Making Strides

Here's the Zentangle I worked on last week from a recent "Project Pack" series. I like that the Zentangle creators have broadened out from their original tangles done with black micron pen on white tiles, to different color and shapes of their tiles and different colors of micron pens, to the latest of adding color to the shadings. I thought I'd show you step by step how this developed.

It starts by making a fairly open spiral, then subdividing it with double lines. Instead of using the suggested Micron pen, I used a Japanese brand brush pen I've grown quite fond of. Unlike other brush pens, this one is more like a felt tip pen and depending on the pressure you use, you can get a thin or thick line.Starting at the upper left corner of each segment, draw angled lines partway down, insert a circle and "capture" it with a line up and over it, darkening the space on either side. Continue echoing this new curved line until the segment is filled. This took quite a bit of time as I had more segments to fill than the example did so spread it over more than one day.

The next step is adding color with a pastel chalk pencil provided in the pack, but if you don't buy the pack full of tiles, pens, and various pencils, you are free to find something similar on hand. This Art Graf has similar qualities to a pastel chalk pencil but the trick was to find something to apply it with. This brush was handy and worked pretty well to work the soft pigment into the paper along the line of the spiral.

Next I used the felt eraser tip from a used up white board pen to gently move the pigment from the line to create shading. The same process was used to add graphite with a soft pencil along the other side of the spiral line. A tortillion moves the graphite across the paper for more shading.

It never ceases to amaze me how that step of shading transforms any tangle, giving it a depth that is often 3-d in nature. At this point I wasn't sure I wanted to continue on because I liked how it looked and had peaked at the next steps. But continue on I did because, you know, if I didn't like it, I could always draw it again and stop here.

Now it was time to spruce things up with gel pens - not just normal gel pens but metallic ones. I think this is new for the Zentangle people. On their example, they inked in those big circles with a colored metallic pen and placed white gel pen dots inside the double lines. I really didn't like what it did. Plus the paper in this sketchbook is a resume paper with cotton content that rather soaks up the ink while their tiles are I believe something akin to Yupo - a plastic translucent surface that the gel ink sits on top of. While the white gel pen dots really showed up on their tile, I knew it wouldn't on my paper. Instead I just went over the big circles on mine so they are firmly white. I DO have a collection of metallic gel pens that you can see all lined up for testing - I wasn't sure which color would look the best with my blue shading.

I chose a purple one which I am very pleased with. I think you can even see a bit of the sparkle. The graphite also has a sheen to it when you tip the tile. I tried to capture that in the video below - not sure why the sheen of the graphite looks so yellow though; may be the incandescent light I was shining on it.

As for other strides made last week, when I went into the studio to retrieve those gel pens, I looked for the umpteenth time at the second Peace quilt waiting for me to finish pinning it. I realized that there were some areas I could reach while standing straight up (I still have some issues with even the slightest leaning forward at the waist) so spent a few minutes adding pins - a small triumph. Eventually I'll be able to reach across to the far side to finish the pinning. I'm nearly done with Home Care, having my last visit with "the shower lady" and taking my first unaccompanied shower a few days later and sans shower bench. Best of all, I finished weaning off of the oxycodone once I made the connection that it was some of the physical therapy exercises and the number of repetitions of some of them that was keeping my pain level from coming down. I just have to double check with the doctor to make sure that was all that was keeping me from being cleared to drive. I'm about ready to transition to upstairs, moving the clothes and bathroom items I'd kept downstairs for convenience sake and to sleep in my bed. It dawned on me that I'd by making the couch in the livingroom my bed, I'd been living like one of those wealthy women of the pre-1900 eras who held court in their boudoirs! So close to being back to something more normal.