Revisiting an old friend

Zentangles!!

I have two sketch books full of my zentangles.  You can check out some of my previous posts here and here and here.  My mom borrowed my books for a while and when she gave them back to me it reawakened my love for drawing them.  When I sat down to do another one I realized that I was "doodling" the same designs as before, I needed inspiration, I needed new ideas.  I looked at Pinterest for new ideas.  I already had a board full of inspiration here.  But I was looking for something different.

I went to Barnes and Noble and found two amazing books full of inspiration!  The first one is called Zen Doodle Tons of Tangles by Tonia Jenny and Amy Jones.  And the second one is entitled The Beauty of Zentangle by Suzanne McNeill and Cindy Shepard.  I have added color to my tangles before but these two books have inspired me to try color again.  I want to be more intentional about the things I draw, like wildlife, buildings, etc.  So now my third sketch book will be "all about color"!

Page 1 When Seahorses Play
(I need to adjust the color on my computer because this is much more vibrant in person)

 Then yesterday morning while the boys were in handbell practice I started my second one:

Last night I finished my second one:

I love to sew but I also love zentangles!

Wreck This Journal

I have seen this book in stores but instead of buying it I went home and put it on my Amazon Wish List and forgot about it.  Well this past Christmas my mom got it for me and it has been so much fun "wrecking" it!!  It is definitely for anyone that wants to be creative but doesn't know where to start.

Here is an example of what one of the pages looks like (not done yet):

So you kind of get the idea right?  Keri Smith wants you to experiment, be creative, use any tools necessary to create something unique and one of a kind.  The title page was boring until my pink and orange markers attacked it:

A few years ago I challenged myself to learn at least the first 25 digits in the number Pi. (You know 3.14159)  So when I read the page that asked me to "add your own page numbers" the one word that jumped out at me was numbers.  I immediately wanted to write as many digits of Pi that I could fit on the page:

This was one of the first pages I did "Draw fat lines then thin":

I wonder why I haven't done this page yet? I love to sew, maybe I'll do something with this tonight:

Another example of one of my finished pages:

This page says "Tear out. Crumple."  I wanted to experiment with wet watercolors, to "crumple" it up before the watercolors dried to see if I could get a cracked effect.  It didn't turn out quite how I expected but I taped the page back in to show the shrinkage of the page:

And I saved my favorite page for last.  It's called a "Stain log".  I've seen this done with lipsticks but I have a slight obsession with nail polish (and these aren't even all of my colors!) so I decided to log some of my colors:

My absolute favorite, that I wear on my toenails all the time, is the Petites Sapphire, third row first one.

I have a board on Pinterest called Wreck This Journal where you can see other peoples creativity (and I've added my pictures as well).

More Zentangles

These two statements were taken from a website devoted to teaching people about zentangles: The Theory of Zentangles

Deliberate Stroke
In our Zentangle way, you draw each stroke consciously and deliberately. We are always making "strokes" (thoughts, words, deeds) in our life. By practicing the Zentangle Method's suggestion to make each stroke deliberate, you understand how those apparently small and insignificant "strokes" of our moment to moment lives contribute to an overall life pattern. This is another reason that we say that life is an artform and everyone is an artist. Indeed, everyone draws.


Deliberate Focus
As you make a deliberate pen stroke on your Zentangle tile without concerning yourself of what it will look like when you are done, that very act of putting your pen to paper focuses your attention in a special way. As your eye follows your pen strokes your attention shifts to a state that allows fresh thoughts, new perspectives, and creative insights to flow unhindered by anxiety or effort.

So with that here are my latest Zentangles:

And because my 5 year old was so fascinated when watching me that he asked for a piece of paper to create his own zentangle:

To see my previous posts on my zentangles the link is Zentangles