I completed this yesterday.  It’s approx. A4 in size.  The major outlines were worked with an Umber Letraset Promarker with an ultrafine point.  The fine details were done using a UniBall UniPin fine line permanent pen.  There are gold highlights worked with a UniBall metallic gel pen.  The shading was done using a Derwent Graphitint pencil, Storm shade, and a water wash.  It took many hours of work…I lost count!

I’ve discovered Zentangles over the past few days.  The similarities between them and my art are remarkable, though I think my art has incorporated such things for a long time now without knowing about them, though it seems the first Zentangles were names as such in 2004 by their creators, Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas.

I have also found out that NeoPopRealism was created by Nadia Russ in 1989, and she used lines and repetetive patterns as a way to heal herself and her life.  This is taken from her website

“In 1989, Nadia Russ (aka Nadejda Maloletneva) invented the new art style, very unique art form of visual arts. Sensitive and emotional, Nadia was trying to get rid of her stress and frustration when things in her life were going wrong. But wrong was, then in 1989 and a few more years, almost everything. She drew with ink pen the line, turning into different shapes, figures, faces. Sections, that appeared, she filled with different repetitive patterns. Nadia never uses eraser. If she makes a “mistake”, it disappears because of the following patterns that balanced the whole composition. This drawing is meditative. Later, she was using the same concept when she created her oil and acrylic canvases. This art form called NeoPopRealism; she created this term January 4, 2003. The artworks of Nadia Russ are in different museums’ permanent art collections worldwide and in private collections all over the globe. “

Of course, doodling has been around for a very long time … and I often think of this kind of art that I do as ‘doodling’.  It is also very meditative and it can be the one thing that cheers me up during one of my darker days, something I look forward to coming home to at the end of a tough day at work.  It has a similar effect upon my soul and mind that the first mug of hot tea on arrival at home does – a huge inner sigh on the conscious, subconscious, physical and spiritual levels.

I am finding it interesting to look at the Zentangle patterns and how they can be constructed, and I’m even trying some of them out in a sketchbook.  Ultimately, my art flows, with no conception of what the finished piece will be; that has always been the case with my art – I really do just go with the flow.

*Added Tuesday 11 Feb 2013*

I have been told that Indian Mendhi designs predate Zentangles and NeoPopRealism by a very long time thanks to 1artviewer on deviantART.  These are the kind of designs that are applied using henna to the hands/feet of brides.

You can read more about these designs on Wikipedia and can see more on this website.

Of course, and I’ve mentioned this many times before, I’ve drawn inspiration from prehistoric rock art, as well as neolithic and bronze age art, early celtic and anglo-saxon art too.

*Edit ended*

Half Term at last!

3pm last Friday didn’t  come around quickly enough.  It’s been a short yet incredibly pressured half-term.  The pressure has come from the inspection, voice problems, and another problem that has affected my sleep, stress levels and health adversely.  I’m glad it’s over and I can have a week away from the madness without anything hanging over my head.

My only plans for this week are art, reading and sleeping, well apart from the other absolute necessities of life such as bathing and eating and so on.

It’s always quite tough for me to be alone to start with, but by the end of the week I’ll value my solitude.  It will have allowed me the time and space to just ‘be’, to relax, to rediscover myself.  Then, I will feel thrown back into the fray for another manic half-term.