And now to Zentangle®
So, it occurred to me this morning that I haven’t really explained about Zentangle and I really shouldn’t assume that everyone knows what it is!
I’d been gobbling up watercolour tutorials for a few months when my darling friend Janette lent me a book she thought I might like it was called "Zentangle Journaling" by Mary Jane Holcroft. I read it over lunch and was hooked. To be honest I can’t really remember what the premise was of Zentangle Journalling but what struck me were these fantastic doodles and how gorgeous it looked when used to illustrate something.
Officially Zentangle is a form of meditative drawing, abstract in nature and it uses repeating patterns to create an all over fill. As a concept it was developped in 2004 in the United States by a buddhist monk, Rick Roberts and a calligrapher/graphic designer, Maria Thomas.
They are ones who came up with the term Zentangle, coming from the words 'zen' (the Buddhist meditative philosophy for balancing the mind) and ‘tangle’ and they’re the reason why I have to put that funny R in a circle every now and then ®. According to them the goal of the art practice is to achieve calm. Because you’re drawing repeating patterns and essentially letting yourself "zone out" as you draw it does become somewhat meditative. What I love about it is that the drawing is unintentional and you need have no concrete ideas about a particular result; intuition is allowed to unfold. You can see how this might be so attractive and why I had the nerve to mention the "D" word!
The patterns, aka "tangles", are made with combinations of dots, lines, simple curves, S-curves and orbs.
These simple shapes are the "Elemental
Strokes" in all Zentangle art. I have a couple of books of Zentangle designs and every now and then I’ll look for something new, but I do have my favourites and weirdly have not been drawn to designing my own … yet.
This was my first ever Zentangle ®
The patterns, aka "tangles", are made with combinations of dots, lines, simple curves, S-curves and orbs. These simple shapes are the "Elemental Strokes" in all Zentangle art. I have a couple of books of Zentangle designs and every now and then I’ll look for something new, but I do have my favourites and wierdly have not been drawn to designing my own … yet.
Anyway there’s a massive community around Zentangle - I even noticed someone advertising lessons for it in my local bakers! It is hugely accessible since basically anyone can do it - you just find a tangle you like and books and apps and the like will give you steps for how to do it - and that’s fun too watching the tangle grow.
Of course Rick and Maria have made an official thing and you can sign up to become an official Zentangle person - but I don’t think that’s for me - but that’s OK too - everyone’s free to get out of it whatever they want.
Proper Zentangles are drawn on a piece of paper 9cm x 9cm in black ink, without using erasers or rulers. Graphite pencil, a smudger and sometimes a white pen or pencil are used to create 3D effects. The drawings are abstract and can be viewed from any direction. There is no such thing as an error in Zentangle - merely and opportunity to change and absorb.
Since any use of Zentangle that moves away from the 9cm2 monochrome abstract format is known as Zentangle Inspired Art - officially that’s what I do.
I’ll usually start off with watercolour on paper, then move onto the Zentangle bit, and sometimes come back in with colour and see where it all goes. l I tend to use tangles as additional palette rather than inspiration in and of itself but the meditation bit is bang on - although I remember being told off because I wasn’t putting myself into a meditative state with my breathing beforehand - but hey! horses for courses.
Lots of love
Tracy xx