monochrome rainbows

Shading is one of the aspects I enjoy the most when I work on a tile - but last week I barely shaded at all, and I realised that often, particularly at the height of summer, I tend to forego my pencil and work with ink alone.

I decided to continue to leave my pencil to one side, and this week I worked on some Notan style tiles. In brief Notan is a Japanese artistic technique that uses only black and white to create striking and varied images or patterns. It's a style that lends itself to Zentangle. There are a handful of tangles that Linda at Tangle Patterns groups together under the tag of Notan - including a few Zentangle originals, of which we're all familiar, and probably use quite often in our work.

Whilst Notan tangles look great in black on white tiles, they also delight on more colourful backgrounds. I prepared my backgrounds by blending three shades of Distress Inks (Crushed Olive, Peacock Feathers, Dusty Concord) on a piece of Strathmore Bristol Smooth. I then cut this into two 4x4 and 4 2x2 tiles to fill a page in my binder.

I set to tangling, choosing a handful of my favourite Notan tangles. Filling in large amounts of black ink can feel time-consuming, but I find it quite relaxing. If it seems daunting to you then try working small as I did on these four Bijou size tiles. I used a 01 pen to draw the initial tangle and then filled using an 02.

 

Tangles used -
on the Bijou (top to bottom) - Dyzzee, Knightsbridge, Strircles, Flontrast
on the two large tiles (top) - Chloë & Ozzie (bottom) - Blaw

It's worth taking a little care as you move from section to section. It's easy to think that it such an easy tangle that it doesn't need much focus - sometimes a wicked sprite seems to whisper in your ear telling you to jump ahead and fill in a section, and suddenly you've messed up. Or you slip and your pen crosses from an area of black into white. No disaster, just a chance to add a little flourish or change of direction. There is no need for these tangles to be considered stark or boring, in my examples I've added little tweaks - frames, or perfs, lines or bulges.

While I played with other Notan tangles I started to devise one of my own - loosely based on the structure of Bales. It's my pleasure to introduce you to Blaw - named after a contraction of the phrase 'black and white'.

Just a few steps to build the basic frame, and then fill as you desire.

It's easy to underestimate Notan style tangles, to think they can be nothing more than their bold black and white selves. But there's subtlety to them if you choose to look for it - as can be seen here.

Detail lines, rounding, and auras, or a a combination of these -
all add interest and variety to a Notan tangle

And that's without the power of shading which of course could be included too! Margaret Bremner takes the Notan concept even further and twists it in all sorts of interesting directions.

I look forward to seeing what you do with Blaw - please let me know if you use it, and if you like it.

As always, if this tangle appears to be too similar to any others in name or style, please let me know.

seeking shade

This time last year I was writing about tangling through a UK heatwave.  And the same is happening at the moment, albeit thankfully on a smaller scale.  I'm lethargic and disinclined to work on tiny details or pieces that need a lot of blending, smoothing, tinkering.  I'm adapting my tangling to the mood of the weather.

I'm also learning to work with my materials, rather than against them.  I picked two tiles from the stash of lokta paper kindly sent to me by my tangle friend Yvette.  Last time I worked on two tissue thin pieces with grasses trapped within them.  This time I picked two of the thicker pieces, in this shade that reminds me of parched grass.  This paper is heavily textured, especially on one side, it calls to mind baked earth desperate for rainfall.

I knew the paper would challenge fine pen work, but I wasn't in the mood for that anyway- so grabbed my 02 and 03 black pens and set to work tangling loops and giant Tipple and then adding a few other tangles.  I added some small pops of brighter green, from a particularly juicy pen and watched the paper suck the ink into itself.

Going loopy - mostly unnamed ink roamings with added Pixioze

The view from down under - similar but with Inaura

A handful of white highlights and the merest suggestion of graphite shading and they were done.  I tangled them separately, but they were always destined to be a pair.

***

I found a small burst of additional inspiration, and tangled this piece on an ATC sized tile I'd coloured with a Faber-Castell Gelato, a set of which I received as a recent birthday present.

Melting moments - a simple spread of Esher
with added detail lines

The heat is set to break tomorrow, and I hope the week ahead brings some sea breezes because I'm keen to bring some summery teals and blues into the mix.

taming the leaf

I usually begin by telling you about how a tile started, before eventually revealing the finished piece - but this week I'm going to reverse that.

Here is a two tile Persian Mosaic (I've blogged about these at length before) - my summer version of Marguerite's Samama's tangled triangular adventures.

Summer Mosaic - tangled with the hypnotic Doodah, rounded Paradox and a rough version of Decoo

These rich greens and golds didn't start off looking quite so good!  I started with two square tiles that I'd coloured using a new Brusho powder that claimed to be Leaf Green, but which turned out to be little different to their Lime Green.  These two tiles were far too zingy for my mid-summer mood so I set about calming them down a bit.

After pencilling in the unique string, using the template that comes with the Persian Mosaic kit, I tangled with my Olive Green Copic fineliner.  When it came to shading I used a Teal Blue Irojiten to shade along with graphite.  I added only a small pop of white chalk as I wanted this tile to calm down, not wake up. 

Work in progress - I started to shade a section of the first 3Z before I'd finished tangling 
because I wanted to check that what I was trying for might work before committing myself!

As a final finishing touch I used some gold watercolour to add a few dots and some little rings, made my dipping a pen cap into the paint and stamping it on the tile. 

Playing with the light - two tiles at rest of the arm of our garden bench.

I then cut the triangles free from the square tiles and placed the two together to make a whole. 

Sometimes days, like tiles, don't start how we'd like them to, but with a little patience and perseverance, some might end up better than we feared.

a pocket full of pretty green

Sometimes I have a clear focus and momentum to my tangling - I have certain projects or themes to work on and they spur me on to the next tile.  Then there are times when I feel like I'm drifting.  I have enthusiasm and desire to tangle, but no clear aim as to what to tangle.  Similar to writer's block - it's simply fear of the blank page or tile.  But then I remember that with Zentangle the 'why' is far more important than the 'what'.  I tangle for how it makes me feel, the focus and the calm and the pleasure of creation - those things are far more important than the finished results.  Which isn't to say that a pleasing tile isn't a thing of joy too!

The first time I tried Dreamdex I got in a mess,
and rapidly abandoned the tangle.  Recently I tried
it again and things went much better.
The fresh green of this tile clearly influenced me and
as I tangled a distinctly apple atmosphere developed! 

I felt that way this past week.  I floated around, fiddling with ideas, preparing backgrounds, looking at lots of other people's tangle art, but not settling to much of my own.  I soon realised that I wasn't going to find what I was looking for until I started putting ink to tile.  Soon after grabbing a tile, a pen and a tangle things started to fall back into their rightful place.

I magnified a couple of my Ahhs until they resembled giant seed heads
or possibly the copper crown of Lady Liberty herself!  Tweak takes
concentration for me - but is well worth the effort.  The final tile
looks a little like a printed circuit board garden -
a nightmarish concept if you ask me!

I haven't joined in challenges much this year.  I still love seeing what others do with the prompts but I've been so driven by my own themes this year I've felt less need for the gentle guidance of a challenge prompt.  But prompts are a great fix for tangler's block and so I thought I'd join in my oldest challenge friend - It's a String Thing #296.  I  finished my tile too late to play with the others, but you can still see them gathered together on Adele's blog.

I haven't used Vano in such a long time, and I think
I've underestimated this tangle.  It's simple and
calming to tangle and really welcomes a bit of shading.
Anyone fancy a slice from a square lime?

By the time I completed this last tile all vestiges of tangler's block were long gone and I'm feeling fired up for the next tile and the one after that.  Sometimes the only theme you need is pen, pencil and paper.