Lentangle (40 days of ZIA)

Zentangle monogram. Kinda felt like it had to be done. This fills a slot on March 10.

I got the idea for the string on this tile while at church tonight. It's a dove over a cross.

This goes back to March 9 in my calendar.

I started this with a string made of circles, using a compass. Because most of the patterns I used weren't "space-filling", the circles aren't apparent. I like that it has a uniformly shaded background.

Nothing particularly special here, except that it's the first one I've done in four days. I was hoping my vacation would give me more time to do these, but I've been spending it on other things.

At this point, I plan to continue tangling after Lent is over, filling in all the gaps until I've done all 40 tiles. I may then continue going forward. We'll see.

Another zendala. This one is based on six divisions instead of eight like yesterday's. The triangle in the middle uses three different patterns that are all based on the same grid.

This is my first try for a "Zendala", a Zentangle-type tile based on a radially symmetrical framework. Not particularly pleased with it, but I'll try another.

Okay, one of the rules of Zentangle is that it's non-representational. It's not supposed to be anything. It just is. Well, that's one reason this is called ZIA. It's Zentangle Inspired Art, and I can do what I like.

What I like today is pie. This is a pie made out of tangle patterns. Specifically, it's W2, Prestwood, Keeko, and (if you want to get technical) a "tangleation" of Grass Border. Why pie? Because it's Pi Day, of course! :-)

I'm still behind my goal. In fact, I'm behind by almost a week at this point, but I have a week of vacation at home coming up, and I'm hopeful that I can get some drawing done in between our many other projects.

This one fills in yesterday's slot. I'm still behind. I liked the way my previous tile had patterns floating on an allover background, so I decided to play with that again. I'm particularly enamored with the ribbon-y pattern near the center. It's called Zenplosion Folds, and I could see myself really getting into working with it.

Here's yesterday's. I'm only one day behind now. For this one, I decided on several stand-alone motifs on a relatively simple ground. Of course, simple to look at doesn't necessarily mean simple to draw. Filling in all those triangles left me a little cross-eyed.

This was the square for Monday.

Still playing catch-up. This was last Friday's square.

Most of what I've done so far has been trying to stretch my Zentangle repertoire. This time, I decided to go with some of my favorites, which turned out to be Agua, Btl Joos, Cadent, Cubine, Mooka, and Paradox. Since I'm a couple of days behind (no completed tiles for last Friday or yesterday) I planned on doing two more tiles with these same six patterns. One would have Agua, Cadent, and Mooka. The other Btl Joos, Cubine, and Paradox. I have them planned out, but I need to get to bed, so they'll have to wait. Since I have tomorrow morning off, I might get more than one done then.

Oh, and I also chose to shade using the pen, stippling and hatching, rather than the pencil. I don't know if I like it better, but I know it will last longer without having to be "fixed" in place, which is something that's been bugging me.

I'm really pleased with this one, but it took me for-freakin'-EVER!

Here I tried to work with a bunch of linear "border" patterns to see what came out of it.

Nothing especially significant about this one, except for that chain of dark circles through the basketweave pattern on the left. They say there are no mistakes in Zentangle, but when you draw a line where there isn't one in the pattern... well, you've got to do something.

I usually make my tiles the standard Zentangle way: make a frame, then a "string", then tangle in the spaces provided. This time I omitted the frame. That allowed me to focus on the string and let things grow organically from there. I'm pretty pleased.