Gloria J Zucaro's " Learning Something New"

3 1/2" Square, Ink on Zentangle  paper.

On Friday I was invited to a Christmas luncheon by an artist friend.  She had not only planned for great food and wonderful companionship with other artists, but had a project for us to do.  We sat at her kitchen table with the supplies she had set out for us to introduce us to an art form called Zentangles. We each had one official Zentangle paper square, a pencil, and two pens with different line thicknesses.


First we were to put dots a little inside of each corner, then connect the dots.  I went wrong right away, by making my connection "bumpy" on two of the sides instead of making it look like a "pillow shape".  But she said it is okay, just have fun!  Then we were to put dots on the edges of the pillow in pencil, then connect the dots across the pillow with our fine point pen so as to divide the pillow into sections.  The first section was filled with lines running parallel to our section line.  See my upper left and lower right bumps.  Then in the same section to go across those lines to make diamond shapes.  Then fill in every other line of diamonds with our thicker point pen.  Next we picked another area and made dots in parallel lines as if you were going to play that connect- the-dots game to complete squares.  See my area in the upper middle.  After that we connected our dots with an "S" line, then connected the opposite sides with the same "S", which resulted in a curvy shape.  Some of us then put squares in the middle of our curvy squares.  And we darkened the little circles that had been the substructure for the design.  Next we were to make scallops across one section.  I got that all mixed up!  I was to make the same scallop shape one on top of the other and then darken with the thick point, every other row.  I went around my perimeter by mistake with the scallops, which did not keep their "scallopy" shape.  So when it came time to darken alternating rows, I ran into areas where two white scallops or dark scallops met.  That meant I started randomly darkening areas and so it looks like Indian Corn instead of a reoccurring pattern which I think is one of the main ideas of Zentangle. See two "bumps" top and bottom.
Next section we were to draw a set of parallel lines in a slight curve across that section.  Then continue with sets of lines but never going over that top set.  We continued to fill that section with parallel lines.  Then we filled in the open areas with"bubbles" or small circles.  See lower middle section.  After that everyone else was done but I had areas that were still open, so I just followed the lines of the open areas to make a maze effect. The other artists were adding some pencil to have more values.  So I started to fill in, with pencil, some of my maze lines.  Again I ran into the problem of having a darkened area meet another already darkened area that would lessen the effect of contrast!


This was a lot of fun and took us about an hour to do.  After I got home, I researched Zentangles on Google.  The originators of the craze are Richard Roberts and Maria Thomas.  The website if you want to find out all about it is http://www.zentangle.com   
Since I would like to do more of these and do them properly, I will need to take a lesson from a Certified ZT teacher.  There are two in the area where I live.  Also, there are many patterns which have specific names and their creators name are listed with them.  There are also challenges just like on the Daily Paintworks site.

"Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Our square red logo, "Anything is possible one stroke at a time", "Certified Zentangle Teacher", "CZT", and "Zentomology" are trademarks of Zentangle, Inc.