Intuitive String and Gray Pen

The title of this post may sound weird, after all isn't all Zentangle intuitive? For me, I guess that some are MORE intuitive than others. In these two pictures I conducted an experiment and used a highly complex and convoluted INTUITIVE STRING.

The string to me is like the solid foundation of a house: it guides me very clearly during tangling time. When using a complex and convoluted string, the results can vary quite a lot. For example, I like the left side picture made here, but I don't like the right side one, too busy. And yet they both started with very similar intuitive strings.

Here's the step-out for the one I like, made entirely with a gray 01 Micron pen.

Although I used the light gray micron, you can see how it became increasingly darker after layers and layers of lines and shading, producing some lovely faded lines and an ethereal feeling.

Here are some close-ups for you to inspect:

The second intuitive string drawing I didn't like so much, but I posted it here so that you can see how the same type of project can have varying degrees of success.

I guess I like the first one because despite the hectic string, I managed to create unity and balance in the picture while tangling. That was very stressful during actual tangling, always checking and rotating to see if the picture was balanced.

In the second one, I was more careless and didn't keep checking - and that's why the hectic string did what it did. I also made the choice of using a black pen to start, then switched to the gray pen, so that was NOT a good choice. Here's the step out:

The conclusion to this experiment is that as my work becomes increasingly more intricate in the actual tangling, it's less stressful if I rely on simpler and more classic structured strings, so that I don't have work so hard to create unity and balance: the string will do it for me.

All images Copyright 2023 Eni Oken.

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