Welcome to BLOG Zentangle. To learn about Zentangle, visit our website, read our free newsletters, take a class with a local Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT), and best of all . . . create your own!


Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Line 'em Up!

Maria writes:

Some of you have mentioned your difficulty in creating strings. Whenever I am confronted with that, I resort to something real simple . . . stripes! . . . lines, ribbons, pipes, moldings, borders.

In one of my past lives, I was part owner of a frame shop. I did not do the actual "cut the frame" part, but I often did the custom mat jobs . . . with either "French lines," marbled paper borders or calligraphy.

Now, this has morphed into creating patterned borders around art or photos in a Zentangle way whether with pen and ink or with brush and color.

There is a basic simplicity of tangling within the string of a stripe and then shading on the outer edges to tie it all together.

This is also a fun exercise/challenge to do with tangles that you wouldn't immediately think of as "border" tangles.

Simple.

Rather impressive.

Very cool!






P.S.

I am especially attracted to the unevenness of these stripes and borders because it's obviously hand-made . . . not machine made. So, no worries if your strings aren't perfectly straight or parallel!

Click images for larger views.

14 comments:

Carole Ohl said...

ALL Gorgeous! I love the last one..cool use of the Tripoli. I've not gotten into scrap booking, but that beautiful little morsel makes me kinda think....

Heather Victoria Held said...

wonderful ideas!! I love these tangles.
xo,
Heather

Pennyb said...

This, I really like...I'm a 10 year long Scrapbooker, and I've always used clean lines with patterned edgings as opposed to filling my pages, which draws attention away from the photos...so zentangling borders suits me beautifully!

Margaret Bremner, Artist said...

Wonderful idea, and very versatile!
--Margaret

Lois Heinani Stokes said...

Whispering Aloha to you across the borders of our imagination ~ Mahalo for connecting us with yet another inspiration

ToujoursSoleil said...

Verrrry beautiful! I love them all!

Sue Clark said...

Simple, but so beautiful and can be used in so many ways! Thanks for sharing.

Karen Woodbine said...

Maria, this was perfect timing to give me what I needed to finish a humble "namentangle, nomentangle?" for my friend's birthday today. Paula, aka Paulala, that is. I'll email a picture. Thanks!

Shelly Beauch said...

Maria, you are super amazing, there is something in the air, you have picked up my thought waves in a spooky kind of way... thank you!

Cris@TangledUpInArt said...

Thank you for this. It is perfect timing as I am demonstrating at the fair and have people come up at least once an hour and tell me they "can't do Zentangle because I can't draw a straight line." I will print this out and bring it with me tomorrow. I hope it will encourage lots of people. I know it does me.

BlueRidgeWoman said...

Wow... I didn't realize I thought that out loud! Thank you for this. Stunning work and suggestions (as always). I love the frames - I now have a ton of ideas racing around. Must jot some down before I forget them. Thank you so much!
Martha

Susan said...

These are fabulous! I love the way they overlap each other. Definitely need to remember how you did this! Very inspiring!

Unknown said...

What a terrific concept! I really love this format; it's so simple, yet the results are very elegant

Barb said...

Hi, I love your work!!! I am trying to figure out the pattern that you put in the first zentangle, the 2nd verticle "pipe" (on the right). I can't quite figure it out. Do you have any step outs for it, anywhere? Thank you so much for sharing your talent with all of us!!! Barbara