Tuesday, May 22, 2018

THE ART OF "ZEN"

LINEAR PATTERN & TEXTURE W/ WATERCOLOR
7TH GRADE ART WHEEL - 1ST QUARTER - 2017-2018
watercolor & felt tip marker

When I was in school we called these marks doodling.
Now the catchphrase is "Zentangle".
Whatever you want to refer to it as,
 the kids love it,
as well as learning how to do a watercolor wash.

I've graded hundreds of these over the years,
but I never see two exactly the same.
These kids create beauty & magic with this assignment.
The gorgeous one above was made by Reya Syed.

The students are allowed to use repetitious line, shapes, text, images,
pretty much the sky is the limit;
as long as they fill up as much negative space as possible.
Above we have Shaniya Gentry.
I really like how she turned many of her lines into shapes by filling them in.
And to pull it all together she drew the continuous trail of circles.

Next up we have Eileen Rodriguez Salehi with this gorgeous rainbow of color and design.
Just so yummy!

 Alia Cortez has brought us a much more serious and dark design 
that moves our eye diagonally across the paper.
Such cool & expressive work Alia!

These next two beauties belong to Sara Wong and Serena Lee.
Fantastic movement in value thru their watercolor backdrops.

And these two were done by Sabrina Wang and Anika Kasula.
Note the amazing craftsmanship going on in both pieces!

And one of my favorites was this playful piece by Eva Matentsian.
Just adorable!

Great job 7th graders!!

2 comments:

  1. I've mentioned before that I truly appreciate what it must take to complete these Zentangles, having given it a try a while back. The washes of color must have been motivating.

    Here's what I found to love ...

    Reya's "simple" repeats (not really, they are too well worked to be considered simple) with the amorphous washes of color ... Shaniya's wry quote made me smile, as did her steps and stones along the way to the light ... Eileen's thoughtful quotes and had to laugh when I first read one as "Difficult reads often lead to beautiful destinations" ... Alia's moon-hung stars ... Sara's tonal keyboard ... Serena's yin and yang ... Sabrina's sun over clouds, with its strong sense of Native American motifs ... Anika's combination of sinuous and straight lines (always a fav) ... and Eva's wild, wild hair, full of the best kind of tangles (ha!)

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  2. They really do get into this assignment from the watercoloring to the doodling.

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