Seminar V

Seminar V. Has a nice ring to it.

In each group we find such an amazing array of talented, knowledgeable and passionate tanglers. We stress passionate because there were folks there that created their first Zentangle in our training. How exciting is that . . . that someone would travel great distances, spend precious time and treasure for something they had just caught sight of . . . and just knew they had to learn how to teach. Such is the influence of Zentangle.

Throughout our seminar we were fortunate to have a well-timed break in our winter weather for our new friends from around the world.

We are proud to present to you our new Certified Zentangle Teachers from the "Class of V," held in Whitinsville, Massachusetts in February 2011.

We've updated this page so you can find CZTs in your area.

In the meantime, during the next few blogs, we'll share with you some of the wonderful creations that our new CZTs brought with them.

Please join us in welcoming the fifth class of Certified Zentangle Teachers!

Click image for larger view.

A Space Between

Challenge #10 from Laura Harms, CZT, is "Space Between" . . .

. . . create a tile or Zentangle inspired piece being aware of the space between the tangles, leaving some white space.

Maria's contribution . . .

Created on Zentangle tile, photographed on black background.

Click image for larger view.

Great Article

Christine Britos, CZT [website] [email] had a great two page article in the Union Leader's New Hampshire Sunday News Style Section, February 20, 2011. More info here.

Congratulations, Christine!


I had originally planned to post some pictures from last night's CZT training reception at our home/studio/gallery. Maria's sister, Rachel, had decorated the snow piles along the front walk and driveway with strings of tiny white lights, spotlight on the angel above our door and winter greens in flower pots. She put sand in about 50 cut out paper bags with a lit tea candle in each one and placed these around the walk and entry way.

It was beautiful!

I was planning to take a picture.

In fact, I was planning to take lots of pictures. But as soon as people arrived and conversations began, I forgot all about taking pictures. We had such a wonderful time meeting new people and getting to know them, that you'll just have to use your imagination.

We will get some pictures at class today!

.

Newsletter Pix

Here are larger images from this newsletter. We think you'll appreciate the larger resolution.

This week is our Certified Zentangle Teacher seminar, so our blogging schedule may be a bit erratic.

Click images for larger views.

Art is . . .

Another treat sneak peek . . .

And we have a zFlick update
We recently blogged about a cool tool called zFlick. Initially people had problems downloading. So many of you emailed Flikr and Adobe that that zFlick's developer got involved and fixed everything.

We invite you to take another look at our Cool Tool blog and play with zFlick. We've included a couple helpful YouTube's that Kit Murdoch in Australia created. They are are fun and informative. Thanks, Kit!

Click image for larger view.

Treats

We're running around checking off last minute items as we get ready for our Certified Zentangle Training seminar next week. This is always an exciting time for us.  We have a full class and we're looking forward to meeting and making new friends.

In creating some of our treats for this event, Maria began tangling her botanical illustrations. It's a new direction and she's enjoying playing with it. This is a natural progression as so many of our tangles are inspired by patterns found in nature.

For example . . .

There's more to come.

Click image for larger view.

Cool Tool

There's a free program out there called zFlick that is great for viewing all of flickr®'s Zentangle-inspired images.

Type in "zentangle" and (the appropriately named) zFlick organizes these images in page after mosaic page of rounded corner square tiles. (These images below are just screen shots, they don't do anything.)

Roll your cursor over any image and to enlarge it.

Click on an image to see it full-size.

From zFlick's website:

zFlick is a free Adobe® AIR™ application for viewing and saving photos from the Flickr service.

It's a simple download from two established names.

On a side note, although I'm enjoying it on my PC, I couldn't load it on Maria's Apple.

If you decide to download it, please let us know what you think.

Edit - 2/18/2011
We are grateful to the developer of zFlick for making the necessary changes for everything to go smoothly. I just installed zFlick on Maria's Mac and she's been enjoying wandering through Flickr's Zentangle galleries.

Enjoy these two YouTubes from Kit Murdoch in Australia.

This one shows how she installed it.



This second one shows how she uses it and includes some helpful tips.



Thanks, Kit!

Click images for screen shot size views.

Number Nine

We continue our delightful tradition of participating in Laura Harms' weekly challenges. This week's challenge introduces a new tangle Laura created, artoo.

Here are Maria's Zentangles with artoo.

Thanks again to Laura for creating and caretaking this fun space in which to tangle.

Click images for larger views.

Happy Valentine's Day

Around 1850, Miss Esther A. Howland of Worcester, Massachusetts is credited with creating the first commercial Valentine's Day card. Prior to that, Valentine's Day cards were usually hand made,

" . . . in the early part of the 19th century lovers sent tokens prepared by their own hands, usually consisting of amatory messages printed or written on ornamental paper, and garnished with pictures of loves and doves, languishing damsels and adoring swains."

One of our great joys with Zentangle is to hear from so many people who have a new confidence and enthusiasm to put pen to paper, to see what they've created with their own hands, and to learn of the many positive side-effects they've experienced in the process.

In the spirit of sharing tokens of affection, as has become a custom on February 14, we invite you to enjoy these Zentangles and Zentangle inspired creations.

From Fina Man, CZT, Hong Kong [email]:

Dear Maria and Rick,

I finish this Zentangle in two days. Happy Valentine!

Fina
 

From Jane Monk, CZT, Tasmania [blog] comes this quilted gem of ixorus. See more of these at her "Zentangle and Fabric" blog entry.
 

And while we're in the Pacific Ocean region, Lois Heinani Stokes, CZT [blog] shares these beautiful Zentangle images scribed onto leaves of the "autograph tree." See more images like this one here.

Moving on to Canada, Margaret Bremner, CZT [blog] offers these beautiful hearts tangled on ATC cards in her HVD2U blog entry.

Speaking of hearts, do take a moment to see the many heart contributions at Laura Harms, CZT [blog] eighth "Heart Challenge" blog entry. Here's Maria's contribution revisited from a couple days ago.

Happy Valentine's Day to all, from just outside Worcester, where not only did Esther create her valentines, but Harvey Ball created the "smiley face"!

Must be the water.   :-)

Click images for larger views

First "Official" Tile

CC sent us picture of her first official Zentangle tile. She had been creating Zentangles for a while but only recently received her Zentangle Kit.

We want you to be able to enjoy her Zentangle along with us.

Thanks, CC!

Click image for larger view.

A Purse And . . .

Rose Crawford, CZT [email] writes:

Hi Rick and Maria!

I've attached a photo to share a paper pillow purse that I put together to show how Zentangle patterns mix so well with other paper crafting projects.

Be aware though, before viewing the photo, that this project is full of the kind of mistakes that some paper crafters refer to as "happy accidents." While my pillow purse didn't turn out how I expected it to, it definitely reinforced a lesson about moving forward from the present moment.

Here's a link to the blog post that includes a few more close-up photos of this project.

Enjoy!

Thanks for sharing that with everyone, Rose!


And . . .
Here's a picture of Chico News' Zentangle inspired newspaper vending machine in place.

Read original blog story and see detailed pictures of this vending machine here.

Click images for larger views.

Ensemble C-05

Bette Abdu, CZT [email] coordinated a sharing among CZTs using one of our Ensemble Sets. Bette wrote:

There were two groups who participated in the CZT Ensemble exchange I hosted in November/December.

In Group 1-9 people completed all 9 tiles of Ensemble set L-05

In Group 2-9 people completed all 9 tiles of Ensemble set C-05

All tiles were sent to me and each participant received back an ensemble that included their own #1 tile and one tile each from the other participants in their group. The results were outstanding! I'm sure more of my students will become enthralled with the Ensemble concept when they see my completed Ensembles.
All sets sent to me were photographed before swapping out the tiles. All swapped out sets were photographed too.

Mary Ann Scheblein-Dawsonhas organized these photos and uploaded them. Thank you Mary Ann!

Hope you'll enjoy our eye candy.

Here are images of Group Two's C-05 Ensemble set.

This gives you a good idea of CZTs' passion and creativity. It also is a good reminder of an Ensemble's value as a group Zentangle activity.

Learn more about Ensembles here.

See our Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT) list here.

Thank you Bette, Mary Ann, and all who participated!

Click images for larger views.

Eighth

I came in from an errand yesterday just as Maria was finishing this Zentangle.

"Do you see them?" she asked.

I marvelled at her tangleations of hollibaugh. She had transformed her hollibaugh "boards" into striped ribbons that wrapped around her strings. I went on and on about how woven (and tangled) it looked even though everything was, in Zentangle fashion, "drawn behind."

"Do you see the hearts?" she asked.

Wow! What had been invisible before was now obvious. I had been so entranced by Maria's delicious tangling of the negative space between the hearts that I totally missed their underlying structure. And these were hearts that I missed.

Is it that easy to become so entranced in my day-to-day beautiful and demanding intricacies that I can miss the very thing that holds us all together?

"Wow . . . hearts!" I said.

This Zentangle was created for Laura Harms' eighth weekly challenge. Maria combined heart strings with the simplicity of a single tangle hollibaugh and breath . . . always breath.

Click image for a larger view.

Ladyquin

RE sent us this email:

Hi Rick and Maria,

This is one of four ladyquins that I have created. This particular one I've sent you was one that I used Zentangles on. All of the ladyquins I have worked on are in honor of people who have had breast cancer. I hope you like them.

Powerful images. We enjoyed your development of tangleations, particularly on the lower back.

Thank you for sending that.

Click images for larger view.