinka and Kristilis! The step outs for those are below.

Spiralinka is the flower shape just above the Zinger string. 

Find my turquoise gemstone tutorial ebook here.

Find my Pinterest board with all of my patterns and drawing here.

Drawings June 2017

Hey there tangling friends!

Here are my drawings from the first week of June.
I had the theme of Peace in my Facebook group Wholehearted Zen, Gems and Inspiration in collaboration with the Zen n ZIA group. It was something I had been thinking about for a while - learning the words and lettering for Peace in different languages. I wanted to bring us together through our art...different people united by Zentangle. Doesn't matter what we believe, look like, wear, speak. Love is what we do. Peace is what we need.

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.
Edward Everett Hale

Peace in Arabic

Darkness cannot drive out darkness;

only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate;

only love can do that.

Hate multiplies hate,

violence multiplies violence,

and toughness multiplies toughness

in a descending spiral of destruction....

The chain reaction of evil --

hate begetting hate,

wars producing more wars --

must be broken,

or we shall be plunged

into the dark abyss of annihilation.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Find my turquoise gem tutorial ebook here.

Digitangles

Hey there tangling friends!

You may have seen recently that I've been tangling digitally using th Procreate app and an Apple Pencil on my iPad. It's a massive learning curve and I feel like a beginner again. There are so many possible settings for colours, different types of brush/pencil/pen to create the most amazing effects. I haven't even begun to delve into all the possibilities, but wanted to try to translate what I do on paper to the iPad.

The one I'm going to share here was created with hand drawn line art, as I wanted to see the differences. I haven't learnt how to do a time lapse video on Procreate, but that's the next step! So, there's loads of progress photos for the digital version and the paper version.

Find Christel Foncke's fabulous digital Zentangle here. And some from Icy8600 here.

Find my Pinterest board dedicated to digital art here.

Roodee - my new design

Hey there tangling friends!

Here is my new design, Roodee, which I have been drawing for a while. I have created a step out, which is rather a long one, but once you get the hang of it, it's fairly simple. The middle area closest to the gem is betweedy - working the lines alternately to build the pattern. Then the outside is basically echo lines, or auras. You can stop drawing before you reach the echo lines to give you a mini Roodee.

Depression, Anxiety and Zentangle

Hey there tangling friends!

It is Mental Health Awareness Week this week and I wanted to share a bit of my story with you. I've suffered with depression, anxiety and post natal depression for the best part of 20 years and I'm currently struggling with crippling anxiety. It keeps me awake. It makes me exhausted. It keeps me stuck at home. It robs me of joy, friendships, being able to do activities with my children, being able to go to church...the list is endless. 

The stigma attached to mental health issues seems to be lifting a little, but it's still really scary to put this out there - to tell the world how I feel (although, depression takes away the ability to feel anything.) You might remember my word for this year is Courage, so this is my bit of bravery which will hopefully encourage others to open up about their own mental health. 

There is hope and there is help. I have had happy times in the last 20 years, times when I wasn't on medication, so I know I can be well again. I have to remember that This Too Shall Pass. 

I have found Zentangle profoundly important over the last few years - I find peace in the pen strokes and comfort in the shading. My worries and fears cannot find head space whilst I'm in the Zen of drawing. 

The first drawing is one that I've done today and the others are old ones - all with quotes that really resonate with me. 

N

 

This website has so much useful and helpful information - Blurt

The Samaritans are always available in a crisis - Samaritans Contact Info

Here's the link to the official Zentangle page - Zentangle Method