It's been almost a year since I was in Whitinsville for the Zentangle teacher training seminar. One of the other participants was Maria Vennekens from the Netherlands. One day she wore a shirt with a lot of patterns, and I noticed something like this among them. To me, the initial 'X' with the filled-in top and bottom looks like an hourglass. Thus "Dutch Hourglass". If the pattern is big enough I like to put tiny black dots in each of the white dots, but - of course - it's your choice. Here's how to do Dutch Hourglass: Here are some tiles using Dutch Hourglass. In the first, the tangle is used as a field in two sections of the string. If you do this tangle, be sure to make the stripes/diamonds/triangles a good size. You need room for the three circles. At the top left of this tile you'll see a "tangle" that I'm calling Botched Dutch Hourglass Resurrected. :-) I didn't make it large enough and had no room for the white circles, so I filled the triangles with black, which was too bold so I added large black dots in the middle of the diamonds which toned it down but was still rather bold so I gave it lots of shading. Tangles: Dutch Hourglass, Facets, Parabola, Rick's Paradox, Striping (and, in the interests of thoroughness, Botched Dutch Hourglass Resurrected) In the next tile, I used a single row of Dutch Hourglass in one of the 'ribbons' of the string. All these tiles began with wide two-pencil strings. To do a wide two-pencil string I place an eraser between the two pencils. (Ha! There IS a use for erasers in Zentangle!) Tangles: Dutch Hourglass, Crescent Moon (with a highlight), Inapod, Yincut and a Knightsbridge Aura Here again I've used it in a ribbon. I think it's those 2-pencil strings I started with. Another interesting thing in this tile is two slightly different effects with the tangle Tidings. In the top right it's done with only lines. In the lower right I've filled the tiny extra spaces with black. Tangles: Dutch Hourglass, Beadline, Munchin, black Pearlz, Tidings Overnight on April 26, I'll be winging my way to Halifax to visit my recently-married daughter and her husband for ten days. After that it's Bermuda for a week to visit my husband's sister and her husband. You bet I'm taking lots of Zentangle supplies with me! I'll need to do some creating myself, and who knows, maybe I'll get a chance to share it with others. Interspersed with visiting, whale-watching, board games, Peggy's Cove, snorkelling, restaurants, and touring of course!
Here's Flooka, my latest: Here's Trentwith, in traditional wordless tangle pattern instruction:
Halifax from the air (Wikipedia) The Atlantic Ocean is at the top. In 1749 King George II of England sent ships and settlers across the Atlantic to Chebucto Bay in Nova Scotia, Canada. The name comes from the Mi'kmaq (first nation) Chebooktook or Jipugtug meaning 'big harbour''. Today it's known as Halifax Harbour. Chebucto Coffee Halifax, NS, Canada While visiting our daughter in Halifax last May we visited a lovely coffee shop on Chebucto Road a few blocks from her home. Of course, it was called Chebucto Coffee. In that coffee shop there was a pattern on the wall, a pattern that I really liked and quickly sketched, but I couldn't get things to line up properly. I worked on it a bit, then moved on to other things. Recently I took another shot at it and a lightbulb went on! Here's how to draw Chebucto, in its simplest form. Here are some tiles with Chebucto. It's nice with a final line (or two) from point to point on either side of the pattern. Doesn't it go nicely beside Diamond Panes?! The second tile shows several of the variations possible. Tangles: Bateek, Chebucto, Demi, Diamond Panes, Prestwood, Xyp Tangles: Beadlines, Black Pearls, Chebucto
Fleeting Time New zentangle pattern 4 Corner Corolla
Every now and then we see a tangle that is so simple yet apparently complex and open to multiple interpretations and tangleations that we just have to share it. That description applies to this fantastic tangle created by Mimi Lempart, CZT, of Florence, Massachusetts. It's called Mi2. You can read about how to do it here on tanglepatterns.com. Here is one of Mimi's tiles using Mi2 as a monotangle: Maria and I were admiring this tangle that Mimi describes as similar to huggins and W2. After breakfast this morning I started exploring: I love the minimalist opportunities this tangle offers. I also love the natural shading possibilities. I was reading on tanglepatterns about challenges creating the initial seed shapes. So I tried starting with dots and used the arcs to define the seed shape around the dots. This also gave me a chance to play with a different arrangement of seeds: I put six dots in a row in both directions. (I put a seventh dot on the top row by "mistake." So I just made it really big and part of the design.) Here's the sequence I used: Thank you Mimi for contributing such a fun tangle that is simple, beautiful and open to different interpretations. While the similarities to huggins and W2 are noticeable, this tangle is unique in that the strokes (in this case, arcs) only go in one direction, whereas in huggins and W2 they go in two directions at right angles to each other. Click images for larger views.
My mother loves Canadiana antiques. For a while she was a member of a furniture refinishing group. One of her projects was a pair of pressed back chairs. The chairs have an interesting pattern on the back. You could see where this was going, couldn't you? It's fairly simple and I think lends itself to some interesting variations. Here's how to do Prestwood. Here are some tiles with Prestwood. Tangles: Assunta, Black Pearls, Dust Bunny, Finery, Hibred, Munchin, Ogen, Prestwood, Spinners Tangles: Crescent Moon, Flux, Prestwood, Puf, Striping, Tipple, and a Knightsbridge Aura Tangles: Assunta, Aura, Beeline, Caviar, Prestwood, Rain, Scoodles For an interesting variation of Prestwood, developed later, see this post.
Queeries – tangle pattern, a photo by perfectly4med on Flickr. Following a request left on my blog, I’ve spent the evening playing with typographical elements other than curly braces! This one starts off with the brilliant question mark… and it […]
Every now and then we see a tangle that is so simple yet apparently complex and open to multiple interpretations and tangleations that we just have to share it. That description applies to this fantastic tangle created by Mimi Lempart, CZT, of Florence, Massachusetts. It's called Mi2. You can read about how to do it here on tanglepatterns.com. Here is one of Mimi's tiles using Mi2 as a monotangle: Maria and I were admiring this tangle that Mimi describes as similar to huggins and W2. After breakfast this morning I started exploring: I love the minimalist opportunities this tangle offers. I also love the natural shading possibilities. I was reading on tanglepatterns about challenges creating the initial seed shapes. So I tried starting with dots and used the arcs to define the seed shape around the dots. This also gave me a chance to play with a different arrangement of seeds: I put six dots in a row in both directions. (I put a seventh dot on the top row by "mistake." So I just made it really big and part of the design.) Here's the sequence I used: Thank you Mimi for contributing such a fun tangle that is simple, beautiful and open to different interpretations. While the similarities to huggins and W2 are noticeable, this tangle is unique in that the strokes (in this case, arcs) only go in one direction, whereas in huggins and W2 they go in two directions at right angles to each other. Click images for larger views.
Musings on the creative forces and the things that bloom from them
Mulhouse Border – tangle pattern a photo by perfectly4med on Flickr. This border pattern is another of my step-by-step guides to late 17th century French patterns.
Someone suggested that I add bees to the border of the quilt I have been posting about (like in yesterdays post) so I tried it on a trim piece left from the border cuts. All in all I am pretty excited by the bee. However, as I looked more closely at it I realized that the 'random' scatter of letters on the fabric is not entirely random. I got to looking at the full scrap piece and can find the following words... Love, joy, hope, patches, apple, path, passion, liberty, more, These all occur in straight rows and none of them are backwards, although some of the letters are in different orientations. Can you find these words? Can you find any other words? I am intrigued... It does not look like a 'word search', but it turns out it is! Cool! Now if I could just stop looking for words and go to bed! Goodnight!
I bought a book of bargello needlework patterns for cheap from the library's clear-out bin. Bargello seems to be a bit like needlepoint except the stitches are longer and go up and down on the canvas instead of diagonally. There were some good ideas in there. One, called Diamond Panes, was easily adaptable to drawing although step two is a little tricky. Here's how it goes: Here are a couple of tiles using Diamond Panes. In the first one the tangle ends up on its side. Diamond Panes, Betweed, Florz, Flux, Umble Diamond Panes, Cubine, Flux, Tipple, Xyp
Explore lizzie.mayne's 112 photos on Flickr!
新年快乐 HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR! I've always like those old Chinese coins with the square hole in the center. The hole helped keep the coins together as they could be strung on a cord or ribbon. When our youngest daughter finished high school and all three daughters had plans, my husband and I went to China for two years to teach English. They don't use coins with holes in them anymore but I bought a small handful of old ones at a street market. The yuán is the unit of currency in China, thus the name of this tangle. Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimmiehomeschoolmom Licensed under Creative Commons The Yuán dynasty was founded by Mongol conqueror Kublai Khan, who was the first to unite all China as we now know it. At its peak the dynasty's territory surpassed 12 million square kilometers (4,633,226 square miles for Americans) and ranged from Siberia in the north to the South China Sea, from the Pacific Ocean to the Middle East. Kublai Khan was a ruthless conqueror (weren't they all?) but he was also a great supporter of science, was interested in various religions, commissioned the design of a Mongolian script - until then strictly an oral language - and headed the first government in the world to institute paper currency. Tangles: Caviar, Festune, Flux, Lotus Pods, Miranda, Prestwood, Yuan In 1271, at the age of 17, Marco Polo left Italy and travelled overland with his father Niccolo and uncle Maffeo - who were gem merchants - to the near and far east. Marco stayed in China for 17 years in the employ of Kublai Khan and was one of very few Europeans to witness first-hand that traditional period in China. Tangles: Caviar, Chebucto, Crescent Moon, Gingham, Lacing, Snookums, Triangle, Yuan Here's how to draw Yuan. I admit to using a circle template when drawing the instructions, but if you look at the examples you'll notice that the squares and circles can be quite off-center and still have the desired effect! It seems to end up rather larger than I expect it will; just a heads up. If you want to pronounce yuán correctly in Chinese, with the rising tone, say it as if you're asking a question: yuan? A few of pointers: - In step one, the spaces between the long rectangles should be about half as long as the rectangles themselves. - In step two, the small black rectangles on either side of the long rectangle indicate a square. Just keep that in mind. - In this case, two pictures are worth about forty-eight words. Tangles: Blake, Lotus Pods, Prestwood, Shattuck, Yuan Blake is newly named. I used and mentioned Bettie Lake's 'ribbons' in an earlier post (third tile). I contacted her recently to ask if this pattern had a name and, if not, might I suggest "Blake"? It didn't, and she agreed. :-) So today, also introducing the tangle Blake! Here it is in brown on a bookmark I made recently.
It's been almost a year since I was in Whitinsville for the Zentangle teacher training seminar. One of the other participants was Maria Vennekens from the Netherlands. One day she wore a shirt with a lot of patterns, and I noticed something like this among them. To me, the initial 'X' with the filled-in top and bottom looks like an hourglass. Thus "Dutch Hourglass". If the pattern is big enough I like to put tiny black dots in each of the white dots, but - of course - it's your choice. Here's how to do Dutch Hourglass: Here are some tiles using Dutch Hourglass. In the first, the tangle is used as a field in two sections of the string. If you do this tangle, be sure to make the stripes/diamonds/triangles a good size. You need room for the three circles. At the top left of this tile you'll see a "tangle" that I'm calling Botched Dutch Hourglass Resurrected. :-) I didn't make it large enough and had no room for the white circles, so I filled the triangles with black, which was too bold so I added large black dots in the middle of the diamonds which toned it down but was still rather bold so I gave it lots of shading. Tangles: Dutch Hourglass, Facets, Parabola, Rick's Paradox, Striping (and, in the interests of thoroughness, Botched Dutch Hourglass Resurrected) In the next tile, I used a single row of Dutch Hourglass in one of the 'ribbons' of the string. All these tiles began with wide two-pencil strings. To do a wide two-pencil string I place an eraser between the two pencils. (Ha! There IS a use for erasers in Zentangle!) Tangles: Dutch Hourglass, Crescent Moon (with a highlight), Inapod, Yincut and a Knightsbridge Aura Here again I've used it in a ribbon. I think it's those 2-pencil strings I started with. Another interesting thing in this tile is two slightly different effects with the tangle Tidings. In the top right it's done with only lines. In the lower right I've filled the tiny extra spaces with black. Tangles: Dutch Hourglass, Beadline, Munchin, black Pearlz, Tidings Overnight on April 26, I'll be winging my way to Halifax to visit my recently-married daughter and her husband for ten days. After that it's Bermuda for a week to visit my husband's sister and her husband. You bet I'm taking lots of Zentangle supplies with me! I'll need to do some creating myself, and who knows, maybe I'll get a chance to share it with others. Interspersed with visiting, whale-watching, board games, Peggy's Cove, snorkelling, restaurants, and touring of course!
While visiting our daughter in Halifax we spent a couple of hours at Doull's Bookstore. One website called it "a second-hand bookstore that is a dark and musty extravaganza of disorganization". I would add "delightful", but I'm a second-hand store sucker. I spent all my time at the front of the store poring over their art section. In one book - which I didn't want to buy just for this - I discovered a lovely pattern from a 700 year old Seljuk Turkish carpet. I fished out my sketchbook and copied it (along with two other patterns!). Here's the page from my sketchbook: It's a border pattern and if using it as a long border all you have to do is a series of squares, then fill the squares in this order: square spiral, white, square spiral, black, and repeat. On the rug it was done around the edge of squares (upper right), then the squares were tiled alternating with another pattern (lower right), à la checkerboard or Knightsbridge. Around the perimeter of a square, be careful to make five small squares on each side. I didn't notice what the ancient Turks had placed at the center, but there are lots of tangle possibilities. Here's how to do SELJUK: I tried it on some tiles. In the first (complete with fingerprint smudge) I put a square spiral in the wrong place right from the get-go (lower left), so I did square spirals in ALL the little squares and vowed to concentrate more the next time (upper right)! Tangles: SELJUK, Cubine, Dex, Knightsbridge, Yincut I've really been wanting to use white on black but rarely seem to get enough black on a tile to warrant it. (Maybe I'll just start with a lot of black next time!) In this tile I used some white ink dots in the black areas to soften the edges. I also used white on the black squares of Seljuk (bottom edge) because that tangle was too prominent. Tangles: SELJUK, Caviar, Cubine, Flux, Mooka, N-zeppel, Opus (with Aura) , Purslane, Rick's Paradox The next tile has some variations on Seljuk. Some of its small squares are checkered; some of the black ones have white square spirals; one is striped. I wanted the inner square to stand out more so I added white to some of the black areas in it, and shaded around the outside edge. Tangles: SELJUK variations, Caviar, Hibred, Knightsbridge, N'zeppel, Rick's Paradox, Striping, Yincut
This past weekend I had a yard sale. There are a lot of different names for that; we also say garage sale, although neither yards nor garages are sold. Apparently some in California call it a Meet Swap, which I and a friend initially understood to be a Meat Swap and pictured people arriving with lamb chops and sausages and chicken legs saying, "I'll give you four of these for six of those." :P What do you call it? I awoke Sunday morning, having dreamed of two interesting tangleations of Assunta. (Obsessed? Who? Me?!?) I decided to draw them while sitting in the glorious late summer sun at the sale. Well, as often happens, something that makes perfect sense in a dream makes no sense whatsoever in the light of day. I tried this and tried that and tried other things, but no luck. The lovely dream tangleations weren't going to happen. And they were so pretty! BUT... I DID come up with a few other very nice new tangles!!! Cadent is a lovely tangle with a scroll-like look. It lends itself to lots of variations, some of which you can see here. I sometimes like to use two lines rather than one. Although it looks nothing like Cadent when finished, this new tangle reminds me of Cadent the way it begins and it looks somewhat dance-y. I mixed up the letters of Cadent and came up with Dancet. Here's how to draw it. Here are two tiles. One shows four variations of Dancet and the second uses Dancet with other tangles. More yard sale tangles coming soon! Tangles: Coaster, Dancet, Finery, Ninja Stars, Prestwood
Image from www.souvenirsfromgreece.com Ionic (or Ionic Border, as it seems to work well that way) is a simple design I came up with quite a while ago. The elements bear a resemblance to the Ionic style capitals of Greek columns, thus the name. I used it in the second tile I posted yesderday for Sue Jacob's challenge Alphabet Soup. Both sides of this linear pattern are open, which can make it a little tricky to link or blend to a pattern beside it. You get to exercise your creativity! It also can be embellished somewhat, or left simple. Here are the drawing directions. Here are three tiles using Ionic. It's interesting how, next to some other tangles, the base line sort of disappears and the tangle looks like a series of curlicues. Tangles: Crescent Moon, Curtain, Ionic Border, Pinwheels and a variation, Shattuck Tangles: Black Pearlz, Crescent Moon, Ennies, Ionic Border and a mystery tangle I saw in one of the Diva's slide shows. On this last tile I did a blind string, which gave me a very thin strip at one side. I considered ignoring it, then thought "Nope, deal with it." Kinda cool. Tangles: Black Pearlz, Chebucto, Crescent Moon, Jonqal/Striping, Knightsbridge, Magma, Seljuk, Tipple
Image from www.souvenirsfromgreece.com Ionic (or Ionic Border, as it seems to work well that way) is a simple design I came up with quite a while ago. The elements bear a resemblance to the Ionic style capitals of Greek columns, thus the name. I used it in the second tile I posted yesderday for Sue Jacob's challenge Alphabet Soup. Both sides of this linear pattern are open, which can make it a little tricky to link or blend to a pattern beside it. You get to exercise your creativity! It also can be embellished somewhat, or left simple. Here are the drawing directions. Here are three tiles using Ionic. It's interesting how, next to some other tangles, the base line sort of disappears and the tangle looks like a series of curlicues. Tangles: Crescent Moon, Curtain, Ionic Border, Pinwheels and a variation, Shattuck Tangles: Black Pearlz, Crescent Moon, Ennies, Ionic Border and a mystery tangle I saw in one of the Diva's slide shows. On this last tile I did a blind string, which gave me a very thin strip at one side. I considered ignoring it, then thought "Nope, deal with it." Kinda cool. Tangles: Black Pearlz, Chebucto, Crescent Moon, Jonqal/Striping, Knightsbridge, Magma, Seljuk, Tipple
Margaret Bremner creates artwork that is intricate, funky, and whimsical.
Click on any pattern to enlarge (or follow the links to the original posts) Adeline adeline instructions Zhostovo Border zhostova instructions Coil youtube video for Coil 8 of Diamonds 8 of Diamonds instructions Looby Loo instruction link Square Dance square dance instructions Ace ace instructions Brandywine Brandywine instructions Tootsie instructions Octonet Vigne instructions Lezy instructions LaBel instructions Kyiv kyiv instuctions Bumps http://suejacobs.blogspot.com/2011/07/bumps-tangle-pattern.html http://suejacobs.blogspot.com/2014/01/bumps-revisited.html Pots pots instructions Mingle mingle instructions Garl garl instructions Wix wix instructions O-H instructions Zaturn instructions Plaited instructions Jilli instructions Galilieo http://suejacobs.blogspot.com/2013/10/galileo-new-tangle-pattern.html DITTO http://suejacobs.blogspot.com/2014/02/ditto-new-tangle-pattern.html instruction video at http://suejacobs.blogspot.com/p/tangle-pattern-gallery.html
LILYPADS may have been inspired by various photos I took in China of flowers in ponds. It does have a slightly Oriental look. Hmm... also thoughts of summer in this wintry Canadian almost-January :-) Under-lapping some of the leaves gives it more dimensionality. This could be shaded where all the lines converge, or on the under-lapping, or at the edge of the tangle. Here are a couple of tiles using this tangle: Lilypads, Th@, Barnacle, Coaster, Crescent Moon, Gingham, Keeko, Lotus Pods, Munchin, Snookums Oh yes, the tangle TH@ (pronounce it 'that'). I don't even know if I should take credit for a tangle pattern. Check out th@ second tile above. See the parallel bars going from top left to bottom right, interspersed with white bars with beads on threads? Check out th@ tangle. It's a whole bunch of @ signs at various angles!!! Hahaha! This is yet another brilliant idea that popped into my head one morning when I wasn't quite awake. How 'bout th@?!
It's been almost a year since I was in Whitinsville for the Zentangle teacher training seminar. One of the other participants was Maria Vennekens from the Netherlands. One day she wore a shirt with a lot of patterns, and I noticed something like this among them. To me, the initial 'X' with the filled-in top and bottom looks like an hourglass. Thus "Dutch Hourglass". If the pattern is big enough I like to put tiny black dots in each of the white dots, but - of course - it's your choice. Here's how to do Dutch Hourglass: Here are some tiles using Dutch Hourglass. In the first, the tangle is used as a field in two sections of the string. If you do this tangle, be sure to make the stripes/diamonds/triangles a good size. You need room for the three circles. At the top left of this tile you'll see a "tangle" that I'm calling Botched Dutch Hourglass Resurrected. :-) I didn't make it large enough and had no room for the white circles, so I filled the triangles with black, which was too bold so I added large black dots in the middle of the diamonds which toned it down but was still rather bold so I gave it lots of shading. Tangles: Dutch Hourglass, Facets, Parabola, Rick's Paradox, Striping (and, in the interests of thoroughness, Botched Dutch Hourglass Resurrected) In the next tile, I used a single row of Dutch Hourglass in one of the 'ribbons' of the string. All these tiles began with wide two-pencil strings. To do a wide two-pencil string I place an eraser between the two pencils. (Ha! There IS a use for erasers in Zentangle!) Tangles: Dutch Hourglass, Crescent Moon (with a highlight), Inapod, Yincut and a Knightsbridge Aura Here again I've used it in a ribbon. I think it's those 2-pencil strings I started with. Another interesting thing in this tile is two slightly different effects with the tangle Tidings. In the top right it's done with only lines. In the lower right I've filled the tiny extra spaces with black. Tangles: Dutch Hourglass, Beadline, Munchin, black Pearlz, Tidings Overnight on April 26, I'll be winging my way to Halifax to visit my recently-married daughter and her husband for ten days. After that it's Bermuda for a week to visit my husband's sister and her husband. You bet I'm taking lots of Zentangle supplies with me! I'll need to do some creating myself, and who knows, maybe I'll get a chance to share it with others. Interspersed with visiting, whale-watching, board games, Peggy's Cove, snorkelling, restaurants, and touring of course!
Okay, this one is almost a cheat because it isn't the easiest way to draw hearts. But I was playing around with decorative ways to draw...
Explore lizzie.mayne's 112 photos on Flickr!
Provencal – tangle pattern a photo by perfectly4med on Flickr. This is one of the first tangle patterns I developed based on a late 17th century French pattern design.
I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get my husband off of the new computer so I could post this, lol! I think we need another new o...
I have several patterns that were posted in my blog but not here, so I'm adding them now. Better late than never!
Here's a simple pattern that pops nicely to life with a little shading. Note that in the example art below, I am using several pattern...
I bought a book of bargello needlework patterns for cheap from the library's clear-out bin. Bargello seems to be a bit like needlepoint except the stitches are longer and go up and down on the canvas instead of diagonally. There were some good ideas in there. One, called Diamond Panes, was easily adaptable to drawing although step two is a little tricky. Here's how it goes: Here are a couple of tiles using Diamond Panes. In the first one the tangle ends up on its side. Diamond Panes, Betweed, Florz, Flux, Umble Diamond Panes, Cubine, Flux, Tipple, Xyp
Image from www.souvenirsfromgreece.com Ionic (or Ionic Border, as it seems to work well that way) is a simple design I came up with quite a while ago. The elements bear a resemblance to the Ionic style capitals of Greek columns, thus the name. I used it in the second tile I posted yesderday for Sue Jacob's challenge Alphabet Soup. Both sides of this linear pattern are open, which can make it a little tricky to link or blend to a pattern beside it. You get to exercise your creativity! It also can be embellished somewhat, or left simple. Here are the drawing directions. Here are three tiles using Ionic. It's interesting how, next to some other tangles, the base line sort of disappears and the tangle looks like a series of curlicues. Tangles: Crescent Moon, Curtain, Ionic Border, Pinwheels and a variation, Shattuck Tangles: Black Pearlz, Crescent Moon, Ennies, Ionic Border and a mystery tangle I saw in one of the Diva's slide shows. On this last tile I did a blind string, which gave me a very thin strip at one side. I considered ignoring it, then thought "Nope, deal with it." Kinda cool. Tangles: Black Pearlz, Chebucto, Crescent Moon, Jonqal/Striping, Knightsbridge, Magma, Seljuk, Tipple
While visiting our daughter in Halifax we spent a couple of hours at Doull's Bookstore. One website called it "a second-hand bookstore that is a dark and musty extravaganza of disorganization". I would add "delightful", but I'm a second-hand store sucker. I spent all my time at the front of the store poring over their art section. In one book - which I didn't want to buy just for this - I discovered a lovely pattern from a 700 year old Seljuk Turkish carpet. I fished out my sketchbook and copied it (along with two other patterns!). Here's the page from my sketchbook: It's a border pattern and if using it as a long border all you have to do is a series of squares, then fill the squares in this order: square spiral, white, square spiral, black, and repeat. On the rug it was done around the edge of squares (upper right), then the squares were tiled alternating with another pattern (lower right), à la checkerboard or Knightsbridge. Around the perimeter of a square, be careful to make five small squares on each side. I didn't notice what the ancient Turks had placed at the center, but there are lots of tangle possibilities. Here's how to do SELJUK: I tried it on some tiles. In the first (complete with fingerprint smudge) I put a square spiral in the wrong place right from the get-go (lower left), so I did square spirals in ALL the little squares and vowed to concentrate more the next time (upper right)! Tangles: SELJUK, Cubine, Dex, Knightsbridge, Yincut I've really been wanting to use white on black but rarely seem to get enough black on a tile to warrant it. (Maybe I'll just start with a lot of black next time!) In this tile I used some white ink dots in the black areas to soften the edges. I also used white on the black squares of Seljuk (bottom edge) because that tangle was too prominent. Tangles: SELJUK, Caviar, Cubine, Flux, Mooka, N-zeppel, Opus (with Aura) , Purslane, Rick's Paradox The next tile has some variations on Seljuk. Some of its small squares are checkered; some of the black ones have white square spirals; one is striped. I wanted the inner square to stand out more so I added white to some of the black areas in it, and shaded around the outside edge. Tangles: SELJUK variations, Caviar, Hibred, Knightsbridge, N'zeppel, Rick's Paradox, Striping, Yincut
新年快乐 HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR! I've always like those old Chinese coins with the square hole in the center. The hole helped keep the coins together as they could be strung on a cord or ribbon. When our youngest daughter finished high school and all three daughters had plans, my husband and I went to China for two years to teach English. They don't use coins with holes in them anymore but I bought a small handful of old ones at a street market. The yuán is the unit of currency in China, thus the name of this tangle. Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimmiehomeschoolmom Licensed under Creative Commons The Yuán dynasty was founded by Mongol conqueror Kublai Khan, who was the first to unite all China as we now know it. At its peak the dynasty's territory surpassed 12 million square kilometers (4,633,226 square miles for Americans) and ranged from Siberia in the north to the South China Sea, from the Pacific Ocean to the Middle East. Kublai Khan was a ruthless conqueror (weren't they all?) but he was also a great supporter of science, was interested in various religions, commissioned the design of a Mongolian script - until then strictly an oral language - and headed the first government in the world to institute paper currency. Tangles: Caviar, Festune, Flux, Lotus Pods, Miranda, Prestwood, Yuan In 1271, at the age of 17, Marco Polo left Italy and travelled overland with his father Niccolo and uncle Maffeo - who were gem merchants - to the near and far east. Marco stayed in China for 17 years in the employ of Kublai Khan and was one of very few Europeans to witness first-hand that traditional period in China. Tangles: Caviar, Chebucto, Crescent Moon, Gingham, Lacing, Snookums, Triangle, Yuan Here's how to draw Yuan. I admit to using a circle template when drawing the instructions, but if you look at the examples you'll notice that the squares and circles can be quite off-center and still have the desired effect! It seems to end up rather larger than I expect it will; just a heads up. If you want to pronounce yuán correctly in Chinese, with the rising tone, say it as if you're asking a question: yuan? A few of pointers: - In step one, the spaces between the long rectangles should be about half as long as the rectangles themselves. - In step two, the small black rectangles on either side of the long rectangle indicate a square. Just keep that in mind. - In this case, two pictures are worth about forty-eight words. Tangles: Blake, Lotus Pods, Prestwood, Shattuck, Yuan Blake is newly named. I used and mentioned Bettie Lake's 'ribbons' in an earlier post (third tile). I contacted her recently to ask if this pattern had a name and, if not, might I suggest "Blake"? It didn't, and she agreed. :-) So today, also introducing the tangle Blake! Here it is in brown on a bookmark I made recently.
This pattern appeared in one of my tiles about a year ago. At the time, I didn't know anything about what made a good tangle, meaning, could it be repeated easily by someone other than the brain that did it first? If a person has been seeing themselves as an artist all their life, certain patterns may be easy for them (the 'artist') to "draw." I think that's what happened to this one. Drawing a feather just came easy one day, and it ended up in a piece of Zentangle art. One day after an Intro to Zentangle class at the gallery, I was showing the class the large piece of art (22x30) that contained this pattern (along with countless other tangles). A couple of the students wanted me to teach them "that feather thing." I thought it would be easy, since it came so easy the day I did it. Not. I hadn't deconstructed the steps that would make it easy for anyone else to do it. It would require them to draw a feather, rather than using deconstructed steps to make it 'not drawing' what would end up featherlike. Learning how to deconstruct a pattern so it is easily taught or repeated, was ONE of the best things I learned at the Zentangle certification seminar. This was one of the reasons that Zentangle is for anyone. That deconstruction is what helps people enjoy the process of this meditative art form, without the worries of "how to draw." Steps to what my poetic husband has named, Featherfall. Here is Featherfall, Umble and Pais.
Aztec – tangle pattern a photo by perfectly4med on Flickr. An original design which reminded me of the Aztec square pyramid temples. Lots of opportunity to enhance the 3D aspect with shading 🙂
This is another celtic inspired pattern-the lazy person's celtic knot, lol!
