What is a Zentangle®? TanglePatterns.com BEGINNER’S GUIDE to Zentangle® eBook is now available!
Visit the STORE > E-BOOKS tab for more details. “The Zentangle Method is an easy to learn, fun and relaxing way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns.” Zentangles are miniature pieces of unplanned, abstract, black and white art created through a very specific Method from an ensemble of simple, structured patterns called tangles on a 3.5-inch (89 mm) square paper tile. Zentangles are not only exquisitely beautiful, they are fun and relaxing to create. 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 Zentangle Method “increases focus and creativity, provides artistic satisfaction along with an increased sense of personal well being. As CZT Margaret Bremner has written, “One of the lovely things about Zentangle is that it isn’t supposed to BE anything.
By Linda Farmer, CZT The delicate tangle Beadlines comes from Saskatoon-based artist and CZT® Margaret Bremner.
This was the perfect tangle pattern for practicing the upright pen position and light drawing touch lesson I learned recently about the Microns from Sakura. Beadlines is such a simple, elegant pattern with its wavy lines and regularly spaced triplets of beads and it has a nice sense of motion to it. A very handy tangle to have in your repertoire with lots of potential options. You can vary the number, spacing, and shape of the beads as well as the type of line you use.
Margaret doesn’t give instructions for Beadlines, but the pattern first appears here in a 6-inch square (15 cm) Zentangle-inspired piece of collage art named Twitterpated she is currently exhibiting. Check out the tag margaretb for more of Margaret’s patterns on TanglePatterns.com. Today I thought I’d share one of my own Zentangles. (Untitled) Zentangle® by Linda Farmer, © 2011 All Rights Reserved. By Linda Farmer, CZT Beelight is one of the 102 Zentangle®-original tangles CZTs learn about in the certification program taught by Zentangle originators Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas.
CZT® Suzanne McNeill demonstrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Beelight, here. UPDATE: Early in the Summer of 2014 Suzanne McNeill’s blog was removed and all the posts and images were lost. The site is being reconstructed as much as possible but the links will no longer be the same. Many of the patterns on TanglePatterns can quite easily be figured out. Image © DESIGN ORIGINALS by Suzanne McNeill and used with permission, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This is also one of the patterns included in Sandy Bartholomew’s AlphaTangle book, where she illustrates the alphabet from A to Z using Zentangle®-original tangles. By Linda Farmer, CZT Bubbles could be one of CZT® Suzanne McNeill’s favorite tangles because she includes it in three of her Zentangle® books: Zentangle 3, Zentangle: Fabric Arts, and Clay Classics Inspired by Zentangle.
And with good reason — the simplest tangles are usually the best. Bubbles uses one of the classic Zentangle® techniques of “drawing behind” to give depth and interest. This technique is something I still find a challenge and circles are not my forté either. I have a gimpy thumb that catches on its way around and I get lopsided results that I was not aiming for. Suzanne illustrates the steps for drawing Bubbles, here. Image © DESIGN ORIGINALS by Suzanne McNeill and used with permission, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Check out the tag suzannem for more of Suzanne’s patterns on TanglePatterns.com. Visit the BOOK REVIEWS tab at the top of the page for details on any of these Zentangle® books. <A HREF=" Widgets</A> You might also like: By Linda Farmer, CZT I find myself coming up with tangle patterns based on a grid – it seems once you get started on a theme, one pattern leads to another.
The first pattern I created was Zin, and that was the start of my so-called “wine series” of Zentangle patterns. This one I named Chard for Chardonnay (pronounced “shard”, it’s wine not the vegetable!). I’m sure Cab, Merlot, and Gewurtz won’t be far behind. After you draw the initial grid and diagonals, if you draw all the strokes going in one direction first then you can turn your tile and draw the remaining strokes to meet up in the middle.
Here are the step-by-step instructions for drawing my Zentangle® pattern, Chard. Image copyright the artist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. You might also like: By Linda Farmer, CZT The tangle pattern 2-n-5 is from Pennsylvania CZT® Anita Roby-Lavery.
It adds a new category of numerical tangle names to TanglePatterns. 2-n-5 was inspired, Anita tells us, by a pattern on an ancient Korean burial urn. “My interest in the Far East goes back to my teen years which were spent in Korea. [And we won’t say how long ago that was!]”