Blue & White Zentangles

A few days ago, I ran across some pretty Zentangles on Pinterest. They were drawn in blue and had the look of Delft pottery. I followed the links to the original sites and learned that they were made as part of a class called "Delft Delights".

This morning I did some online research to find the origins of these Zentangles. They originated in The Netherlands and were created by Marguerite Samama CZT. You can see one of her examples HERE on her blog. She was a guest writer on Laura Harms CZT's blog HERE if you'd like to read a little bit about Marquerite's project. The kit that she mentions is for sale HERE on Etsy. The kit teaches how to draw what looks like a stack of plates on a round Zentangle tile. Apparently, the square tiles, like mine above, are a bonus lesson included in the kit. They feature the official Zentangle pattern called "Huggins". "Huggins" works wonderfully for this because there is enough space in each element to draw other designs.

UPDATE 5/25/23: I've removed the link to Laura Harms' website because it is infected with a virus.

If you're familiar with my low carb recipe website - Linda's Low Carb Menus & Recipes - you've seen my blue and white "Ming Tree" dishes. They've become almost a trademark when it comes to my recipes. Besides my dish set, I also have a small collection of miscellaneous blue and white items in my kitchen. I do have three items that are actually Delft and the others range from an English "Burleigh" mug and tea cannister, a Royal Stafford soup bowl, a beautiful Spode serving bowl and a couple of Wood & Sons large soup bowls. There are other things that were made in China or that have no logo on the bottom. I also have a collection of ten different blue and white mugs that I hang on a rack in my kitchen.

Here are a few of my blue and white treasures:

Ming Tree sugar bowl

Here are three photos from my recipe site featuring some of my blue and white serving pieces:

When I saw the examples from the Delft Delights projects online, I instantly knew that I had to try drawing some. I ran up to Michael's craft store to buy a blue Micron pen. I also found a set of four different blue pens at Hobby Lobby. I already had a lot of blue colored pencils on hand.

For the tile above, I used a vibrant royal blue pen that came from the LePen set that I found at Hobby Lobby. The pens aren't the quality of Micron pens so I can't draw quite as much fine detail with them. Although the tips look very small, the ink bleeds out as you're drawing with them. This color is perfect for the Delft effect though.

It was quite a challenge to come up with sixteen different designs to draw on each of the "Huggins" components. I used Zentangle patterns on some of them but I also came up with some out of my head or from ideas that I got online.

I used a royal blue Micron pen to draw the tile above. I used most of the same designs on all sixteen components as on my previous example. I wasn't keen on one that I'd drawn the first time so I came up with a substitute for this tile. See if you can spot it.

I found a few other examples from the "Delft Delights" project online HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.