Zentangles

A WetCanvas artist, Rose, introduced us all to zentangles. There are zentangle sites out there, and they sell you pre-cut cards, and suggest designs. However, it's easy enough to do if you simply let go, and slide down the years to when you were at school, doing what you did best in all those boring classes... d o o d l i n g.

Just boldly block in some spaces in a small square or rectangle of paper, and go ahead and doodle. Patterns will emerge all on their own, and you will know when you have finished.

If ever art could become a sort of meditation, then this is it. Reminds me of white-clad women and their rosaries, orange-clad monks and their japamalas, Greek seafarers and their kombolai... you put down mark after mark after mark with your pen, and lo and behold you've forgotten what you were worried about, and you marvel at what your worry has transformed into on that little bit of paper.

At the Anything Goes Exchange, some artists did not want my... ahem... divine creatures. I did these zentangle-inspired ATCs for them, all Micron pen on watercolour paper.

Scattered Yin-Yan


Haystack

Nautilus (on lokta paper)


Petal Lash


Winding Melodies

Tuberoses


Palm Lines

Startracks


In Flight