Day 2

On the second day of Christmas 

My true love got from me . . .

Two Yuletide ornaments

From my Treasure Box of ATCs!

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Notes:
Maria's accordion ornament consists of three overlapping Zentangle ATC tiles taped together with double-sided tape . . .

. . . and then "slit-scored" to facilitate folding:

The red coloring is pomegranate juice and the green, diluted food coloring. A red silk ribbon is threaded through a small hole in either end.


Molly's tri-fold is constructed from three tangled Zentangle ATCs folded in half . . .

. . . and then taped together with double-sided tape around the hanging cord which is tied to the bells.

P.S.
Ornaments are hanging on our Christmas "family tree."  :-)

Click images for larger views and . . . 

Day 1
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5 
Day 6 
Day 7
Day 8 
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12

 
 

Day 1

On the first day of Christmas,

My true love gave to me,

 A treasure box of ATCs!



Click images for larger views and . . . 

Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5 
Day 6 
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12


 

Special

Rick writes:

We're just beginning to get back to our (ab)normal routine after another wonderful CZT training seminar. It's time to catch up on some blog posts.

This morning at breakfast, I said to Maria, "Babe, remember that special email we received from Josh? We should do a blog post on that. Let's find some tiles to post with it."

Maria replied, "Laura Harms' challenge this week is all about bugs. How 'bout we post some of my "bug" tiles?"

"Done!"

First, here's a bit of our conversation with Josh:

Josh writes:
Wow so we used to doodle this stuff late night in a Frisch's Big Boys in high school, and later on after I got out of the service I penned these. My best work was lost in an art book that was destroyed, but these surviving examples showcase this style. I haven't messed with my art in a long time, but now that I see you guys have turned this style into a discipline that can be taught in simple steps, I'm very very anxious to dive back into it again.

I realize Zentangle is just a breakdown of how to free flow tribal design, but its so refreshing that someone has finally put it into proper words, and done it in a way that promotes endless creativity. You know, the way it should have been promoted throughout the art world properly for that last thousand years, but only now has finally found voice in your teachings.

Highest regards,
Josh

I replied:

Hi Josh,

Thank you so much for writing that and sharing your images.

Josh, you've captured our intention more succinctly and elegantly than I've seen yet. Using music as an analogy, a friend of ours wrote similar thoughts:

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"Yes, there are gifted artists who paint well without lessons, or gifted musicians who can write and play songs without reading music. But they have no method for teaching students their craft.

"My father grew up in an Amish home where musical instruments were forbidden. While I was yet in grade school, I would see him bring home from his monthly excursions to the local auction barn keyboard musical instruments: a bellows organ, an upright piano, or several accordions. I would marvel as in a few minutes he could teach himself to play familiar hymns as the family sang along. His method of teaching me to solve any problem was, "If you just look at it long enough, it will come to you." My brain was not wired like his. I never learned to play "by ear."

"For certain gifted people no lessons are necessary to create art; not so for the general population. We need a way of learning to make art we enjoy. The Zentangle Method makes that possible for us 'one stroke at a time.'"

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Our intention is to inspire people to put pen to paper, whether for the first time (because they have come to believe they aren't "artists") or to dust off their pen and get to feel again that thrill of creativity flowing - without preconception or self-criticism.

And yes, as you say, "a breakdown of how to free flow tribal design." We take such inspiration from our collective human heritage of patterns and design. (Carl Jung would have enjoyed this "vocabulary"!)

Thanks again for writing.

Best,
Rick (and Maria)

Such a special letter deserves some special companion tiles for this blog post!

Maria loves to draw bugs. Whenever we encounter an interesting one, I'll take pictures. Or, if it's no longer alive . . . like a great big beetle . . . it finds its way to her desk.

She draws known bugs as well as yet-to-be-discovered bugs. Maria has discovered that when she looks closely, they are all covered in tangles!

Such fun!

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Congrats to "REI MAR" who was our random chosen commenter on our blog post, "Crack!" Watch your mail box!

We welcome and invite your comments.

And be sure to go check out Laura Harms' iamthedivaCZT 144th weekly challenge.

Enjoy!

Click images for larger views.

CZT Seminar XII

Beyond words wonderful!

Once again, language falters in attempts to describe the camaraderie, creativity and outright fun we all enjoy at our Certified Zentangle Teacher training seminars.

So we'll share some of the images and inspiration that took place to give you a little bit of the flavor of what happens.

First, some numbers:

• 3 - Countries getting their first CZT (Germany, Israel, Japan)
• 9 - Countries represented (Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Taiwan, United States)
• 7 - Moms who came with their daughters
• 8 - Daughters who came with their moms
• 18 - Total moms and daughters (including Maria, Martha and Molly)

Okay, on to the pictures with occasional commentary!

Here's everyone! We enjoyed wonderful New England fall weather and had our picture taken outside. (Thanks to Marshall Huggins for taking it!)

Moms and Daughters. Daughters and Moms.

Where we ate in the Hotel Providence.

A pumpkin tangled by Martha and her two boys welcomed students.

Everyone got a small pumpkin to tangle.

One student arrived at seminar in her friend's BMW.

Although it wasn't exactly done in a Zentangle manner, it got lots of attention!

Here's part of the Zentangle crew (l-r) Sue, Martha, Molly, MaryLou and Rachel. Jean and Sarah were also here, but missed this picture.

Tables were set out in one end of the store for students to display their Zentangle inspired creations. 

And what a feast it was!

Molly led a session about how to teach tangling on black tiles while Maria demonstrated on an easel.

Some students had a chance to share tangles they deconstructed. These two pictures provide such a great example of what seminar is like. Aimee (first picture) is from Sutton, Massachusetts - just across the town from us. Monica (second picture) is from Taiwan - just across the planet.

One evening, we explored tangling on fabric.

Students still found time to tangle their pumpkins. Notice the shading of meer on the black ATC tile behind the pumpkin in the above picture. Instead of just shading (or, in this case, adding highlight) on one side to give perspective and dimension, this tangler added highlight to the top of one side and shading to the top of the other side. What an easy and dynamic technique that adds a sense of increasing dimension to that tangle!

Here's one workshop's tiles laid out in a mosaic for all to appreciate.

They are held with pins on this fabric covered display without poking through the tiles.

Everyone contributed to a collaborative . . .

. . . which everyone enjoyed and signed.

Lots of sharing and learning from workshops and projects.

Desert was pretty good, too!

We cannot begin to convey how honored and grateful we are to have this opportunity to meet and work with such wonderful people from all over this world.

You can contact these wonderful people at this link as their contact info is added.

If you are interested in attending a 2014 seminar, you can get more information in this newsletter announcing our 2014 schedule and more information about seminar in general at this link.


Click images to enjoy larger views.

Crack!

Maria writes:

Hi there everyone!

We are now just coming down from the high of a fabulous (once again) seminar. A wonderful time was had by all, including us. Rick is getting pictures ready for a newsletter and blog to share some of the fun we all enjoyed.

This serving dish . . .

. . . must be a gazillion years old. Or, if not, at least a hundred years old.

I don't remember where it came from, only that it was my favorite and I used it almost everyday. It is about 15 inches at its widest and has a nice old ivory-color crackled patina. In the back is a cool trademark with an almost too happy looking lion and a unicorn with a questionable look on his face . . . . "Royal Stone China, Wedgwood & Co."

We have an old cast iron stove in the kitchen and the heating part was on the other morning and I heard that (too) familiar "crack" of something not too happy.

Ugh! My beautiful old platter finally died.

A big crack appeared down the middle, but not all the way through. I just could not toss it. It served me too well for too long. So . . . what does one do with an old cracked but in one piece dish that has no value to anyone???

You tangle it, of course!

I added a bit of super glue where the crack was and figured I could just look at it for a while longer. . . at least until it broke in two. I owed it that much at least.

I picked up my trusty IDentiPen® and went to town.

 
So smooth and fun to write on! Much easier than I thought it would be. I started with that big black tangle and added a bunch of springkle, fluxed it on either side then added that flowy version of tripoli. I balanced it all off with garlands of pokeleaf and a few other bits here and there.

I did not use a string, but figured out I could have used the grey Fabrico® marker, had I thought of it. Oh well, next time.

I may throw a coat of urethane on it. Or not. Not sure. I like it. It will have a nice home in the china cabinet in the dining room.

Sigh. . . .

And here is another piece I revived.

It was an old candy dish I think with the plating wearing off to reveal the copper(?) beneath. It was damaged beyond repair in the middle of the bowl so we added some tangles in black and used a white Sakura® Gelly Roll® pen to add some highlights.

Oops . . . Almost forgot! Susan Olsen is the winner of a tile from the last blog, "Bordering on . . . " Its on the way, Susan. Congrats from me and Rick.

We will not be giving this venerable platter away, but I am sure we can find something worthwhile to send out to one of you lovely tanglers. . .

Click images (gently!) for larger views.