Zentangle, Beyond the Basics

I was very happy to attend a Zentangle seminar at 1440 Multiversity this month. If you are not familiar with 1440, I recommend  you check them out at 1440.org. It's in Scott's Valley near Santa Cruz, and it's a learning center with many inspiring courses and teachers. Apparently Silicon Valley billionaire Scott Kriens and his wife Joanie purchased the old, shuttered, 75 acre Bethany Christian College campus and built a center that is a real pleasure to visit. They constructed beautiful buildings for residences and for classrooms. They invited meditation teachers such as Jack Kornfield, art innovators like Zentangle founders Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas, and many other interesting leaders of our time. It's a real pleasure to be there.

Rick and Maria are a delight. Unassuming and full of interesting ideas. The theme was CONTRAST. We did a number of Zentangles that used light and dark creatively. Here are some of mine with a few comments for each. I hope you enjoy them.

This was my favorite. I love Diva Dance Rock 'N Roll on the left, looking for all the world like a rose. The Knightsbridge with its stripes is so dramatic, and it shows the power of the contrasting black and white. Pokeleaf in the middle provides an unexpected contrast between geometric and organic patterns.

My very own Egyptian columns. We used white pencils for highlight and dark shading in between the columns. This is a Renaissance (pale brown) Zendala tile, which is what we used for the rest of the program. Rick showed some slides of DaVinci and Raphael drawings on this light brown colored paper to explain why they named them Renaissance tiles. 

My second favorite. The big overall tangle patttern is WayBop, always fun. It's decorated in the middle cross with some orbs (fancy word for little circles or ovals). The light on dark orbs again show the power of contrast. Pokeroot berries give a dramatic contrast against the black background.  Maria encouraged us to draw some runaway pokeroot berries creeping into the WayBop. She is very whimsical, and that's a good antidote to being to exacting when tangling.

The rest of the time was spent on what Rick and Maria christened "dingsplats." These are named for dingbats. In typography, a dingbat is an ornament or a graphical spacer used between chapters or for other decoration. It was timely for me to hear more about dingbats, because our CZT group had just last month spent a happy morning together learning about them and drawing them. Here are my two Dingbats that I did with the CZT group,so you get the idea. This floral tangle patttern is called Kiss. With some Fescu tendrils creeping out of the rectangle. These dingbats were drawn by me, but designed by CZT group menber Cheryl Wilson.

This one would look good at the start of a chapter.  In late-breaking, non-Zentangle  news,  I am completely thrilled that my new book has been accepted by a publisher. I mention this because I am thinking of having dingbats between the chapters. We shall see. It might  work. I also mention this because it is one of the great things to happen to me in life so far!

This second dingbat uses tangle pattern Mac Rah Mee. I love the woven center that all the tendrils emerge from. This is a dingbat you would put in the corner of a page Again, both these designs are credited to Cheryl. You can see how creative she is!

Rick and Maria named these last three Zentangles dingSplats. This one uses Knightsbridge.  Knightsbridge is a great tangle pattern for experiencing the power of Contrast. You can see how the black and white make a strong statement. I got the idea for why they chose the name dingSplats when Rick said that this one looked like an entire bottle of Knightsbridge had spilled all over the floor. Splat!

Here is Dingsplat #2. Again a lot of contrast created with black and also using a white pencil again. Lotsa orbs. The Zentangle team was orb-smitten at this seminar, to good effect. The center tangle pattern is called SpokeN. As in spokes.

Here is the last Dingsplat. It was fun to revisit the amazing tangle pattern 'NZeppel. It was pointed out that 'NZeppel looks like you are squeezing round balloons into rectangular boxes. I loved that. Both Molly and Martha,daughters of Zentangle founder Maria Thomas, did a lot of demonstrating at our seminar. They are both very talented and articulate, and they both maintain the high level of quality set by Rick and Maria in their demos. Here we have more orbs and "lacy loops," which is what they called the little pulled threads around the outside border.

Once again, just like at my CZT training in 2016, this 1440 Multiversity seminar was just a delight for me. I spent hour after hour in the zone,my favorite place. This fall I am splurging on Zentangle seminars. I'll be at Zenagain, a seminar for CZT's in Providence. It starts in just a few weeks. I will post again when I get back, mid November. Thanks for following all this! I hope it is interesting to you.