Decorative Color Pencil & Graphite Shading for Zentangle, Zen Doodle & Patterns - with 5 Projects!

1. Hello! : There is something so satisfying, in drawing patterns with repetitive strokes. They put you in a zen state of mind and leave you feeling refreshed, relaxed, and reinvigorated. And now imagine drawing these patterns in your favorite colors with your favorite supplies. Sounds like a lot of fun, right? Hi, my name is Ridhi, and I'm a filmmaker and a multi-disciplinary artist from India. I'm also a Certified Zentangle Teacher, which means that I'm able to bring to you the most authentic and updated information on Zentangle art. The Zentangle Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. And in this class, we will be working with a very interesting duo-tangle approach, where you will be working with your favorite colors as well. The idea for this class came to me thanks to all of you, my lovely students. In my previous class, a lot of my students asked me how they can create a tile using just two tangles, how they can introduce color in their Zentangle tiles, and most importantly, how they can approach shading fearlessly when it comes to complex tangles. So I decided to address all of these questions in this comprehensive class for you, where you will be working on various exercises that will help you to practice new tangles, shading, and overall composition. I also decided to level up the fun in this class. So for the first time ever, I'm going to show you my process of working on heart-shaped tiles. You can, of course, choose your own favorite shape. So come and join me in this wonderful adventure where we will be learning exciting new things and will have a lot of fun together. See you soon! 2. Supplies: Alright, so in this lesson, we're gonna be talking about all the supplies that you will need for this class. First up, we need a surface to draw on. And we have a few choices for this, in terms of brands as well as shapes. Now, if you're familiar with the Zentangle method, then you're probably used to working on paper tiles already. But for those of you who are new to this, paper tiles or artist tiles are small pieces of paper on which we can make our drawings. And they are called tiles because we can assemble them into mosaics. These are usually very high-quality, acid-free mixed media sheets that are around 200 GSM or 300 GSM thick. These are available in many different shapes in the market from various brands. So for example, the Zentangle headquarters makes these classic 3.5 inch square paper tiles. And they also make these triangle and circle tiles, along with a couple of other shapes. So if you're looking to buy these, then you can easily find them on the Zentangle website or even on Amazon, or at a local art store. But you don't have to use the Zentangle brand for this particular class. So you can opt for artist tiles from other brands which are easily available to you. Now, I'm filming this class around Valentine's Day in February. So naturally there is a lot of heart-shaped inspiration going on everywhere around me right now. Which is why I have decided to use these little heart-shaped tiles for my projects in this class. These are about three-and-a-half inches in width and height. And they're the perfect little size for me to work on my projects. But like I said, you are welcome to choose any shape that you like, any size that you like from any brand that you like. Now, let's say you don't have these paper tiles available with you, then you can also make your own tiles by cutting them out of larger mixed media sheets. So for e.g. you can take large sheets of mixed media paper from brands like Fabriano or Canson or Strathmore. And you can cut your desired shape and size out of these. And if you're someone who prefers drawing in a sketchbook instead, then you can also do that. So you can either use the sketchbook pages as they are, or you can simply draw out the shapes, the outlines of the shapes basically on your sketchbook pages. And then you can use those instead of using the ready-made artist tiles. So basically, lots of choices when it comes to the surface. Now, whichever method you choose for your surface, it's important to pay attention to the paper quality. I highly recommend working on mixed media papers because they can hold onto wet and dry media, both. Since we're gonna be working with color pencils, graphite pencils, as well as ink pens, we need a paper which is suitable for all these mediums. Another thing you want to make sure is that your paper is at least 200 GSM thick; because we will be working with a lot of inky details and pencil shading. So we want a paper that's sturdy enough to take in all of these details in multiple layers. Next, we need drawing pens. Now these are often available at local art stores with names such as technical pens or fine-liners or simply just colored markers. Now, I generally use these Sakura Micron pens, which come in various nib sizes. You can work with any nib sizes that are easily available to you from any brand that you like. And you can use your favorite colors for all the projects in this class. Now, I'm gonna be working with pink and black for all the exercises in this course. Because I thought it would be a good idea to develop a mini-series with all my art works over here. But this is purely a personal choice. You are welcome to use any colors that you like. And you can, in fact, change the colors for each of the projects, if that's what you prefer. Then we need a graphite pencil. So I'm gonna be using this one over here, which came as part of my Zentangle kit. But this is basically a graphite pencil. And you are welcome to use a graphite pencil from any other brand that is easily available to you. This has an HB lead inside of it. So anything with an HB lead or slightly stronger, which is a 2B or a 4B works just fine. So use whatever is available to you. Next, we need a tortillon or a blending stump to blend the graphite. Again, you can use any brand that is easily available to you. Then we also need color pencils. And there are various types of colored pencils available in the market. I like to use wax based colored pencils, but you can also use chalk pencils or oil-based pencils, if that's what you're more comfortable with. You might have to adjust a few techniques here and there if you're using oil-based or chalk based pencils. But the general principles of coloring your drawings will pretty much remain the same as what I demonstrate with my wax-based pencils. Now, I generally use these prismacolor ones, but you can use any brand which is easily available to you. And the reason why I prefer working with wax-based pencils is because I like the smooth satin finish that they give once you're done blending with them. But you can use chalk-based pencils and oil-based pencils if that's what you prefer. Now, if you're working with wax based pencils, then you will also need a colorless blending pencil. And again, you can use any brand that is easily available to you. If you're working with chalk based pencils, you can blend them using a tortillon or a blending stump. If you're working with oil-based pencils, then you will need turpenoid or baby oil along with a fine brush to do the blending. You will also of course need a sharpener to sharpen your pencils regularly. And also a small precision eraser like this can be quite useful. So this is an eraser in the shape of a pencil to erase any specific details in your drawing or to create highlights. Now, mine also has a handy little brush at the back of it, which can be used to get rid of any wax particles that tend to build up or scatter on the paper when you're working on multiple layers. But this eraser, as well as this brush, this is totally optional. You can use a regular eraser. And you can also use just like a regular paintbrush or a general soft bristle brush to get rid of all the dust or the wax particles that tend to accumulate on your drawing. This is just so that you're not touching your drawings with your hands constantly and you're not staining your drawings at areas which you don't want to stain. So the brush is just a little easier to work with. Alright. So that's pretty much it for all the supplies. And just as a side note, I recommend covering your surface with a spare piece of plastic or a few newspapers so that you're not staining your surface. Most color pencils have really high saturated pigments. And they tend to leave stains on the surfaces that we're working on. So if you're especially working on a white table or a white surface, then I highly recommend covering it up so that you're not staining your furniture and not spoiling it in any way. So that's pretty much it for all the supplies. And now we are ready to begin our exercises. 3. Practice Exercises & Tips: Alright, so in this lesson, we're gonna be doing a few practice exercises to familiarize ourselves with the tools that we're gonna be using. This is mostly so that you can achieve smooth blends when you're working with your color pencils as well as your graphite pencil. These exercises will help you to understand how to control the pressure with your tools and how to achieve smooth blends. So as an example, I'm going to start off with this paisley shape, which is basically a tangle in the Zentangle method called Flux. And there are many different ways to decorate it, but this is just an example that I'm using right now. I'm going to do a small exercise right now in which I'm going to shade this in the upward direction in the sense that it is going from dark to light, from bottom to top. So I'm going to start by laying out some graphite. I'm going to put in a little bit of hard pressure at the bottom. But as I'm going up, I'm going to soften the pressure and make sure that the strokes are lighter. Then I'm going to bring my tortillon. And I'm going to start pulling my graphite in the direction where I want it to go. So basically this is the first tip or the first sort of mental note for you to make, which is to always pull your graphite in the direction that you want it to go. So we want it to go from dark to light. The second thing that you can see me doing right now is that I'm pulling it directionally; in the sense that whatever my shape is, I'm pulling it according to the shape. So when you're making directional strokes with your tortillon, it just helps to emphasize the shape and contour or the silhouette, so to say, a little bit more. And so you're basically able to get a smoother, more realistic blend. And of course, once you've got enough graphite on the top, you can come back. And now you can start doing small circular movements, which is to get rid of any pencil streaks that might have formed when you were laying down the graphite. So first we pull it up in the direction that we want it to go. And then we use small circular strokes to make sure that the transition is happening smoothly. Now of course, at any point, if you feel that you want to make your drawing a little darker, or if you feel that you need to add more contrast and depth, then you can always come back with another layer of the graphite. And usually a little goes a long way because these graphite pencils are quite strong when laid down on the white paper. So you want to apply this little by little, then the process remains the same. We bring in our tortillon or your blending stump. And we just pull it in the direction that we want it to go. And then we come back and use small circular strokes. In a gentle circular motion, we can blend out any pencil strokes that might have formed or any imperfections that you can see in the transition. This is a general blending process. Every time we want to go from dark to light, you always pull the graphite. Now as an example, let's also do it going from left to right. I'm just going to do like a small rectangle over here. And we start by putting a slightly darker layer of graphite. And then as you're moving towards the lighter area, you release the pressure on the pencil and go very, very gently. So you can see the strokes are getting lighter. And that's only because I'm changing the pressure with which I'm applying the strokes. Then again, I'll bring my tortillon and I'm just going to pull my graphite from left to right in this case, which creates that blend. But just doing this is not enough because you can still see the pencil marks. Now I'm going to come back with the circular motion and make sure that the entire transition is smooth. And it's all blended in nicely. So again, if you want to make it darker, you can always come back with another layer of graphite and just accentuate the shadows or the depth. Or if you just want to build contrast... Then you can just blend out those pencil marks and make sure it's a gradual smooth transition. So those are the general principles of working with your graphite pencil. Now, let's talk about that precision eraser that I had shown you. So the precision eraser is basically to create any highlights on a drawing which is already made. So e.g. I have this little oval here which is shaded. And I can go with a sharp precision eraser on this. And you can see that it creates this little highlight... that speck of white basically, which is where the light is falling, or the light is getting reflected. And so similarly, you can do this on multiple places in your drawing depending on the tangle, depending on the shape. This is basically how a precision eraser is used. But as I had mentioned, this is totally optional. If you don't have the precision eraser, you can just leave that space white and you can let the paper white shine through. So that's always an option. And you can always just color or blend around the highlight. But this is, like I said, an exercise to familiarize ourselves with the tools that we're using. So I just wanted to show this as well. Now one thing I want to mention is that the pressure is extremely important when you're blending. So here you can see me making streaks with very hard pressure. And in comparison, I'm lowering the pressure. And here you can see me making marks with lighter pressure. Now I'm going to make a few marks with my pencil held upright at 90 degrees. And I'm going to make a few marks with the pencil at an angle. So the reason why I'm showing this is because if you can see me blending the marks where I had held the pencil upright, you can see that the marks are not blended entirely. But when I held the pencil at an angle than the marks get blended easily. And that's because we obviously don't want a lot of pressure to go into the tooth of the paper. The paper naturally has certain texture. And if we go with a really, really pressured hand, and if we go with our pencil absolutely perpendicular to the paper, then it's just going to create these streaks which are not going to get blended. So another important tip to keep in mind is to always hold your pencil at an angle and apply your graphite with your pencil at an angle. So that's the key to getting smoother blends. Now, let's talk about the selection of your colored pencils. So assuming that you have already chosen the colors for your project, we want to look for color pencils which are close to the color of the pen. For the tangles that I'm going to draw in black, of course, I can use the graphite pencil for shading, but for the tangles that I'm going to draw with the pink pen, I need color pencils which can match the pen. So I'm just going to create small swatches of all the color pencils that I think are going to match. So I have a set of 72 color pencils and I'm just going to pull out a few which I think are going to match with the pen. I'm just creating swatches of the magenta, the process red, the blush pink and another one which is kind of like a rose pink color. Now what we're looking for is one darker color, one lighter color, and white. Essentially, we are looking for three colors. So the darkest color should be closest to the color of the pen. So in this case, I feel like the magenta is not matching the pen so much as the process red. And if I swatch them really closely together, I can see that the process red is very, very close to the color of the pen that I have. So Process Red is going to be my darkest color. And then I can choose my lighter color to be either blush pink or pink. But I'm just going to keep both on standby. Depending on the tangle that I'm using, maybe I can switch around a few colors and maybe dp process red, blush pink and white. And maybe in a few I can do process red, pink, and white. So I'm just going to keep both on standby. But anyway, the summary is or the bottom line is that you need one dark color, one light color, and white. And essentially the dark and the light color have to be the darker and the lighter versions of the same color, which matches your pen color. So that's how you select your color pencils. Now how we're going to work with these colored pencils is again going to be smooth blends. And of course, the more you practice with different, different tangles, the more you're going to gain experience and the more ideas you will get. But just talking about general foundational principles, I want to show you what exactly burnishing is and what exactly blending is. So here, I'm just laying down my process red color pencil. And you can see that there are some white marks in the middle, which is basically the grain or the tooth of the paper showing through. And that's how your color pencil is going to look like when you put it on most papers. But now I'm going to bring in my colorless blender pencil. And I'm going to start going over that patch that I have created, and you can see that this is all getting blended very smoothly. And that is the magic of the colorless blender. It basically makes sure that all the wax particles and the binder particles that you have in your pencil; they're just getting sunk in nicely to the tooth of the paper. And essentially it is creating a burnished smooth effect. And we obviously want to do this because we want our drawings to look vibrant and we want them to have a nice satin smooth finish. So that is why a colorless blender is used. When you want it to be more vibrant, you can, of course, go back in with a second layer. And you can see that each time you now apply a layer, it is going to get smoother and smoother because we have done a good job of the burnishing with the colorless blender. Again, I'm just going to create a patch over here on the side, just so that you have a comparison of what a burnished look, looks like as against a non-burnished patch. Now, if you don't have a colorless blender, then you can create this burnished effect with a white color pencil as well. But I want to swatch out one section over here to tell you the pros and cons of this. Of course, if you are a beginner and you don't have a colorless blender, a white colored pencil can come to your rescue. And of course it's going to help you create that Satin Smooth effect. But what usually happens when we create a burnished effect with a white colored pencil is that the color gets a little bit milky and it basically gets desaturated. So you get this milky, white, glazed, desaturated, bleached look, which you would obviously not get if you do this with a colorless blender. And even if I go with another layer on top of this, it is still quite different from the original color of the pencil. So it is still smooth. You can't see the grain of the paper anymore and it is quite a shiny smooth surface. But each time I go in with the white and additional colors, it is just going to feel like you have this milky residue on top or you feel like it is desaturated. Now, of course, if that's the look that you're going for, then go ahead and try this. But if you're looking for vibrant colors, then this is probably not the best approach to go with. Now, there is another option to create a burnished look with no blender at all, which means neither do we use the colorless blender, nor do we use the white pencil. That is to create a lot of pressure with the colored pencil itself. So in this case, I'm just going in back with another layer of the process red. And I'm just going back and forth on the patch. And this is going to create a burnished look with the same color pencil. And I think you can probably make out from all these swatches that this is the most vibrant of all. Even if I go back on my burnished patch, the first patch that I had done, I can still see that it is not as vibrant and not as saturated as the burnished look that I've created directly with the colored pencil. And the logic for that is actually pretty simple. That is because we're applying more pigment on the paper. The more pigment you apply, naturally, it's going to come out to be a lot more vibrant because you're applying a lot of pressure. So now the question is, how do we decide when to use the colorless blender and when not to use it. Now, for this, I generally recommend that if you want to apply solid colors to any patches, which means you're not looking for any kind of gradation, then the best approach is to use the colored pencils directly. Of course, this also means that when you're working on larger artworks, you will need a lot more of these colored pencils because you're applying a lot of pigments. So you'll basically run out of them a lot faster. But if you're working on drawings where you need a lot of gradation to happen. And you're shifting from one color to the next, and you wanted to have a transition, then I recommend using the colorless blender. Because the colorless blender just makes sure that you have a base layer going on before you apply another layer. And so the decision-making is a lot easier when you're working with the blender pencil in transitional layers as against applying color pencils directly where sometimes you might apply too much and then you might regret your decision. So for transitions, use the blender pencil. And when you have to do art works with only solid colors with no gradation and no transition, then you can use the color pencils directly without the colorless blender. Alright, so with that out of the way, we are going to just see an example of how to move from dark to light. Now, when you're moving from dark to light, it makes sense to start off with a nice saturated patch. But then you reduce the pressure on your strokes so that you create a transitional or a base layer for the next color. And the general rule of thumb when working with color pencils is that the colors should overlap when you're transitioning from one color to the next. Now e.g. I'm going to come in with my pink. And you can see that I'm actually starting from the patch where I had lesser pressure. And then I'm going on and applying more of the pink color. So what we basically did was create a base layer or a layer which is ready to receive an additional layer of the light pink, when we reduced that pressure earlier. And with that, we can achieve a smooth blend. So just to summarize that in a simple manner, you start with high pressure, but you lower the pressure and create a transitional base layer for the next color. And this is when you're transitioning from one color to the next. It can be any two colors. It's not necessarily that you're going from light to dark or dark to light. It can even be when you are doing dual-colored shadings. So this is sort of like the standard method to do it. Now unlike the way the tortillon works with the graphite pencils, here, the colorless blender is going to move from light to dark. If you remember, in the tortillon, we pulled the graphite from dark to light. But when you're working with color pencils, it makes sense to move from light to dark. And that is obviously because we don't want the dark pigment to come towards the lighter side. So you can see that with the colorless blender, I'm going from light to dark. You can of course, do this left-to-right, right-to-left, whatever's easier for you. And you can change the direction of your sketchbook or your paper, whatever you're working on. Now in the middle, since the blend is not very smooth, I can come back with another layer of the lighter pink to smoothen that out. And again, this is very easy for me to do right now because I just burnished this with the colorless blender. So the application of the next layer becomes much easier when you have a smooth surface to work on. And that is how we blend with colored pencils. I'm going to show you another example where I blend from white to a lighter pink and then go on from there. So the white is barely visible on camera right now, but I'm just going to add a light layer of pink. And soon the patch will be visible. Again, you can see that I'm overlapping on the previous patch. The light pink overlapped the white a little bit. And now this process red is overlapping the light pink a little bit. And that is how we're going to get a smooth blend. I'm gonna get my colorless blender. And I'm going to go from white to light pink and then gradually do the dark pink. The strokes again pretty much remain the same. So if I have applied my color pencil diagonally, then I'm going to make sure that my blender also goes diagonally. The more you work in the direction of the color pencils, the better your result is going to be. Now again, I can come back in with a second layer. So on places where I feel that the color was a little faint, I can add a little bit of light pink, I can add a little bit of the process red. And you can see that the blends are happening seamlessly. Now, here's another tip. Every time you're working with a colorless blender, make sure that you clean it on a scrap piece of paper. And the reason is because we have just moved from light to dark in a previous layer. Which means that the last pigment residue on my colorless blender was a dark pigment. So now the next time that I start from light to dark, that dark pigment residue on the colorless blender might interfere with my blending. Always a good idea to clean your colorless blender on a scrap piece of paper before you start your next round of blending. Alright, so now I think with that you can see how the blend has happened smoothly. And it's a good transition from light to dark. Alright, now one final thing that I want to talk about is the importance of layering. So here again, I'm gonna do a flux shape, where I'm going to go from dark to light in the bottom to top direction. I'm going to start with my process red. Then reduce the pressure as I'm going up. Create a transitional layer for the lighter pink. And then same thing with the lighter pink. I'm going to reduce the pressure so that I can create a transitional layer for the white. Now I'm going to start blending this from light to dark. Now as I'm blending this, of course this is going to turn out to be quite smooth as we have just witnessed in our previous exercises. And this is going to have a nice burnished look. It's going to look very finished, very polished. And the paper grain and the paper tooth is not going to be visible. But at the same time, this is not as vibrant as we'd like it to be. And this is why layering with colored pencils is extremely important. So with the first layer, color pencils usually do not give out their full saturation. And in order to get a nice, saturated, vibrant look, it's important to go in with a second layer, or sometimes even a third layer, depending on the brand of the pencils and depending on the pressure that you have applied. In this case, e.g. now I'm gonna go back with the white and then the light pink and dark pink once more. The reason why we're doing this is like I said, to bring out that vibrancy. And you're going to see a world of a difference when it comes to the second layer, because the color will just pop out a lot more. So of course, the idea is not to overwhelm you with a lot of advanced concepts of shading. But a general rule of thumb is that at least two to three layers of color pencils are required to give a nice, vibrant look. The more you practice this on a regular basis, the more you will fall in love with the process of layering. Because like you can see over here, the look of your drawing changes completely when you go in with the second layer, or the third layer, and the blends and the transitions just turn out to be a lot smoother and a lot more realistic. Now, I'm just going back and forth with each of my colors. And every time that I'm doing that, you can see that it is getting more and more refined, more and more polished. And that is the beauty of working in layers. So basically long story short, don't be lazy and always work in layers so that you can build nice saturation and you can build nice realistic smooth transitions. So those are all the basic tips that I wanted to share with you. And I hope that you can take out a few minutes and practice these for yourself and familiarize yourself with your color pencils before you get started on your projects. These little things will definitely help you to sort of warm up and make decisions in terms of color palettes, make decisions in terms of how much pressure you want to apply. Because each of you are gonna have different brands of color pencils to work with. So these little practice exercises will definitely make things easier for you. So take a few minutes and definitely try out these exercises for yourself. And then we'll be ready to start off with our projects. 4. Pangea & Knight's Bridge: Alright, so I'm all set over here with my heart-shaped tile and all my pens and colored pencils. And for our first project, we are going to be working with two of my most favorite tangles, which are Pangea and Knight's Bridge. We're going to start with Pangea, which is a recent tangle launched by Zentangle headquarters. And it basically starts off with these cute abstract shapes where we're kind of echoing or going parallel to the lines of the previous shape. So we're kind of echoing the effect. You can draw each of them differently in terms of size. So some can be small, some can be big. And basically, as you can see, I'm just going around the outlines of the previously drawn shapes. Then I'm just building from there and adding more abstract shapes in the process. Now in order for you to draw these shapes in the most comfortable manner, it is recommended that you rotate your tile constantly because this is going to give you the most comfortable angle to work at. And then you're gonna get a lot more neat lines and neater strokes, so to say. So take your time. Go slow and create these small little sections, these small little compartments, so to say. And that's how we basically create Pangea. Now, once we have all the shapes laid out on the tile, the next thing we're gonna do is color all the empty space or those little boundaries. And for this, you can switch to a thicker nib if you have one available with you. I'm just going to speed up the video over here a little bit for you to see what this is going to look like. I am working with a 08 nib over here, which makes it a little easier for me to color everything. Because a thicker nib means we can go a little faster. So we're just going to color all those spaces. And again, even though I'm speeding up the video, take your time, go slow and fill up the whole section with black ink or whichever color that you've chosen to start off your project with. Now, I'm going to switch to my second color, which is pink. And we're going to work with Knight's Bridge. Now, Knight's Bridge is essentially a checkerboard pattern. Pretty much looks like a chess board. But we're gonna make it a little bit fun by just sort of echoing the shape of one of the sides of that Pangea shape. And we are going to echo that effect. Then when we rotate the tile, we're going to echo the effect of another side of the Pangea shape and create this checkerboard pattern. So basically, as you can see, this is neither straight nor curvy. Depending on the outline of the Pangea, we will choose any one side, rotate the tile, and then cross it with lines going across from the other direction. So again, every time you rotate your tile, find one side of the Pangea. Echo that shape. Then rotate your tile. And echo another side of the Pangea. Basically just echoing the outlines. And it's okay if you don't get them to be exact echoes. We just want to get some of the lines echoing the outer shapes to create an interesting visual. Again, I'm going to speed up the video a little bit over here so that you can see what the shapes are going to look like. Once you're done creating these little patterns inside of the Pangea. Then we move on to the coloring, which is an integral, essential part of the Knight's Bridge tangle. And that's how we know that this looks like a checkerboard or a Knight's Bridge pattern. And so we're just going to color it, alternate with the color that we have chosen. Now again, the coloring process is something that can take up a little bit of time depending on the paper size that you're working with. So maybe you will get done really quickly if you have a small paper tile or maybe you're going to take a little longer than me if you have a bigger size. So basically just take your time and enjoy the process. And just color peacefully and make this beautiful little Knight's Bridge tangle. Alright, now, once we have our tile filled up with the Pangea and the Knight's Bridge, we now come to the shading. And I've actually done two of the compartments over here already for you, just so that you have a frame of reference and something to look at and understand what exactly I'm talking about when I show you the steps for shading. So I'm going to now demonstrate this in one of these sections. Now if you look at this closely, you can see that we basically have lighter areas on the top and darker areas on the bottom edges. So pretty much like waves or curled up papers or just anything which looks like tubes, basically round little worms if you want to call them that. And so basically just like this curvy nature of the Knight's Bridge tangle, which has highlights and dark sections. So we're just going to rotate our tile and find the bottom lines or the bottom boundaries, so to say, for the Knight's Bridge tangle in one of the sections over here. And I'm just going to lay out my graphite with a little bit of pressure because I know I'm going to use my tortillon to smudge it a little bit. So we're going to create like a rolled-up paper effect, like I said, or like these... These little worms or sort of like metallic tubes. Now I'm not going to go all the way to the top. So as you can see, it's a gradation. It's going from light to dark. And I'm just pulling my graphite and just slightly blending it around the bottom corners, leaving the top edge pretty much white. You can see just applying this much of graphite already makes a lot of difference. You can already see a 3D effect happening over here. Now to accentuate it more, depending on the pencil that you're using, you might have to apply a little more graphite. So since I'm using an HB pencil, I have to apply one more layer of graphite over here. But if you're using a 2B or a 4B pencil, then you probably don't need another layer. I'm just going to add a little more graphite. And that'll help me to create a little more contrast in the drawing. Again, even though I've not blended it; just by the application of a little more graphite, you can see already how much of a difference that's making. It's already creating a lot more interest and contrast in the drawing. Again, I'm not spreading the graphite all the way to the top. I'm making sure that this darker edge remains at the bottom. And then it's lighter at the top. And maybe it just needs a little bit more graphite. Alright, so that looks good. Now I'm going to come in with my white colored pencil. And I'm going to accentuate the highlights over there on the top. And for this, I'm going to make sure that I quickly sharpen my white pencil first because I want to apply this in a very precise manner. So just a quick reminder to sharpen your pencil before you do this step. I'm going to apply this on the top edges, more so on the pink areas because that's where you're going to see it more. But if you feel that your white areas also need a little bit of a highlight, then you can go ahead and do that as well. In my case, just applying the white on the pink areas is all the difference that this section needs. Again, go very slowly over here. You want to make sure that you're doing this very precisely with a sharp pencil. Alright, there we go. So now you can see that just by adding a little bit of highlight with the white colored pencil, we're able to create that nice rounded edge. It gives this nice plump effect. Almost like little worms! I keep saying that over and over again. But yeah, or maybe like, I didn't know jelly beans or something wormy. With the blending pencil, I'm just making sure that the white is completely getting sunk into the tooth of the paper. Maybe just a little more graphite to accentuate the dark areas and to add in a little bit more contrast. This is purely personal, like I really like a lot of contrast. You can stop at this stage if you like. But if you're someone who prefers high contrast, then you might want to add more graphite. So how much dark and light you want in your drawing can sometimes be just a matter of personal choice as against following a video tutorial or following an exercise. So feel free to stop at any point you are happy with your drawing. Alright, so now I'm gonna do one more section the same way. I'm going to apply my graphite first. And again, I have rotated my tile, so now I have a different direction for the light and the dark areas. So this time, the areas where I'm applying the graphite are again now facing towards me, which means that this is the bottom side. And so the top is away from me. So every time you rotate your title, you're going to find a different angle for each of the sections. And that's what creates this beautiful illusion in this exercise. It almost feels like little pieces of fabric which are stuck inside small sections. Okay, so going with the second layer of graphite. Again, you can see it's already making so much of a difference. There is a high chance that some of you might just want to stop at this stage. You might not want to add the white colored pencil. And you just want to put the little bit of graphite blending over here and just stop at this stage and let those pink areas shine the way they're shining right now. But if you're looking for a more sort of glazed effect with like, sort of like a gray overtone over the entire drawing, then going with the white colored pencil will help you create that 3D effect. So again, it's mostly the pink that needs the white highlights. Because the white areas are pretty much white already. And again, you can just eyeball. And maybe sometimes you need to add a little bit of white on the white areas as well. But that's totally dependent on how you blended your graphite. So just adding a little bit more graphite to accentuate the shadows and the dark areas. So that is pretty much how we are going to finish up shading for all the little Knight's Bridge sections inside of the Pangea. And so again, I'm going to speed up the video a little bit over here for you to see what the final output is going to look like. Take your time. Again, if you have a larger paper size as compared to mine, you're probably going to take a little bit more time as compared to me, which is totally fine. But now that you've understood the technique, make sure that you do this slowly and thoroughly. And most importantly, enjoy yourself while doing this. Because shading is, for me, it's just honestly very therapeutic and relaxing. Like I feel so, so, so happy when I see 2D images or flat images turning into 3D elements. So really enjoy the process of doing this and take your time. And once you're done with the entire exercise, this is how your final output is going to look like. So again, if you're using different colors as compared to mine, the result will vary slightly. But essentially, you are looking to create light and dark areas. And you are looking to create this 3D ruffle effect. Once you're done, you can also click a picture of your project and post it in the projects and resources section, which is right below this video. I will be more than happy to give you my feedback on it. I look forward to seeing all your wonderful creations over there. 5. Braze & Rome: Welcome to our second project. In this project, we're gonna be working with two tangles called Braze and Rome. Both of them are simple tangles, but they look so, so, so beautiful when you shade them. Now, to start off the project, we are going to section our tile into three. So I'm just going to start by making a couple of wavy lines at the top edge and bottom edge of my tile. If you're working with a different shape, then you're free to make more sections; if you feel that's going to look more aesthetic or more interesting depending on the shape. So feel free to personalize and customize your projects. Now, I'm going to add an aura to both of these wavy lines that we've just created. An aura is nothing but just creating a parallel line or just sort of echoing the shape of something that we have already drawn. So kind of just like giving an outline basically. Then I'm going to bring my pencil. And I'm going to create guidelines inside both of my sections. The guidelines don't necessarily need to follow the outer shape. Once we have the guidelines in place, we are going to start with Braze. Now Braze is very similar to another tangle called Striping. And we basically create these thick sections with spaces. And then those thick sections have thin aura at the top and the bottom. So you basically create a thin section, a thick section, a thin section, a thick section, a thin section... So basically just alternating thick and thin. And then we bring in our thicker pen and we start coloring. And when we're coloring, we don't color all the thick sections. So we skip one and then do the next. So we color the alternate sections. And that is how we basically get Braze. Now of course, this is how I do Braze, but there are various different ways in which you can do it. So if you want to color all the thick sections black, that's also an option. You can go ahead and do that. I prefer to skip one and do the next. So I prefer to do it alternate. But there are no hard and fast rules. And you can create your own different variations and do this tangle in any way that you like. Now this guideline that we created with the pencil is going to be very useful for us when we start shading. So we are actually going to see the importance of this guideline in a few minutes from now. I'm gonna do the exact same thing on the top section. And I'm going to speed up the video a little bit over here for you to see what it's going to look like, once both the sections are done. And again, you can take your own time and do this at your own pace. Feel free to pause the video and come back once you're done. Now, I'm going to switch to my second color, which is pink. And we're going to start working on the next tangle, which is Rome. Now Rome is an interesting tangle with horizontal and vertical lines. So we start off with wavy horizontal lines. Then we give them an aura. We create multiple such lines within a section, leaving a little bit of space between them. Once you have the horizontal lines in place, then we start creating vertical lines. Pretty much like pillars. So these are gonna be like straight parallel lines. And again, we just space them out and place them randomly. Once you have a few of these vertical lines, then we go back and start to create more horizontal lines. But this time they're going to go behind the vertical lines that you've already placed. So pretty much like layering them or creating a Hollibaugh effect, as we call it popularly in the Zentangle method. So we're just basically taking these lines behind the pillars that we created. Now once you have these wavy horizontal lines, or these curvy lines going behind the pillars, we come back and start to create more vertical pillars. Because now we have more sections. And this is actually the most wonderful thing about Rome that you can keep going on and on, depending on the size of your paper or depending on the section that you have. You can basically just keep going on and on creating these waves and then coming back and making those pillars. And it is a very, very satisfying tangle to draw. I have a few tiny sections, so I'm just going to create some tiny little pillars as well. Now, if you have more space, you probably want to go once more and create wavy lines again, and then add pillars again. But I think this is pretty much where I'm going to stop. I think these many waves and pillars are good for the size of the paper that I have. Now the next thing that we're gonna do is come back into these little square rectangle or these shapes which are basically formed inside of those pillars. And we're going to add roundings. And roundings are basically adding rounded edges, to sharp corners in our drawing. So we are basically removing the sharpness. And a good way to do the rounding is to add these little C-shaped or arc shaped lines on the corners and then just go around the outline once more. So pretty much like a pebble which is stuck inside the shape or encased or embedded inside that little shape. And again, this is one of the reasons why I really love Rome, because I love adding roundings to my tangles. So just the process of adding these little curves is very, very satisfying. A very crucial thing to remember in roundings is to definitely go around the borders or the outline. Because if you don't go around the borders and the outline, then the rounding just looks like an arc which is stuck in the corner. So you don't really get that nice pebble shape. So it's important to just go around and retrace your original line or the original boundary and connect it to the corner rounding so that you'll get a proper pebble like shape. And so I'm now going to speed up the video a little bit for you to see what this tangle is going to look like, once all the little roundings are completed. Alright, now once the roundings are done, we are going to create tiny little pebbles or shiny gemstones inside of these little pebbles that we have created. So for that we're going to need all our color pencils. We are going to start by applying the darker colored pencil or the darker shade that you have on the edges, which is pretty much going to blend and merge with the outer boundary that we have created. Then we are going to add the next shade, which is your lighter shade. Just going to create a little bit of space for myself over here; pencils rolling in! Alright, so we come back with the white. With the white, I'm just going to sort of create a tiny little highlight in the center... add a little bit of white around the edges as well, so that it all blends in nicely. Then I'm going to bring in the colorless blender and just blend all those colors nicely. So it's pretty much like a shiny little pebble or like an opaque stone with light falling on it. So a little highlight has formed over there. And that's kind of stuck in that space. And we're just going to darken the corners a little bit more to create a little bit more contrast. You know, every time you work with the first layer, you are going to feel very happy, especially if this is one of your first few attempts at working with color pencils; you're going to feel very, very happy with the results with the first layer itself. But I promise you every time you work on that second layer and you add just a little bit more color and contrast, you're going to see it elevate to a totally new level. And I can totally admit now that when I started working with color pencils in the beginning, I used to feel very lazy and I used to just stop at the first layer. But then I pushed myself a couple of times and added those second layers and the third layers and so on and so forth. And it made so much of a difference to my work. And I was able to see such beautiful saturation. And the hues, just like shining beautifully on the paper that I finally decided; kind of like took an oath that I'm never going to be lazy again. So basically, we are now repeating the same steps. We're going to start with the dark and almost blend it or almost merge it into the outer corners. Which is turning out to be pretty good in this case because the color pencil matches the shade of the pen really nicely. So the pebble looks pretty much encased in those little sections. And it's looking quite seamless on the edges because the color pencil and pen match very well. I'm just going around all the pebbles, just putting the dark colored pencil first. And then I'm going to come back and put my lighter color pencil, leaving just a little bit of white-space everywhere in the middle. It doesn't always have to be in the center. You can leave it on the side. Top left corner, bottom right corner. Just as long as there is a little whitespace to show the highlight, we are good. And all the pebbles obviously look better when they're not the same, when they look slightly different from each other. That kind of builds the the organic-ness, if that's a word. So the organic nature of the tangle really, really comes out when you make sure that all the pebbles are looking different. So again, we blend with the colorless blender. And then if you feel like you need to accentuate the highlights, you can come back with a white pencil and add a little bit more white to the highlights spots. If you feel like you need a little bit more contrast and you need to darken the shadows, then you can come back with the darker colored pencil. You'll also have to keep sharpening your colorless blender. Because if you're working on small tiles, especially like the one that I'm working on, then you will have these little crevices, these small corners. And you want to get really precise blending. And you don't want your color pencil to come out into the white areas of your paper. So it's a good idea to keep sharpening your colorless blender as well. Now coming to Braze, we are going to use our graphite pencil and just go along the spine and add the graphite to the top edge of the spine, so to say. Closer to the guideline. This is going to happen on only one side of the spine. Then I'm going to bring in my tortillon. And I'm going to pull the graphite to the edge. So we're basically going from dark to light. So we're pulling the graphite and creating this gradual tonal shift. So it's like a gradation. And as you do this, you can actually notice that it looks like a folded paper or like pretty much like something which has a little triangular fold or like a pyramid shape which you're seeing from the top. Like an aerial view of something which is folded. And you can get that nice 3D effect. Now, one of the things that I like to do in tangles like these where there are a lot of whitespaces is to take my tortillon and just gently rub it on all the white areas. There's just a little bit of leftover graphite on the tortillon which can spread onto those white areas. And then it just becomes this really, really, really light gray. It's not really something that you have to do. But I like to do this because I feel like the stark white paper is just going to scream out loud at me. So I just don't like the starkness of the white paper when everything else is so nicely blended and so nicely shaded. So just to remove that starkness over there, I just lightly rub my tortillon a little bit on the whitespaces and I don't apply any fresh graphite over there. It's just the leftover graphite from my tortillon which I just gently smudge across. And then as you can see, I am basically just bringing my graphite pencil again. Just to add a little more contrast. I'm just going to make that spine a little sharper and add a little more graphite over there, just so that there's a little more depth to the drawing. And I'm gonna do the exact same thing on the bottom section of the tile as well. So again, I'm just going to go along the spine, add the graphite and bring my tortillon and blend it. And then just to increase the contrast and give it some more depth and dimension, I'm going to add a little more graphite along the spine. Now, there's a high chance that some of you will have a very narrow section to work with. So if that's the case, you will probably need to apply a lot less graphite than what I'm applying over here. And you won't need so much of pressure and so much of shading. So just kind of eyeball it and apply little by little. You can always add more, but it's a little hard to erase it and start from scratch. So less is more to begin with. Then of course, if you want it to be at a stage where more is more, then you can of course add more. But start with the less is more philosophy, I guess. Alright, so I'm just using the leftover gray from my tortillon and just adding that onto the other side. Again, this looks quite 3D and it looks quite good. Now, you can stop your tile at this stage if you like it this way. But I'm just going to show you an optional technique in case you feel like you want to do something with those little horizontal waves. But before I do that, I'm just going to accentuate my Braze a little bit more. On second thoughts, I felt like this needed a little bit more contrast. So this is pretty much a very realistic demonstration of how I usually work when, when I'm shading my tangles or when I'm working on my titles. I do sometimes go back on a tangle which I feel I have finished, but then I will have second thoughts and then I'll go back on it. And I'm a very strong believer of the fact that if you give more love to your tile, then it's just going to turn out to be more lovely. It's just going to turn out to be more beautiful. So I do go back on certain sections. So with that done, now coming to the optional technique that I was talking about. So like I said, if you're happy with your tile at this stage, you can stop now. But if you want to try out this optional technique, this is for the horizontal waves that we had done in the Rome tangle. And for this, I'm going to bring my graphite pencil and just lightly apply a little bit of graphite, leaving few whitespaces. So this is kind of like creating a satin or a silk ribbon like finish, where we're pretending that these are pretty little ribbons floating across catching light because of a smooth and shiny surface. And so we're just going in an abstract fashion, leaving little areas of white where we're going to create highlights. And then just adding gray at other places. Especially at places where the vertical and the horizontal lines are meeting, I'm purposely creating a little darker effect over there to create the shadows because they're kind of overlapping each other. But at other places where there are no overlaps happening, I'm just leaving them white. So doing the same thing for the horizontal and the vertical lines both. So of course, depending on how much contrast you like in your drawings, you might probably go back and forth in terms of the application of the graphite. Maybe you want to apply a little bit more at some places. Maybe you want to come back with your precision eraser and remove graphite from a few places to accentuate the highlights. So take your time and basically create these shadows and highlights. And just make sure that you keep blending them so that they are not looking very stark and they're looking smooth, and the transition is looking gradual. Another option that I have tried with this tangle once earlier in a different project is to actually also color these horizontal lines completely black. And that also creates a really nice effect. But for today's exercise, I thought that just balancing out the gray tones and the shading would be a good idea, especially because we have nice gray shading on the top corner, the top left corner and the bottom right corners. So just adding a little bit of it in the center will help create a nice balance. So you can see I'm basically just kind of like going back-and-forth in terms of the application of the graphite, accentuating the areas which are overlapping. Then we'll continue to do the exact same steps for the top rows as well. Finally, once you're done, you also have an option of coloring the outer aura. So I decided to color it with the darkest shade. You can also color this black if that's what you prefer. But I wanted to sort of blend that area with the Rome tangle. And so I decided to go in with the darkest color pencil. And of course I need to blend it in nicely so that it's nicely set on the tooth of the paper. And finally, I'm just going to bring in a thicker black pen and just sort of create an outline around the Rome tangle just so that it can lift up a little bit more on the paper. So right now it's looking a little flat. And I think adding just a little bit of that black outline, will just kinda make it stand out. It'll look a little more prominent. It just pops up on the paper a little bit more and helps in the overall layering as well. So again, if you would have colored the outline black instead of the instead of the darker pink color that I have done, then you wouldn't probably need to do this step. So like I said, you can totally customize the projects and take decisions based on your liking, your preferences. So there are no rules when it comes to working on these Zentangle inspired projects. Alright, so that looks pretty good. And I'm quite happy with the way this has turned out. We have definitely used a lot of graphite over here, as you can probably tell with all those smudge marks around the table. But that's okay. We're just going to clean them up. But overall, I'm quite happy with this tile. And I feel that I just need to add a little bit more contrast. I'm just going to come back with my graphite pencil and just add a little more depth to certain sections. Especially the corners or the areas where the vertical and the horizontal pillars are meeting; I'm just going to add a little more depth over there. And with that, I think I'm pretty much done with this tile. And I actually look forward to seeing what you guys have done with your color choices as well. Because it's interesting how with the exact same techniques, the results can be totally different when different people work on the same project, and especially when we're all working with different, different colors. So I look forward to seeing some of your projects. So that's it for today. And I am going to see you in the next session with another interesting exercise. 6. Oysteroid & Cubine: Hi everyone, and welcome back to the class. So in today's session, we're gonna be working with Oysteroid and Cubine. Oysteroid is a very interesting tangle that looks a little bit like oyster shells and a little bit like asteroids. Hence the name. And this beautiful tangle can be customized in many different ways. But today, I'm going to show you the classic approach of drawing it. We start with an abstract shape, which is something like this. It's neither a circle, nor a square, pretty much like an oyster shell. And we basically just color the bottom edge of it and basically give it a little bit of line weight and keep the top half of it thin. Whereas the bottom half is thick. We basically add auras and repeat the same steps. And now there are no rules when it comes to the auras. So you can do four or five or six, however many you like. But basically we just keep adding auras around the shape and keep adding the line weight. Which makes it into this beautiful little 3D shape. It already looks like it's sitting at an angle. And once we shade it, it looks even more beautiful. If you feel like your first shape that you drew is a little too wide or too big, you can always go back inside and add another shape to it. So basically we're looking at four or five such auras around the shape. And that is how we do Oysteroid. Now for today's project, I'm going to do a bunch of these Oysteroids, pretty much like a cluster around the center of the tile. So they're gonna be like an abstract ribbon of Oysteroids or like an abstract cluster or bouquet, which is floating around in the middle of the tile. And you can always feel free to layer them. So you can have some at the back, some at the top, some of them like peeping from behind. Pretty much like the Hollibaugh effect that we do in the Zentangle method. So you can always layer them. And that's also going to look very interesting when we shade this tangle. So again, I'm just going to do another one over here. And of course, feel free to rotate your tile every time so that you'll get the most comfortable position for your hand. And you can get the same repetitive stroke over and over again. So you can maintain the precision, be comfortable, and get really nice and neat strokes. What I really love about this tangle is that it looks beautiful even without shading. This is one of those rare tangles which already gives the appearance of being 3D, or pretty much sitting at an angle without even us making any effort for shading. So if you're someone who likes to not use colored pencils or not use any graphite for shading, this is one of those tangles which looks quite finished and polished on its own. So you can always feel free to incorporate such tangles in your designs where you only want to focus on linework and ink work. So yeah, this is definitely on top of my list or one of the top tangles on my list of designs that I work with when I don't want to do any shading. Alright, so now that you've got a hang of how to do this, we are going to just fast-forward the video a little bit so that you can see the progress. And you can see how I've placed these various Oysteroids in the center of my tile. Alright, so I have my Oysteroids completed nicely in a cluster in the center. I have taken a couple of them towards the bottom-left and one or two towards the top-right. So that is an abstract formation of these, this cluster basically. Now we're gonna move on to our next tangle, which is Cubine. And Cubine is basically a tangle which pretty much looks like cubes, once it's shaded. It has a very nice 3D quality to it. So it starts by making almost like a checkered pattern. But instead of doing absolutely straight, vertical and horizontal lines, we will do slightly diagonal lines. So instead of squares, we'll basically get diamonds. And so of course, the first step for that is to lay out these straight lines which will go behind the Oysteroid cluster. So this is gonna be a nice layering effect that we're going to do over here. And we're going to try and space these out as evenly as possible. Of course, don't fret over it a lot because at the end of the day, this is a handmade piece of art. So some natural human imperfections are only expected. So that is, after all, what makes it handmade. So don't worry so much about it. Now once we have the vertical lines done, we're going to start placing the diagonal lines. So as you can see, this is pretty much turning into like a diamond shaped pattern. And had we done these absolutely straight horizontal, then it would have become a checkered pattern. And right now, I mean, this is still a checkered pattern, just that it's in the shape of diamonds from the angle that I'm drawing at instead of squares. Now, in the normal Cubine method, we basically start to color small squares inside. But in this case we're gonna do little diamonds. So we just basically draw a diamond inside parallel to the lines which are outside. And then we're going to color that. Then we are going to do something unique this time, which is to add an inner aura around the top of this shape. And then make the partition. So in the usual Cubine, we don't do the inner aura. But since we're making these ornate tiles, I thought it might be interesting to use a variation of Cubine and not do the usual method. So just that little inner aura makes a lot of difference and just makes the whole tile a lot more detailed and ornate. So we're gonna do this pretty much on all the diamonds now. So again, we start with the inner aura, do the little diamond, and then do the line. And then we're going to color the diamonds black. Now, this is again, a fairly repetitive process, so I am going to speed up the video in a bit from now. But while I'm doing so, I want to talk to you about a couple of choices that you have here. You can do all your diamonds facing this way, which means the stroke is going upwards and the aura is on the top side of the diamond. And you can have all of your background or your entire Cubine done this way. Or you could try something like doing half and half. So I decided to do half and half where some of my diamonds are facing the top direction, which is the left side of the tile. And then for the right side, I thought it would be nice if for contrast the diamonds would be facing the bottom side. I did half and half. And that's something that you can try. Again, these are purely personal choices. You can also try to do absolutely straight lines and do a checkerboard; absolutely straight graphic Cubine. if that's what you prefer. You can also skip the aura. So there are many different variations to the same tangle. And if you feel like you want to try another variation on your tile, feel free to do so. So have fun with this process of drawing lines and coloring and making this beautiful little 3D tangle. All right, so with that, I finished my entire Cubine background. So like I said, I've done the left side of my tile with the Cubine diamonds facing up. And the right side of my tile with the Cubine diamonds facing down. Half and half is what I've done. Now we come to the shading. For the Oysteroid shading, I've done a few over here already. So that again, you have a frame of reference to see what I'm talking about, and for you to understand the demonstration. Here, I'm gonna be using both the lighter colors that I had chosen in my color pencils. So I'm first going to start by laying out a little bit of the blush pink on the top half of the Oysteroid. I'm just going to do a very, very light layer of this, leaving a little bit of whitespaces. Then I'm just going to add a little bit of the light pink. And this is just so that there is some little tonal shift and gradation happening between the light pinks as well. This is pretty much the reason why I decided to keep both my lighter pinks on standby, because even within them there is a slight color shift which is happening, which looks quite interesting. Now I'm going to take my darker pink, which was the, which was the process red color. And I'm going to take that and basically add these little streaks. Sort of like elongated triangles are like little pizza slices. Then I'm going to bring in my white and fill up those empty spaces, as well as blend the corners of the process red with the rest of the colors so that it looks like a seamless blend. So basically we're trying to go for a glazed look, but at the same time it has like a shiny metallic surface, very similar to how pearls or oysters basically have this nice smooth finish. With my colorless blender, I'm just blending out all the colors. And this will just help us to have a nice smooth finish. Every time you feel confused about whether the shading is working or not, just hold your tile at arm's length and just look at it from a distance. And that will give you a fairly realistic picture of whether the tile is looking 3D or not. That way you will also be able to gauge whether you need to add any more white or if you need to add any more shadows or highlights into your drawing. So looking at it up close doesn't really help so much. And just looking at it from afar is quite useful. In my case, I know that I need a little bit more white over here. I'm just going to accentuate those highlights a little bit. And then I'm just basically repeating the same steps on the other Oysteroids as well. So again, we start with the blush pink. And if you don't have two lighter colors, that's totally alright. You can start with whatever the lighter color is and work with that. So I started with the blush pink, added the light pink, then moved on to the darkest pink or the process red in this case. And adding the highlights. And then just going back and forth, depending on where you need to add more depth and where you need to add more highlights. Just sort of creating that depth and dimension. As I'm adding a little bit white here, I feel that I need to add a little bit of it on the top one as well. So again, this is my process pretty much like sometimes I go back-and-forth and I'm sure it happens to everybody that you're looking at a piece of art that you have done and you have progressed along to another section of it. And then suddenly you want to go back to something that you thought was finished, but you want to go back to it once more. So that's totally natural. And yeah, so now I'm pretty much repeating the same steps on the rest of the Oysteroids. And so I'm just going to keep the top half light for each of them. And the bottom half is going to have these nice highlights and shadows almost like a nice metallic disc kind of pattern. The reason why I decided to do this only on the bottom half is because the line weight of the shapes is towards the bottom. But you can try doing this on the top as well and make the entire shape like that. So that's something as a variation that you can try. And I'm sure that that would look very interesting too. I think, I'll just make a mental note to try that as well someday. Yeah, this is pretty much what the Oysteroids are going to look like once you have all of them shaded nicely. And from a distance you can see that they already look like these metallic or glinting little shiny pearly surfaces. Definitely the kind of effect that I was going for. And I'm actually quite excited to see what this looks like in other colors. If you're doing this in a different color than pink, then I'm sure even that is looking lovely, but I just love to see it. And I'd love for you all to post your pictures and show me your findings and your little projects. Alright, so with the final bits of blending done, we can now move on to our next tangle, which is Cubine, and start shading that. And Cubine shading is actually fairly simple. We just have to shade one side or one facet or one wall of the cube, so to say. And for that we're going to work with our graphite pencil. And we gently lay out the graphite on one of the sides. And then we are going to blend this with the tortillon. But it just makes it a lot easier if you just place all the graphite first so that you can basically assembly line and batch produce your tasks, so to say. So you can just finish up all the graphite layering and then do all the blending together. Now my Cubine tangle was half up on the left side of the tile and half down on the right side of the tile. So I have to make a mental note to basically just turn my tile around when it comes to the other side. So basically I'm just coloring or shading the left side or the left walls of each of the cubes. And so on the right side, they are the other way round. Now obviously once you have laid out all the graphite, then the next task is to blend it all nicely so that it sinks in nicely to the tooth of the paper and it's all blended and looks smooth. At this point, if some of the graphite is coming out into the white areas, don't worry so much about it. You can always go back with your precision eraser and erase a couple of the graphite lines or the marks which are smudging and coming out. That's totally okay. And to be absolutely honest, most of these smudge marks are not visible to anybody. Like honestly, when we're looking at our artwork, I feel like we can be so critical of our own work that it's only us who notice those little small smudge marks. I'm pretty sure nobody else notices them. But if they are these little marks that are bothering you or if they are, if they are taking away from the 3D illusion that you're creating, then you can always come back with your precision eraser, as you can see me doing now. And just basically get rid of those little smudges or those little graphite marks that came out of the boundaries. And this is where the brush at the back of my pencil eraser comes in really handy. I can go back and clean out all the dust particles that are accumulating. Alright, with that neatness check done, we can move on to our next step, which is to basically make these Oysteroids stand out a little bit. And again, this is an optional step. I'm just going with my darker color pencil and just going and giving an outline to the whole cluster. The cluster as a whole and not the individual Oysteroids. And I'm just basically making it pop a little bit on the tile. So now this is making it look as if the whole thing is sitting on top as a layer; on top of the Cubine basically. It just makes the whole thing pop out a little bit more, just stand out a little bit more. So that is just one additional step that I'm doing on this tile. And of course, as is the case with all your colored pencil markings, don't forget to blend it. Every time you lay down your color pencil, just make sure that you're also using the colorless blender to help that color seep in nicely into the tooth of the paper. And so that it all looks finished and polished. So that's pretty much it for today's exercise. And I look forward to seeing all your wonderful results. If you feel like you want to go back on your tile and do some final touches, you can always do that. You can always go back with your darker colored pencil or your white, or even your graphite and just pump up the areas that need a little bit of more saturation. So feel free to go back and add your personal touches to your tile. And I look forward to seeing all your projects in the project section. So that's it for today and I'm gonna see you in tomorrow's exercise with two more interesting tangles. 7. Hats & Fescurus Verae: Hi everyone, and welcome back to the course. So in today's exercise, we are going to be working with the tangles Fescurus Verae and Hats. Now Fescurus Verae is a tangle, which pretty much looks like leaves, which are like imaginary leaves. They kind of remind you of maybe banana leaves or some fantasy creature. I guess. We basically start off by making this little fescue, which is the core of it. Then we do an aura around it, which sits on the spine of the fescue. And then we just basically go around making a large leaf with a sort of zigzag motion. Now, I like to do this with a zigzag motion, but you're welcome to try a curvy stroke as well. So you can do this pretty much any way that you like. You can also have it going all the way down instead of having it settle on the on the neck of the or the spine of the fescue rather. We're just going to make a few of these sprouting up from the bottom of the tile. And of course, if you have a different shape of the tile, you're welcome to have it coming from different directions. You can try a version in which they are overlapping each other, or they're coming from multiple different directions. So you can do this anyway that you like. I'm now going to come with my thicker pen and I'm just going to accentuate the outlines of this a little bit; just so that when we shade these and once we put the second tangle, which is Hats, in the background, then these are just going to stand out a little bit more. So I'm just going all around making sure that these are just getting a little bit of line weight, so to say. We're gonna do this on all of the leaves that we have drawn or all of these Fescurus Veraes. I'm then going to come back with my thin pen. And I'm just going to put in these small hair-like structures coming out of the spine. Pretty much like veins of a leaf, which are stemming out from the center. This is totally optional; if you don't want to add the details, you can feel free to skip them if you don't like them. Or if you're someone who prefers making very ornate and detailed tiles, then you can also feel free to add a few dots or other little decorative elements to fill up the Fescue Verae leaves. So with that done, we are now going to move on to our second color. And we're going to add the second tangle, which is Hats. Now Hats is actually a wonderful tangle with a lot of scope for variations. Because essentially it is made up of triangles, which can be filled with various different patterns or other tangles inside of it. Today, the version that I have chosen is one where we start off with a triangle like so. Then we rotate the tile and make another triangle borrowing from the base of the existing triangle. So each time you draw these triangles, you can see that they're actually narrower than the base that we are borrowing from. So we just basically start a little bit inwards, from the existing base and then build up a triangle from there. So the idea is that we're going to fill up our entire tile with lots and lots of these triangles going behind the Fescue Verae. So almost like a backdrop of these Hats on top of which the Fescue Verae are gonna be sitting. So feel free to take your time in filling up your entire tile with this tangle. Once you have all the triangles in place, then we're going to come back and start adding details to them. So as an example, I'm going to start off with this one here. We're going to start by making a semicircular base. Then we're simply just going to add auras which are going to go all the way to the top of the triangle. Now it basically looks like a hat with a conical top and circular base. But this is not the only way that you can decorate hats. Like I said, you can fill this up with other tangles or you can fill this up with any patterns that you feel like. But essentially the building structure of hats is that each time you are building a new triangle, it is stemming from the base of the existing triangle. Just that it starts a little bit inwards and it's a little narrow when it starts off. And then you can keep building more and more triangles from there. So this is how I'm doing my hats for today's exercise. But you are free to choose any other pattern if that's what you prefer. Now I'm going to speed up the video a little bit for you to see the progress and for you to see how the entire tile is going to look like, once all the hats are done. But take your time. Enjoy each stroke. Don't go by these sped-up videos. Don't pressure yourself at all. And feel free to take your time depending on the size of the tile that you have, depending on the shape of the tile that you have, and of course, the size of the tangle that you have drawn. So feel free to enjoy the process and enjoy each stroke. And do this mindfully and peacefully. Alright, now once all your hats are done, this is what your tile is going to look like. And we're now going to start shading this. We're going to start shading the Hats first. And we're gonna do this with our graphite pencil. So we're going to lay the graphite on the sides of the triangle, the sides of the hat basically. And we're going to pull it inward, creating a beam of light or like a highlight in the center. And when I'm pulling this, I'm just going to make sure that the beam of light is shining nicely in the middle. But just for the sake of demonstration, I'm purposely going to make a tiny mistake over here. Well, not exactly a mistake, but basically a demonstration of what ideally the hats should look like and what you should avoid. I've done this one, but I would urge you to watch the next one before you start shading yours. Now for the next one, I'm doing the exact same things that I did before, which is to put the graphite and then blend it with my tortillon. But I want you to notice the difference in the blending. If you'll notice in the second one that I have done, the beam of light in the center is quite easily visible to the eye. It's very apparent that it's a straight line or a straight highlight in the center, which is looking much more polished and refined as compared to the first hat that I did; where you can see that the highlight is basically just randomly placed in the middle. So in order to fix that, of course, we can go back with our precision eraser and make sure that the beam of light is coming out nicely in the center. And you can see that it makes a lot of difference. So now you can see it going from top to bottom in one straight line, or kind of like a triangle of highlight in itself. So ideally this is what we should be aiming for. When you're blending, make sure that the highlight in the center is not getting overshadowed or that you're not over blending so that the highlight is getting disappeared in the process. So we want to make sure that the highlight is neat and clean and visible. So yeah, so now that I've given you that heads up, we can continue shading the rest of our Hats. And the process remains the same. We apply the graphite on the sides and we pull the graphite inwards, leaving a highlight in the center. And make sure that the highlight is nicely visible, like one beam of light or like one little white highlight triangle in the center. Just so that it looks neater, more refined, and more polished. Now coming to our Fescurus Verae... we're going to start with a light pink and we're going to color the entire leaf or the entire tangle with a very light layer of this. I'm only just leaving the spine or the stem, in this case white. And everything else is getting colored with a very light layer of the pink, the lighter pink that I had. And this is going to act as my base layer for the tangle. With my color blender, I'm going to make sure that this is completely settled onto the paper. I'm doing this in the beginning itself because I want to add some sharp details this time, which are going to stand out on top of the blended background. I'm going to bring in a sharper dark colored pencil and do the details in a bit. But first I want to make sure that at least the base layer is completely set. So it's gonna be like a single colored leaf. But on top of this we're going to add darker details. Now for demonstration, I'm gonna do the first one and I'm quickly just going to sharpen my process red pencil, which is my darker shade. I usually keep this handy little dish next to me. And I try to actually sharpen everything off camera because I don't want a lot of these colored pencil residue and shavings to come on my tile. So I try to maintain a little bit of distance. Alright, so now I'm going to just basically darken the spine a little bit, by going all around it once. And then I'm going to add a little bit of the dark color on the outer edges. So I'm basically looking for dips and crevices. So anything which is folding or curling inwards is where I'm accentuating the leaf with the darker color. Kind of like extending that pink outline with the help of the colored pencil. It's almost like it's shifting from pen to pencil. So just adding that little accentuating lines, which will basically just add a little pop of color to the whole leaf. So only on the dips and all those little curves which are coming inwards. And then we blend it. Now while you're blending, you might feel that you need another layer. So you can always go back in with a sharp dark pencil and add one more layer of the color. And just basically give it a little bit more depth and dimension. And in this case, this is obviously building up the contrast as well. If at any point you feel that a little bit of your colored pencil has gone into the white areas, you can always come back with your precision eraser. If you have not put in a very hard stroke, and if it's just a very light layer of color pencil which has been smudged across onto the side, then you can always erase it with your eraser very quickly. And so I'm just going to add one more layer to my entire leaf just to make it pop a little bit more. And... blend it. And yeah, that looks pretty good. So that is pretty much how we're gonna do all the leaves. We're going to blend the base layer first. Then we're gonna go back on the outlines and we're going to add the darker color. And we're going to accentuate all the dips and the curves which are coming inwards. Once you're done blending that outline, then if you feel you can go back in with a second layer. And of course, we're going to add the darker color to the spine as well to accentuate that and to lift it up a little bit. As always, we're going to go back and forth in terms of the application of the color. Depending on the colors that you have chosen, depending on the brand of pencil that you're working with, and of course, your own personal preferences in terms of how vibrant you like your artwork to be... So that is how we're going to color these leaves. And that is pretty much it for today. So this is how your tile is going to look like eventually, once you are done with all the steps. Now of course you do have options to customize this. You can go back in with a black pen and color the spine; that internal white space. You can go back in with a gray and you can of course add other details in your tile. You can feel free to experiment with other tangles... other patterns. So basically there are many different ways in which you can customize the tile. But this is pretty much what it's gonna look like. So this is what you have as a frame of reference to compare your tile with. And I'm super excited to see what this is going to look like in different, different colors that you guys have chosen. So with that, we come to an end to today's lesson. And tomorrow, I'm gonna see you with two more interesting tangles and a fun little exercise once again. See you. Bye bye. 8. Akebia & Tentoculus: Hi everyone and welcome back to the class. So today we're gonna be working with Akebia and Tentoculus; two of my most favorite tangles, because they have so many possibilities for shading and coloring. So we're gonna start with Akebia, which kind of looks like a semicircular flower. And it starts with a little circle, which I'm going to color in almost like a little pink pearl with a little white highlight. Then we are going to make two leaf-like structures which are coming out from both sides. And then we give it three semicircular tops, pretty much like a crown, like a little tiara, which is sitting on top. And we connect those dips to the circle. Now as is the case with all tangles, you can decorate them anyway that you like. But I like to put in these pollen or vein-like structures inside each of those little teardrop shapes. And then the final step of Akebia is to make this little semicircular tube at the bottom, which we are also going to color from the sides and leave a little bit of highlight in the center. So we're basically just doing a little bit of shading, if you may, with the pen itself. And finally, we're just going to give it one more aura. Now these auras and these semi-circles at the bottom are totally customizable. You can skip them, or you can do a few more. So there are no rules when it comes to tangles and you can totally customize them. But this is pretty much the basic structure of Akebia. And we're going to spread multiple such Akebia fragments all across our tile. And the number of these, of course, depends on how big your tile is and what kind of a shape you're working with. I'm just going to speed up the video a little bit to show you how they're gonna look like once they're scattered across the tile. And I have managed to do four such Akebia fragments. Once you have these ready, then we're going to connect them with curvy lines, which are gonna be like stems or tubes. But basically just creating this little floral constellation. And we're just going to have some of them going towards the edge as well. Just so that we are creating this impression that there are probably more flowers outside of the tile. So just to create that continuity, so to say. Then once you're done with that, we move on to adding little orbs inside the tubes. And we're going to color the entire tube pink or whichever color that you've chosen for your project. And again, I am going to speed up the video a little bit. But you can take your own time to finish all of these steps. They're fairly repetitive and they're fairly simple. This is actually one of those tangles which is not very complicated. So take your own time and make these little orbs. Alright, once you have that ready, we're going to come back in with a graphite pencil or your HB pencil. And we are going to create a few guidelines for our next tangle, which is Tentoculus. Now Tentoculus, pretty much, I think the name suggests that it is basically like a tentacle sort of tangle. Very similar to like jellyfish legs or octopus legs. So it's very, it's a very fantasy creature like tangle. And these guidelines will basically help us to shape it and give it a sense of direction. So with the pencil guideline in place, we are going to come back with our pen and add these semicircular borders. Pretty much like a lace going around that pencil guideline. Then once you're done with one side, we turn our tile around and do the same thing on the other side. With each of these semi-circles facing the opposite one. It almost forms these little diamond like spaces inside, each time the semi-circles are facing each other. Then we're going to put in a few dots inside of those semi-circles. Now the true beauty of this tangle lies in the shading. So you're probably not going to feel that this is looking like a sea creature right now. And you're probably going to think that this is looking very plain and very bland. But it is going to look very pretty once we shade it. But before we get to the shading, we're just going to color the inside lace. And of course, the guideline is going to disappear because we're coloring all over it. And that is pretty much how we're going to finish off the tangle. And we're gonna do the other two the same way. But for the middle one that I have done, I'm just going to show you a quick variation. Now for the first one, I basically kept the semi-circles slightly far apart from the guideline. They were not exactly touching the guideline. But in this case, I'm gonna do a version where the semi-circles are exactly touching the guideline. And what this is going to do is make those little diamond shapes even more prominent. And so this is going to be a slightly different look as compared to the one that we did earlier. Because you can see that the semi-circles are basically just touching each other, forming those little diamonds in the center. So, yeah, so we have both the variations to work with. You can do it slightly more spaced out or you can do it like this where it's all squished together. And the shading pretty much remains the same for both the versions. Now, according to my tile size, I felt like I should do only three. But you are free to do more. So if you want to have more of these spread across your tile, feel free to do that. You can have them going in different directions. And if you're working with multiple colors, then you might want to also do a few in the background, which are going with a different color. So feel free to customize the number as well as the shape and the direction of these tangles. All right, now for the shading, we're going to come in with a graphite pencil and we're just gently going to color those semi-circles. And we're just going to lay a very, very light layer. Then of course we're going to bring our tortillon and we're going to blend it nicely. Now I think you'll be very happy and satisfied with the tangle. I've seen this happen in my live demonstrations all the time. Or if I'm sitting in a cafe or in my studio, if I'm ever working and I'm making this particular tangle, sometimes people have asked me where is this going and I'm like, hold on, let me shade this. Then it's probably going to make a little bit more sense to you. I've used this tangle a lot in designs where I've done mythical creatures or like fantasy sea creatures because I think it has that quality. But now as I'm talking about it, I feel like this would also be very good for some designs where I'm probably doing like alien creatures or beings from or organisms from another planet. I think this has that quality to look like It's a creature from a different planet. So, yeah, so the rest of the steps remain the same. We are going to do both the other and Tentoculus fragments the same way. We're going to shade them with our graphite. And we are going to bring in our tortillon to blend them nicely. And if at any point you feel that you want to add more depth to the tangle, uou can also bring in your graphite pencil and just accentuate those semi-circles a little bit, which is just going to help you build a little bit more depth. So that is definitely something that you can try. Again, this is totally dependent on the scale of your drawing. If you're drawing something really tiny, maybe there is no scope to do this. But if your semi-circles are big, then you definitely have the scope to go back in there and add a little bit more graphite. Now for the Akebia tangle, we're going to lay out the darker color around that pearl that we had created. Then we're going to add a little bit of the lighter color, which in my case is the lighter pink. And then around the periphery we're gonna do a little bit of white. So we're just going to create a transition going from dark to light, almost like blooming outwards or radiating outwards. Then of course, as always, we're going to blend it. And we are going to repeat the exact same steps for all the flowers. As is the case always, you have the liberty to go back and forth depending on how much saturation you want in your flowers, depending on what kind of colors you are working with. So feel free to take your time and blend out those flowers nicely. The idea is that we're just creating this transition from dark to light, going from the center outwards. So just radiating or blooming outwards. Once you're done with the flowers, we're going to come back to these little tubes that we created. And with the lighter color, I'm just going to create a halo or like a tiny little shadow or even a reflection probably in this case, I guess, which is just going to come out from one side of the tubes. And Zentangle shading doesn't really follow any rules because Zentangle shading doesn't really have a specific light source to adhere to. So it doesn't matter if the drawings don't look realistic. All that we're looking for is some decorative shading which just helps us to enhance the tangles that we're working with. And to just sort of make them pop on the paper. Once you're done with the application of the lighter color, we're just going to blend it. Okay, So for our next step, we're going to come back to these little orbs that we had created. And we're just going to make tiny pearls out of them. They're of course, really, really small. So we can't really get into very detailed shading over here. But we are going to go in with a graphite pencil and create these small smileys, so to say, which we are then going to blend with our tortillon. And you can see that instantly makes it look like a tiny pearl. So the idea is that we leave the top white and the bottom is gray. Blend it in nicely with the tortillon. It looks like they're little pearls or like metal like structures which are encased within that tube. So we're gonna do that on all of them. Of course, as is the case always, you can do like some final touches to your tile. You can come back in with more graphite if you want to add more depth to those pearls. If you feel that you have accidentally applied too much of it, then you can always go back in with your precision eraser and just basically look at your tile closely and give it all the love that it deserves. And just look for any final touch ups that you want to do. As an afterthought, I feel that I also want to do something to those little semi-circles which are coming out of the Akebia. So I think I'm going to go in with my graphite, just going to add gray to those semi-circles. But this is totally optional. As I have mentioned a lot of times, honestly admitted to the fact that I do go back and forth. So yeah, so these are my last minute decisions or my last-minute touch ups that I'm making to the tile. But you might like it the way it was earlier. This is totally an optional step. I feel that my pink was a little too bright around the tubes. I'm going back in with a little bit of white and just giving it a slightly smudged milky effect. Very similar to what we had done in our practice exercise. And this is the reason why I also showed you the practice exercise because sometimes this technique can come in handy when you want to purposely desaturate a color. Since I want the focus to remain on the tube, and I want this to be just like a light halo around the tube, I'm going in with my white and desaturating that outline that I have done. And this is again now optional as well as dependent on the color that you have done, your outline with. If yours is already a very light color, then you probably don't need to desaturate it. But in my case, I felt like it needed to be subdued a little I think, or muted a little. Alright, so I'm just going to clean up everything. And yeah, I think that looks pretty good. After I switched off my camera as an afterthought, again, I felt like I needed to do something to the Akebia flowers. So I went back and I gave a slightly more bold outline to the flowers. So earlier I had drawn them with a thinner pen. But then I went back in with a thicker pen and I gave it a slightly more darker, bolder outline so that the flowers pop up a little bit more. And yeah, so that was it. So this is the finished tile from today's project. And I look forward to seeing all your lovely tiles as well. 9. Closing Thoughts: All right, So congratulations on finishing this course. And I'm so, so, so happy that you decided to take this journey with me. If you're keen to know more about the Zentangle art method and want to keep developing wonderful creations, then I recommend you to hit the Follow button on top of this video, which is right next to my name. This will allow you to subscribe to notifications on Skillshare. And every time I launch a new class or plan a giveaway or have any other exciting announcements, you'll be the first to know. Remember the Zentangle art method is limitless. So as you go forward, practice is going to be your best friend. It will allow you to develop beautiful creations, using newer techniques and new supplies as well. I would love for you to post pictures of your wonderful creations in the project section of this course, which is right below this video. If you choose to share your creations on social media instead, I'd love for you to tag me. I truly hope that this class has been helpful for you. If it was, I'd love for you to drop me a review about it and let me know how this class benefited you. Also, if you have any other suggestions or ideas for future classes, I'd love to hear those as well. You can put those in the Discussions tab, which is also right below this video. So with that, I say goodbye to all of you lovely people out there. Thank you so much once again for taking this class with me and I would love to see your creations. I also hope to see you in one of my future classes. Happy tangling till then! Bye.