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Hearts Aren’t Just for Valentines

No, it’s not Valentine’s Day! But this project IS about sending love to someone.

Zentangle (ZT)is a doodling style of art that I’ve played with casually, now and then, over the last couple years. It is purported to reduce stress (thus the Zen), increase dexterity, focus, and concentration. I can certainly use those!

It requires only paper, pencil, pen, not even art skills. If you want to see some masters, check Pinterest or just Google it! For myself, I throw in some of my own doodle motifs, and as always, go about it my own way! I argue the art skills, but it’s definitely creative!

After spending so much time with Becca, rarely more than a store-width apart for 10 days, and many hours together in the days before that, I’m feeling the loss! A little token of love and affection from home is never wrong and it will certainly make me feel better :) Since I wanted to send my “B” some <3 so I got busy on a design for her with a B and a heart.

I started out trying to draw the outline of what I saw in my mind, erased a bunch, and finally settled on something vaguely similar. I succeeded at making the top of the B to mirror the top of the heart’s left side. I then transferred it to a clean part of my paper – standard white cardstock available pretty cheap in packages at major craft stores.

This design is just under 3”x4” and I was using all sizes of Sakura Pigma pens, from a 1 Graphic to a 005 Micron. Mostly I like to use the 01 and 05 sizes. Zentangle is done only in black ink on white, using one size pen. I’m such a rule breaker: I even got out my red pens! I guess I took artistic license… but her kitchen has a lot of red, and I kinda see this magnetted (is that a word?) on her refrigerator.

Some of the motifs I used are significant: polka-spots and dino spikes for Becca (I don’t draw frogs, sorry kiddo); my usual flowers and paisleys; lots of hearts; and then some Zentangle edgings and fill patterns.

I forgot that pencil won’t erase from underneath the sheer red color (but the black covers it) so I was stuck with my sketch lines showing in places. I was surprised that I got a smear of red when erasing, and frustrated that it wouldn’t come off all the way. Maybe you won’t even notice it :) Well, handmade isn’t supposed to be perfect, right? (I did manage to erase all the obvious sketch lines, AFTER some pics were taken.)

Of course, if she reads this post it’s not going to be a surprise, but I’m hoping this little piece of affection for her frig or bulletin board will get there before she has time to play online for very long!

Disclaimer: not an artist! But this is a fun way to tune out, express yourself, and create something VERY handmade. With practice you can get very good even if you don’t consider yourself artistic. I need lots of practice!

Gail

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