One Zentangle a Day

interplay between the two.
    Create another mosaic using the twenty-eight Zentangle tiles you have already made. Which characteristics do you see that appear the most often? What do you like the best about the collection? Take time to look and examine the mosaic for your style. Where would you like to see growth? Maybe it is in a tile that has more movement than the others or a tile that is airier than the others. This critique time gives an artist valuable information. It chronicles where our growth has come from and helps to direct our focus so our art continues to grow in the direction we want. In this chapter, some of the new patterns will be taught with a description and example versus the step-outs used in the past four chapters. The aim of this direction is to train your eye to recognize patterns and how they can be broken down into simple strokes.
    As peaceful to look at as they are to draw, feathers are my go-to meditation when I need to calm down or center myself.

DAY 29 TRANSFORMING A PATTERN TO FIT YOUR STYLE
    MATERIALS
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Micron 01 pen
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pencil
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blending stub
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sketchbook
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white tile
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black tile
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opaque gel pens
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colored pencils in coordinating colors to use for shadows and highlights
    SOMETIMES THE BEST NEW tangles are inspired by one of your favorite experiences. Sometimes they are inspired by one of your favorite things. Today’s pattern falls into both of these categories for me. When I was a teenager, I began to view feathers found on my path as a personal sign that I was on the right path that day. I draw or collage them into many of my art pieces. During the Zentangle certification course, we worked with the pattern Verdigõgh. While on a break I commented that in many of Maria’s samples the feathers that she had drawn contained similarities to Verdigõgh. Maria said that she likes to draw patterns in which the object is to follow the line as close as you can to the previous line without touching.
    That is the basic step to turning Verdigõgh into a drawing of a feather. Add the length to the strokes drawn, alter the shape slightly, and you have a feather. When we started, I said that you have to learn the steps of creating a Zentangle tile to achieve all the benefits of completing a Zentangle tile. You have to know the rules before you start breaking the rules. Now that you know how to use the steps of creating a tangled tile, you can alter the process without losing the benefits. In this project, the Zentangle tile breaks the rules but keeps the process. The focus required while drawing the lines close together when creating the barbs on a feather makes this a very meditative exercise.
    The great thing about drawing a feather is that no two ever come out the same.
    VERDIG Õ GH IS THE PATTERN that creates the evergreen boughs in the background. Notice the pine needles have a long rectangular shape. The barbs—tiny, hair-like parts of the feather—are shaped like sewing needles: fine and thin, with a point at the top. The barbs are drawn closer together than the needles on the tree. Feathers have a slightly different shape than an evergreen bough.
    Practice drawing a feather in your sketchbook. The center shaft down a feather is called a rachis. You may want to draw the rachis as your string. You can also draw around the rachis the outside shape of the feather you want to draw. Some feathers have these wild, curly “after feathers” at the bottom. If you care to add these, add them last. Follow the steps of Verdigõgh but use a sewing-needle shape to create barbs. Keep the barbs close together and stay within the string shape. When you have the concept down, begin on a white tile.

Style and the Black Tile
    When we add color to black tiles, just as in white tiles, we give ourselves another tool to draw the viewer in or express ourselves as artists. One medium that works very well on the black tiles is a gel pen. My three favorites based on opaqueness for use on the black tiles are Soufflé, which is matte ink, Moonlight, an opaque luminous gel ink, and Moonlight Dusk, a luminous gel ink. The dusk colors have the smaller nibs, but all three require drawing a bit larger than with the Micron or Pigma pens. Coordinating colored pencils can be used for shadows and highlights.

    As I wait for the ink to dry, I test color combinations on a piece of scrap paper. I decided to use only gel pens on this piece.
    On a black tile or ATC, create a ZIA using colored gel pens