SNIRCLES

I've been playing with a new pattern. Meet SNIRCLES. 

Named so, because they are drawn in a snircular shape. Obviously.

This pattern requires a little bit of concentration. It's not difficult to draw, but you have to pay attention. Just remember north, south, east, east, north, west, south, north, west, east, west, and you'll be fine.

Just kidding.

Some ideas and variations I ran with while working through the steps.

Some tips for successful 'snircling':
For maximum zen, draw all of your outer circles at once. Then all of the auras (step 2), then all of the inner auras (step 3), then all the 'tails' (step 4). It's easier to keep track of which lines are going in what direction that way.

When drawing the initial circles, go slowly and make a complete circle every time. Don't stop your line because you bumped into another circle because they will look more misshapen that way. A little bit of overlap is ok.

If you curve your tails rather than keeping them straight, your spheres will look more dimensional, which can be further enhanced by shading later on.

Keep your snircles small, or they'll run rampant. Just like children, the bigger they are, the harder they are to wrangle. ;o) And there's nothing worse than an errant snircle!

As you can see, the direction they face can make a big difference in the way your full pattern looks.

 inward-facing

side-facing

random (only 50% zen, requires some decision-making while you draw)

same one, only stringier.

I know that non-representational art is the whole point of Zentangle... but if it wasn't, wouldn't these little tulips look cute tucked into a tangle?? I couldn't help myself. Let's blame the fourteen years I spent decorating cookies for a living.

The red pen is quickly becoming the bane of my blogosphere existence. I swear, I try to remember to use it, but by step two or three I forget and have to start all over. Or I draw the wrong step in the wrong color. It is BUSTING MY GROOVE. See the basic steps I drew up, at the beginning of this post? I hope you like them, 'cause it took three tries to get the right parts in the right colors!

My theme song for this next attempt will be a really catchy song by The Afters, appropriately titled 'Start Over'. ;o)

*seven index cards later*

Sooo... sorry about the lack of red ink here, but here are the steps for the fancy border. 

I love this one. How could you not, when it looks like a breakdancing caterpillar? There's so much room for variation with this pattern. Look at the difference in the two borders at the bottom, just from changing the direction of the snircles.

...and there's so much potential in the SHADING.

That's it for now... thanks for reading! As always, I'm open to suggestions for improving the process. 

sunny on the inside

Back in December, I was inspired by some painted ceramic suns hanging in a local Mexican restaurant, so I got a few photos so I could play with the idea later on. At that point, I hadn't taken Sandhya's Zentangle class and didn't really know what it was. I just knew I had a thing for color and really intricately detailed ink doodlin'. I also hadn't started playing around with watercolor yet, but Santa knew I wanted to try it. :oD Santa knows everything! Especially if Santa is either your husband or a friend (formerly your boss) who has been around you nearly every day for about a third of your life. Yeah, I'm lookin' at you, Linda!

 A few weeks later - Arches cold press watercolor paper, a technical pen, and soot black india ink :o)

I didn't realize it was going to take me a week to finish this... it was a pretty ambitious project for my second painting ever. I learned a valuable lesson here: Just because you think your watercolor paper is dry does NOT mean the color's not going to bleed like gangbusters, even if the paper is just a TEENY bit damp. If freshly-painted watercolor paper feels cool to the touch, it's not dry yet. If you're as impatient as I am, save yourself the agony and use a hairdryer on it. For an hour.

For a while, I actually thought about leaving this black and white. I don't know what I was thinking. The color is just so happy. This thing matches every jordan almond* in the box ;o) I framed it today with a pristine white mat but since there is a micron pen in the vicinity I doubt very much that it's going to stay white for very long.

There is now a sky-blue (well, okay, according to Winsor & Newton it's cerulean) background with a little of the color lifted off with a damp sponge for an (accidentally) awesome cloud effect. I thought I had a finished picture of it, but since I'm an obsessive deleter, I'm pretty sure I know what happened to that.

*speaking of, if you ever stop at Buc-ees, go get a bag of their 'no sugar added' jordan almonds. All the yummy and half the sweet. (and thanks to my sister-in-law for cluing me in.)