Zentangles

As a treat, I bought myself a bunch of Zentangle books. Zentangle is a specific type of structured doodling which has suddenly become all the rage. I became aware of Zentangle several years ago, taking a bunch of cut paper squares with me on a vacation to facilitate beach relaxation. I couldn't stick with the format, but it was still fun to have that restricted space and a starting point.

Today I rewarded myself with some lazy time while the kiln cooked. I looked at three Zentangle books. The first two, Zentangle Basics and Zentangle 2, seem to be pretty basic, aimed at educators who want to incorporate doodling into their curriculum. It was interesting just to see what type of fill patterns were being used. The newest book, Totally Tangled, was a bit more intriguing. The author, Sandy Bartholomew, breaks away from the small square format and doodles everything. I found her blog, BEEZ in the Belfry, to be very fun. I am particularly taken with this apron.


So I drew a circle in pencil on one of my leftover paper squares, and thought about what I was supposed to do next. Of course, I couldn't follow the rules, so my usual bird and branch went into the circle. Then I worked on a fill pattern to use up some of the remaining white space. I liked it enough to scan it into Photoshop, clean up the image and save it for a future photopolymer plate or rubber stamp. A perfect project for a gray, rainy day!