Mountains or party hats?

This week we're having a Jalousie tangle challenge, and yet I tried and tried but I simply couldn't make this tangle work for me. I'll just have to say that I'm not a Jalousie type ;-) In the end, I resorted to my beloved Zentwining (thank you again Lynn Mead) and other fun tangles such as Sambah (thanks Paula Ellis), wrapped around mountains (or party hats, depending on your mood).

Shading Zentangle® with Eni Oken • enioken.com

The picture is 5x5 inches, so not exactly in Zentangle® specifications, but I simply love the angular string. Tangles in this picture: Jalousie, Sambah, Crescent Moon, Abundies all wrapped up with Zentwining.

Here is the before picture:

(Notice how I almost forgot, I had already started shading).

The shading went super fast this time, less than an hour, I kept my mind on the bigger masses without spending too much time on the details. I was particularly interested in exploring layers and DEEP 3D SPACE, two topics of discussion at my Shading Zentangle® Facebook Group. The string seemed to naturally lend itself as an example of these two concepts.

I colorized the picture digitally very quickly so you can see the 4 major planes on this picture: foreground, middle-ground, a second middle-ground and background.

Keep in mind that 4 layers is a very small number of layers. If you want to reach depth and dimensionality, try to increase that number as much as possible, without loosing the distinct characteristic of each plane, or it will turn into a mess!!!

I also want to point out that this is a very good representation of 3D DEEP SPACE, that is, you get a feeling of looking at a landscape into the distance. This is NOT very typical of Zentangle and ZIA art, where the focus is to explore repetitive patterns in a relaxed and focused way without any concern for a particular composition such as a landscape or still art scene. The typical results of Zentangle and ZIA art are much flatter, even when the artist gives a dimensional quality to the elements in the picture through layering, shading and other depth enhancers.

I thought it was interesting to try to create 3D deep space withoutbeing too figurative. I didn't want the shapes to be more recognizable than what they are: mountains or party hats? It's up to you. :-)