Zentangles

I recently stumbled upon this art form while looking at doodles on flicker. I thought what a wonderful way to experiment with lights, darks and textures. I doodle all the time while on the phone, in a meeting or waiting for an appointment. Now I will doodle with a purpose! The web site http://www.zentangle.com explains its conception, and has a beautiful gallery of images. Flicker also has numerous examples.

These zentangles are on envelopes for a mail art swap on Swap Bot. For those of you not familiar with the site, it is a site where you can swap things with other people both in the United States and Internationally.

"There is a rich history of creative examples sent through the post. The most familiar example is the illustrations on envelopes carrying first day issue postage stamps, which philatelists refer to as "first day covers", but mail art encompasses other decorated envelopes as well as a wide range of other procedures and media such as rubber stamps and artistamps. Mail art is traditionally, though not always, distinguished from simply "mailed art", which is art that does not truly use the postal service but is simply regular art that is sent through the mail." Courtesy of wikipedia.

I originally signed up to exchange ATC's (Artist Trading Cards) but found this doodle swap so decided to give it a try. If any of you would like to exchange artist trading cards I would love to do so. My high school students really enjoy the opportunity to look at others work!