Category Archives: Tangle This!

Back to the Basics

Lately I have been playing with some of the tangles that show up in a lot of introductory classes, and are great foundations for learning the practice of the Zentangle Method.

It is really fun to revisit the same tangles in new ways, and I love making a mosaic that spans time, experiences, moods and locations. It is like my own little set of historical markers.

You can see how much variety there is to be had with just a few tangles, I could easily and always entertain myself, find focus and relaxation by just using these tangles.

The above tiles are created using; Florz, Tipple, Hollibaugh and Crescent Moon.

These less traditional tiles are using the same tangles, and playing freely with how they show up on the page. Hollibaugh becomes worm like with the addition of curved lines in the lower left. The tangle weave in and out of the W2 grid on the lower right. The upper left tile has a wine stain that i used to alter between a white pen and black pen.

The Unexpected Doo-Dah

While tangling in a local tea shop – I started playing with Doo-Dah and ended up with some unexpected results. My first few strokes went a little wonky, not quite a straight line and since I was using a the pretty fine Micron 01 pen, it called for a fairly delicate little horizontal line.

I have also been experimenting with adding a little weight to the corners of line intersections, so the resulting doo dah looked a little curvy, which was fun. I drew a second doo-dah next to it, and suddenly I saw a forest emerging from these basic strokes. I lost myself for the whole length of my tea latte on that cold day and was happy to have my watercolor with me to add further interest.

If you have never tried doo-dah, here is the more traditional way it is approached. But it is certainly a tangle that has a lot of potential for play!

New TanglePod Episode: Punzel

In today’s episode of TanglePod we again pulled a tangle out of a hat and found Punzel to share. We had an interesting time exploring this tangle. It is definitely one where a visual is helpful for learning so on my website page for the episode you will find a step out.

Having the time to talk about how this tangle is structured really helped me understand how to get it on paper. We also share how to incorporate focus and breathing with this tangle. When you practice the Zentangle Method with the purpose of focus and relaxation, it is really important to remember to incorporate breathing and being present. We can always get too caught up in the visual – especially with a complicated tangle!

Juliette will have a different step out on her blog www.artsamuse.com to provide you even more reference in tackling this tangle.

You can listen on TanglePod.com or on iTunes.

If you are enjoying our podcast, we appreciate positive ratings and reviews to help others find us!

The Quiet Side: Issue 14

The Quiet Side

Exploring the unseen benefits of creative focus.

Discover : to obtain sight or knowledge of for the first time

In the last Quiet Side episode – I challenged you to look at something familiar in a new light, with the exercise to combine Crescent Moon and Tipple.

Here are some of my combinations:

: I loved how cute these little moon shapes became when adorned with tipple. i decided they just needed some more friends, rather than continuing with crescent moon. You never know where your tile might lead if you just focus on one stroke at a time.

: The depth tipple gives the layers in this tile is really fun, it just appeared when I was shading.

: A silver gelly pen adds tipple on these moon shapes. I used a blender with no added pencil to slightly shade the crevices to the center.

: This tile turned out so light and airy, I decided not to add any shading.

: At each point where I would change direction with my crescent moon aura, I added a single tipple, it provided an extended pause while I was tangling, as well as adding a lot of interest to the tile.

deliberate – still – appreciate – quiet – focus – trust – deconstruct – beautiful – reflect – relax – discover – create – comfort – shade – breathe – inspire – be bold – embellish – savor – slow – calm – admire

12 days of tangling day 11

After my last two days of very organized strings, it is interesting to see today’s tile – I guess my need to be sorted and organized passed, and a more free form layering of tangles came into play.

On this tile, I really like how tripoli developed. I started with a plump triangle, and the second step to drawing tripoli is to aura one of the sides of the triangle, so naturally it had to curve the opposite direction, creating two different types of triangles that are fit together. Very fun.

Today’s 11th tangle is Icanthis, which is beautiful and fun to draw – here it is on its own.

If you are interested in seeing more about the 3Z’s of Christmas – check out the Zentangle Blog. On each day they show the step outs for the tangles – which is great if you are just beginning or need a refresher. You can also see some of my other tiles on the SoundTangle facebook page.

Happy Tangling!

Kellie

Summer Time Tangling

The sun is shining, and it is the perfect time to tangle outdoors. Supplies in one hand, i grabbed my sun visor and found the band to be turning an unsightly yellowing color, bringing to mind the old commercials to solve “ring around the collar.” I started looking around for another hat, and then realized instead of a new hat what I needed was a sharpie! The band was stiff enough to make it really easy to draw on, and the unsightly ring around the hat band just disappeared in the tangles.

Happy Tangles!