Snowflake Zendalas, ZD #35

This week's zendala dare was a lot of fun! I haven't been able to participate in awhile, so I was excited to be able to this time. Erin challenged us to make a snowflake zendala, something she learned about at her CZT training. Erin had also read about this fun technique in Suzanne McNeill's book Zen Mandalas.

You begin by cutting a snowflake. Erin shows how to size the snowflake to fit your zendala at the pink link just above this photo.

Once your snowflake is ready, place it on top of your zendala round and trace it in pencil. You are supposed to do this "lightly." I have never quite been able to figure that whole "lightly" thing out. Mine is always "darkly," or "heavily." Makes for some interesting erasing later.

Then you start figuring out how to split up your zendala. Decide how you want to lay out the lines by looking at your traced "lightly" lines and envision what might work. You can start marking some of the lines you want to use with your micron, or in my case my copic multiliner. Because I have to make things difficult. And different.

After a little while, you must take a five minute play-with-the-adorable-little-puppy break. You know, rub the ears, protect your fingers from getting bitten, throw the green snake toy, protect your fingers from getting bitten, play some more fetch with said green snake toy thingy, protect the fingers from getting bitten,  wipe up a little puddle of "accident" off the floor, protect the . . .  you get the idea.

This is where I decided I was done with laying down lines. I liked the way my template looked at this point. Erin mentioned that this method of completing a template had limitless possibilities. I would have to agree with Erin on that point. Right about here, my daughter mentioned that my zendala no longer looked like a snowflake.

Next I started tangling the various areas of the zendala.

I notice that I say "next" a lot. Oh well, at some point the adorable-little-puppy is going to get sad that I am no longer providing chew toys by way of my fingers, and will decide to chew on my jeans instead. (And sometimes inadvertantly my leg. Take a break to put puppy back in her play area, away from my feet and legs.)

Add shading and call it done. Can you line up any of my completed zendala with the lines of my snowflake?

I really love the shading step. I used to hate this part, but now it's one my favorite things to do. Lots of people are posting their snowflake zendalas over at The Bright Owl, Erin's page. You can check those out here. You could also complete one of your own and post it there for the rest of us to admire :).