Zentangle Doodles to Art Quilts

My art quilt bee met today at my house, so I got to choose the topic.  Several of us have been practicing doodling Zentangle designs.  We decided to make some kind of group challenge incorporating Zentangle doodles. 

Before the group arrived, I did a few experiments.  First, I wrote on PFD fabric with various black markers, then hand-washed the fabric and let them dry.  I decided not to use any Sharpies for lettering on fabric, since most of them bleed.

I have a set of the Pitt Shades of Gray markers, so I made another sample of each of them.

Then, it occurred to me that many fabrics already have prints that resemble the geometric or swirly designs of Zentangles.  Why not incorporate the fabrics into an art quilt, and not have to draw all the black backgrounds?

I quickly made this example of a heart on freezer paper, cut up the sections of freezer paper, and ironed the freezer paper to the front of fused fabric (with the backing paper still attached.)  Then I fused all the parts to a striped background fabric.  This could be fun when embellished with stitching,quilting, and who knows what else

Then I thought about just cutting some shapes out of fused fabric and ironing them onto a piece of PFD (Prepared For Dying) fabric. 

After I did that, I drew more doodles. 

I heat-set the doodles, then colored in with Neocolor water-soluble crayons.  Here I have colored some of the details, but not the background.

I used a wet paintbrush to blend the colors.  Some of the markings became blurred and the colored designs lost their crispness.  I think next time I will use the crayons for the background, and then Tsukineko inks for the details.

I could always go back over the lines with marker to darken them a bit.

I made another sample using just black fabric marker and Tsukineko inks. This piece remained crisp and clear.

When the ladies arrived, they saw this hand that I had doodled in one of my journals, so we decided to challenge ourselves to each designing our own hand doodle.  From there, we can choose to color, add photo transfers, text, or whatever.  This could be an interesting challenge!

Before the meeting was over, most of us had at least doodled inside the outlines of our hand on fabric. Mine looks very similar to my paper version.  I probably could have just printed it out from my computer onto fabric.

It will be interesting to see what the finished art quilts that begin with our hands.  Several members were on vacation, so I hope they will also join in the challenge.