Zentangles

Zentangles are miniature pieces of unplanned, abstract, black and white art created through a very specific Method from an ensemble of simple, structured patterns 

The process of creating a Zentangle is a form of “artistic meditation” as one becomes completely engrossed in making each pattern, deliberately focusing on “one stroke at a time”. The creativity options and pattern combinations are boundless.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) is one of the most intriguing personalities in the history of Western art. Trained in Florence as a painter and sculptor in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435–1488), Leonardo is also celebrated for his scientific contributions. Leonardo's curiosity and insatiable hunger for knowledge never left him. He was constantly observing, experimenting, and inventing, and drawing was, for him, a tool for recording his investigation of nature. Although completed works by Leonardo are few, he left a large body of drawings (almost 2,500) that record his ideas, most still gathered into notebooks. He was principally active in Florence (1472–ca. 1482, 1500–1508) and Milan (ca. 1482–99, 1508–13), but spent the last years of his life in Rome (1513–16) and France(1516/17–1519), where he died. His genius as an artist and inventor continues to inspire artists and scientists alike centuries after his death.

Egon Schiele

Schiele's childhood  was mostly spent being fascinated by trains, as he would  spend many hours drawing them, to the point where his father felt obligated to destroy his sketchbooks. When he was 11 years old, Schiele moved to the nearby city of Krems (and later to attend secondary school. To those around him, Schiele was regarded as a weird child. Shy, quiet and reserved, he didn't do too well at school except in athletics and drawing, and was usually in classes made up of younger pupils.

When Schiele was 15 years old, his father died from syphilis, and he became a ward of his maternal uncle, Leopold Czihaczec, he was also a railway official. Although he wanted Schiele to follow in his footsteps, and was distressed at his lack of interest in academia, he recognised Schiele's talent for drawing and reluctantly allowed him a tutor; the artist Ludwig Karl Strauch. In 1906 Schiele applied at the  Kunstgewerbeschule School of Arts and Crafts in  Vienna. Within his first year there, Schiele was sent, at the insistence of several faculty members. Vienna 1906. His main teacher at the academy was Christian Griepenkerl, a painter whose strict and ultra-conservative style annoyed Schiele and his fellow students so much that he left three years later. 

In his early years, Schiele was strongly influenced by Klimt and Kokoschka. 

Even thought his work basically copied their styles are noticeably visible in Schiele's first works, he soon evolved into his own distinctive style.

Schiele's earliest works between 1907 and 1909 contain strong similarities with Klimt's work, as well as influences from the  Art Nouveau movement In 1910, Schiele began experimenting with nudes and within a year a definitive style featuring emaciated, sickly-coloured figures, often with strong sexual overtones. Schiele also began painting and drawing children.

Some view Schiele's work as being grotesque, pornographic, and  disturbing, focusing on sex, death, and discovery. He focused on portraits of others as well as himself. In his later years, while he still worked often with nudes, they were done in a more realist and tasteful fashion. He also painted Van Gogh's sunflower tributes as well as landscapes and still lifes. Schiele's work grew more complex and intricate  after his imprisonment in 1912 he dealt with themes such as death and rebirth (re-incarnation) although female nudes remained his main output. During the war Schiele's paintings became larger and more detailed, when he had the time to produce them. His military service however gave him limited time, and much of his output consisted of linear drawings of scenery and military officers due to his environment. Around this time Schiele also began experimenting with the theme of motherhood and family. His wife Edith was the model for the majority of his female figures, but during the war due to circumstance, many of his models were male. Since 1915, Schiele's female nudes had become fuller in figure, but many were deliberately illustrated with a lifeless doll-like appearance. Towards the end of his life, Schiele drew many natural and architectural subjects. His last few drawings consisted of female nudes, some in masturbatory poses.