Well, I have some nail art to post, but the collage hasn’t been released yet so I guess you’ll have to settle for some ZIAs. I’ve finished a little over half of the extra exercises from Beckah Krahula’s One Zentangle a Day that I committed to after Week 6 and it’s only taken me three weeks! It makes me laugh to think I almost committed to two weeks. Haha ha… haaaa… 😩 I need more hours in my day.
You’ll forgive me when I give no date as to when the rest of the list will be finished. It will happen when it happens and I also don’t want to force myself to finish those when maybe I want to draw something else. In fact, I tangled a random ATC that I am very happy with.
I’m also very happy that I did not try to post my supply list last time because it’s already changed as you will see…
Random tangle (4/16/2019)
I learned how to draw Stature a while ago, but this was my first time using it to tangle. It feels like a cross between a pillar and a stack of shells.
What’s really funny is that I made my husband choose his favorites from the ATCs and Zentangle tiles on my wall and we picked the same ATC (this one) and then were at almost exact opposites on the tiles. Except for the black tile. We’re both not fans of that because the lines are untidy.
- Stature
- Printemps
- Printemps mingled with Tipple
New Fountain Pens!
The ATC was also my first piece using a new fountain pen I’d given myself the limit of filling my other pen twenty times before I could buy more ink or pens and I hit my goal! I wanted a finer line from my fountain pen more than I wanted a different color so that’s what I searched for on Amazon. The problem is that an extra fine nib can be the same as a medium nib depending on the brand and it’s hard to compare unless you buy them. It was very frustrating since I’d once run across some super cheap fountain pens on Aliexpress that actually had numerical nib sizes.
Frustrated, I gave up on Amazon and bought the two smallest sizes (0.38 & 0.5 mm) on Aliexpress and endure the shipping wait.
I was having a very bad day when they arrived and, instead of cheering me up, they felt like more work. 😜 So it was a few more days before I finally filled the pens and tried them out. To my surprise, the finer pen (which I used for the ATC) was indeed thinner than my original pen, but the next size up was thicker. Unexpected! Anyway, here’s the link, but please realize I am not endorsing them. I haven’t used them nearly enough to have an opinion.
And, of course, about a week after I bought my pens I discovered The Goulet Pens store while I was researching bullet journals. They not only have a tool for comparing ink colors, but one for pen nibs as well! Again, I have never done business with them so I’m not endorsing them, but I will probably buy my next pen from them. They have put a lot of work into trying to help you find what you need and I have a lot of respect for that.
Back to the art…
Tangle with sepia ink
I’ve had a set of four sepia Faber Castel artist pens (S, F, M, and Brush) knocking around for years and I’ve barely touched them. I think I would have used them more if they were a lighter and more reddish brown, but they are just a bit darker than I wanted. The ink covered up with a layer of Conte a Paris crayon in the shade Sanguine is closer to shade I desire. Sanguine is so pretty. I smoothed out all the chalky dust with a q-tip and stumbled into highlighting part of the tile by using less crayon in that spot.
I mean…I planned it that way!
Since I had no direction beyond “sepia”, I fell into the notion of using Nipa to create a bunch of bubbles I could fill in with other tangles. The list is a bit long and a bunch of new tangle patterns were used. I’d like to point out Zinger, which is basically the same as Krahula’s plant-like Pepper tangleation used on Day 24. Since Zinger was formally introduced in 2012 and that’s the same year Krahula’s book came out, there’s little chance that she could have put the correct name in the book.
But, uh, now you know that little correction.
- Nipa string
- Arukas
- Bumper
- Bunzo
- Cheesecloth
- Courant
- Crescent Moon
- Fescu tangleation
- Hollibaugh
- Printemps
- Static
- Tipple
- Vitruvius
- Zinger (aka, Krahula’s Pepper tangleation)
Watercolor tile with white ink
I predicted the use of the sepia pens and conte crayon in my materials list, but I didn’t count on my acrylic paint pen dying with just the central Tagh pattern drawn. I had to stop in the middle of this tile and purchase Sakura Gelly Roll’s Classic white gel pen set in three sizes (05, 08, and 10) from Amazon. My timing was good, at least, and they were only $3.28 when the price I’d been seeing prior was over $5.
This tile feels meh to me.
I do like the variety of nib sizes, but they aren’t as opaque as I’d hoped and the tip of the pen can actually scrape up the ink if you go over a spot more than once. I checked the book again and Krahula used the Sakura Gelly Roll Glazed set with the watercolor. It has a thicker ink that gives your work a glossy “raised” appearance (but is more delicate because it can be crushed down). It also would have helped if I’d made the watercolor tile more mid-tone. I suspect trying to add more watercolor now would ruin the tile entirely so I’ll probably go back and try using some of my blue ink instead. Until then, these are my results.
(Note: the pens I bought are the same ones that the official Zentangle store sells which is why I went with them.)
- Dyon string
- Tagh
- auras and perfs
- Meer
This is where I drag out the set of Sharpie markers I bought to use on my nails. You know how I love using my tools for multiple things. 😉
Blocks of color marking out string
I took the tile from Day 38 and filled in the different sections of the string with Sharpie marker. It turned out better than I thought it would, but I have to admit the Sharpie markers are a little more saturated than I’d prefer for coloring things. When I use them on my nails I can always add in a tiny bit of contrasting color to de-saturate things, but that doesn’t work well on paper…
I do love how the color really highlights how the Bales tangle varies across the tile. Excellent technique and now I like this tile better.
- Bales variations
- auras
- Amaze
Coloring Zendala from Day 33
It feels like cleaning up my photos so I could print out my Zendalas for coloring took more time than the actual coloring. Perhaps the only thing that took more time was picking which colors I wanted to use…
This Zendala reminded me of a flower with the way I filled in the last sections so I colored it accordingly. Such a human thing to turn an abstract art form back into tangible things. LOL
- Finery
- Tipple
- Knightsbridge
- Yincut
- Paradox
- Onamato
- Crescent Moon tangleation
Coloring Zendala from Day 34
The checkerboard pattern and striping really make this one feel kind of retro to me, but I probably diluted that feeling by not sticking to red, black, and white….
- Emingle tangleations
- Striping
- Knightsbridge
- ‘Nzeppel
Coloring Zendala from Day 35
I think this one eneded up being my favorite. As you can see with the yellow highlights, the paper I was using + the markers meant I couldn’t really blend anything. Happily, the attempt at highlights worked out anyway. I wasn’t sure it would! 😅
- Swells
- Isochor
- perfs
- Paradox
- Betweed
Woof! Well, I have a few more pieces that are finished, but stopping right in the middle feels more even to me. Until next time, friends. Hopefully I will get to post my nail art soon! 🤣
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