Zentangle Art in Colour!

Now I’ve got my gorgeous Inktense pencils, I can branch out into colour! I’ve done two pieces so far: a fan and a fish. I really love the shape of a fan, and I’ve written down what I did to draw the shape, so I can replicate it and use different patterns to embellish it.

I thought a clown fish would be a striking one to do – again it’s an orange/red combination so we’re all warm colours for my first attempts!

I have tried to use patterns that complement the fish shape, and imitate the overlapping scales of a fish. This was a fun one to do!

Now an update on the equipment I need for this art work. Since my last photo, I’ve got a few more items, including the new Inktense pencils, of course.

On the left is my cheap printer card with its gorgeous smooth finish, that I bought originally for pop-ups but which doesn’t fold nicely without getting soft and mushy, but is fabulous for drawing on with my fine archival pens which are sitting on top of it – the three on the left are black, and the one on the right is sepia (I haven’t tried that one yet, but I think it would be a nice effect on cream card). On the right: my new Inktense pencils in their tin, with my drawing set, protractor and fine propelling pencil for drawing. Also on the tin is my set of three water brushes – if you haven’t tried these, they are absolutely fantastic – you fill the barrel with water, and squeeze gently to release a small amount of water onto the bristles. As you paint, the water continues to seep down the brush in a controlled fashion with no drips or splodges, and to clean the brush between colours, you just paint onto a piece of scrap. Also lovely and portable as you don’t need to take a water jar with you. In front of the tin is one of my new paper stumps that my hubby bought for me, which are so much better for smudging the soft pencil shading than a thick and greasy finger tip! In front of that is my 8B soft black pencil for shading, and also a soft white eraser and pencil sharpener, and finally my glass nail file which I use, not only to file my nails, but to sharpen the point of the paper stump and remove the pencil stains. That’s it, I think – not really too much equipment to create art!