Snack is a lovely pattern and Tomàs Padrós CZT has created a great step out for it, which includes lots of suggestions and variations.
I have to say, it is a motif I’m familiar with, probably early Celtic art or architecture. It was great fun for me to draw, and in keeping with my rather higgldy-piggldy arrangement I chose to use it in that way. As a nod to the architectural origins of this pattern, to me anyway, I’ve worked with shadow and highlight to practically ‘scuplt each ‘snack’ element. I particularly like the ‘half snack’ versions; again, they are familiar to me but not connected to Zentangle, and there’s nowt wrong with that at all!
FluxEcho, a lovely floral tangle pattern by Lynn Mead CZT, was a delight to draw this morning. you can see my variations of the pattern to the centre-left.
I had decided to stick to a monochrome colour scheme for my Inktober Tangles, but today I decided to go a bit analogous! I’ve added some purple and blue to the design. Analogous colours are next to each other on the colour wheel – so green, blue and purple work well together. Even more so as the background is a grey-green colour.
Something had to be done about the hand-lettered panel. I’d added some colour with Inktense pencils and a water brush, but I wasn’t happy with the finish. So, I filled the panel with black ink and added the hand lettering using a white gel pen. I’m happier with this.
Thursday is the day I create a colouring page for Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans Facebook group. This week, I tapped into my need to create a calming, peace-inducing, relaxing mandala. I’ve been looking a lot at the work of William Morris, and this is rather influenced by that but in my own way.
I chose a rather vintage colour palette; the muted tones suit my mood today. It never ceases to amaze me how the addition of colour, even done fairly simply as is my wont, and as very much the style of William Morris.
I’ve added the next three tangles in the #InktoberTangles2022 challenge to my drawing. I’m fairly happy with how it’s looking, but not too chuffed with my photography/scanning skills! I seem to be able to do a fairly good job when it comes to steam locomotives, but when it’s my artwork… *rolls eyes*. But I’m sure you get the idea!
These are all lovely tangles. Souk caused me some problems and with them an unexpected variation. Molygon I’ve not been able to draw successfully before. Heartfully is a lovely tangle, but not as easy to draw as it seems!
I’ve added a lot of white highlights with either a Sakura Soufflé pen or an 05 Gelly Roll. I like the way the white seems to glow against the grey-green colour of the paper I’m working on (it’s not the pale green it appears in the scan above!). Also, I’m so glad I’m sticking to a colour palette of greens with a blue-green aquamarine.
I wish I hadn’t added colour to the title label, however. For some reason it’s really patchy. I’ll work out how to improve it, eventually.
I’m going to add background shadows/highlights when the whole page is complete. But I have added a background pattern to a couple of areas at the top of the design.
It’s Inktober! The annual month of ink drawing and other challenges of an arty crafty kind!
Last year, I did the #InktoberTangles2021 challenge. I explored each day’s pattern, often with an accompanying YouTube video. This year, however, I’m adopting a different approach. I’ve decided to look at each pattern and combine them into one big design!
The first three tangle patterns are Rain, from Zentangle Inc, Delwhy by Stephanie Jennifer CZT and Isea-u by Dory Peeters CZT. You can see my attempts at them from left to right.
One of my lovely YouTube subscribers asked if I could look at some zentangles by Patrica Aragon (myzenarts.ctz on Instagram) and see if I could do some artwork inspired by her work. As a YouTube drawing tutorial, of course, he asked.
Well, I looked at the artwork and then did my own version. It took a little over an hour to get to where it is in the drawing above. And there it remains until I decide how to complete the picture. If I’m going to, that is.
It was an excellent way to spend Saturday lunchtime.
William Morris, one of the primary founders of the Arts and Crafts Movement, is one of my favourite artists. I love the ornate botanical and nature-inspired designs of quite stylised motifs. I also love the way that colour is used simply in them. That is definitely something I can learn from!
It can take a while for pennies to drop with me, and I don’t know how it has taken so long before I took a look at Morris’s work.
Like myself, Morris was inspired and influenced by Medieval manuscripts. That explains a lot!
I use some motifs from Morris’s designs in this drawing. I applied colour with chalk pastels to the pen drawings, with subtle white highlights from white charcoal. I’m quite happy with the result; I’ve not decided what to do about the background.
Where is this study going to take me? I don’t really know! But I know it’s going to be an interesting one. I’m particularly interested in how Morris used colour, and I hope that will make me comfortable with my own simple way of adding colour to my art.
I drew this colouring page for Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans Facebook group this morning. It definitely has a fair few autumnal motifs; however, any kind of colours could be used!
I’ve partly added colour to the design, mainly to highlight some trickier areas with lots of detail.
I do love seeds! There’s such a huge variety across the globe. Today, I chose some elm seeds to stylise for this drawing.
I also had a hankering to tackle, once again, Tomos Padros’ beautiful Zentangle pattern “Taiga”. It took me two attempts to work out how to do it, but I got there in the end. It is a beautiful woven pattern with so much volume when high contrast shade and light are used.
I love seed pods, and here is a small selection of my favourite ones, just pen sketches with some light washes of Inktense added to some.
I don’t know what it is about seed pods and flying seeds that I love so much. Maybe it’s their shapes, or the association with autumn, or the architectural and aeronautic nature of these seeds. Or it could just be they appeal to my sense of aesthetics!
Either way, they are fun to draw, adapt and use as focal points in drawings.
Art is the Adventure 