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Linda Farmer, Certified Zentangle Teacher

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Tangle Refresher 124 – Featuring thoughts from Maria about what it means to draw your tangles with deliberate strokes

Tangle Refresher!

New tangler Sarah Fowler left this comment after receiving her signed copy of Zentangle PRIMER Vol 1,

Oh my goodness what a fabulous book. I am a new tangler and found it has just swept me away. This book is great because it gets you to slow down and go back to basics.
As you do it opens up so much more. The endless variety of tangles you think you know. The limitless things you can change, play with and develop. Rick and Maria have written this book with so much love and enthusiasm you can feel it oozing from every page!
What a lovely, lovely book.”

There really is an endless variety of “tangles you think you know. The limitless things you can change, play with and develop.”

Sarah’s observation of the PRIMER‘s emphasis on slowing down is something each of us probably needs to be reminded of from time to time. Her comment relates to this post from an earlier Zentangle blog post that I included in Tangle Refresher 103 last year. It’s another one worth revisiting, so here we are:

“Anything is possible … one stroke at a time.”™

In Zentangle® we CZTs frequently remind our students that every single stroke is to be drawn deliberately. This means not rushing, but taking pleasure in each stroke of ink from your pen, one stroke at a time.

In this excerpt from an early post on the Zentangle blog, Zentangle co-founder Maria Thomas talks about this:

Draw your tangles more deliberately. Zentangle is not like any other art form. You want to draw every LINE deliberately, enjoying watching your pen create each line. The patterns fill the spaces created by the string. The string is just a suggestion and not a demand to where you put your tangles. You may start to place your tangle in one area, but maybe you want to finish that space with another tangle or leave it blank

Maria continues,

if you are doing the tangle ‘Tipple’ – the one that looks like a sink full of bubbles – you want to draw each bubble slowly and not so much round as beautiful.

[The Sakura Micron] pens are somewhat pressure sensitive so if you press a little harder on one side of the bubble and let up on the other . . . you create a rhythm of sorts . . . like music. If you played piano pressing every note the same, the result would be less than pleasant.

If the weight of your penstroke was on the same side of each bubble, it creates a “shade” and adds to the pattern. You can do this to every pattern. Static . . . when doing the zig zag lines . . . the first zig is a light line, the next is heavier . . . consistently all the way down . . . then repeating the same pattern on each consecutive line. So simple, but very dynamic.

Are your Zentangle bubbles beautiful?”

Anything is possible ... one stroke at a time.™
BTW, if you have your copy of the new Zentangle PRIMER VOL 1, please do visit this page in BOOK REVIEWS and leave your review in the comments.

Enjoy a beautiful SPRING Weekend!

* * *

Here are five more tangle pattern gems and a Tangle Refresher from a year (or two) ago for your tangling pleasure. Remember to check out the “More Good Stuff” links below too.

BTW as you enjoy these tangles please do leave a comment of thanks and encouragement to show the artists you appreciate them for sharing their creativity for you to enjoy. And please share a link to your favorite tangles with your followers on all your social media.

Zenful tangling!

Buried Treasure from a year ago
Zentangle pattern: Rixty. Image © Linda Farmer and TanglePatterns.com. All rights reserved. Rixty
Zentangle pattern: Lealad. Image © Linda Farmer and TanglePatterns.com. All rights reserved. Lealad
Zentangle pattern: Kiss. Image © Linda Farmer and TanglePatterns.com. All rights reserved. Kiss
Zentangle pattern: Akoya. Image © Linda Farmer and TanglePatterns.com. All rights reserved. Akoya
Zentangle pattern: Fjord. Image © Linda Farmer and TanglePatterns.com. All rights reserved. Fjord
Revisit the Tangle Refresher from a year ago Tangle Refresher 96

More good stuff …

.oOo.

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"Absolutely the best Zentangle Book yet! As an accomplished artist I used to think I did not need instruction on this art form. How wrong I was! My tangling improved by leaps and bounds after reading this book. If you think you have Zentangle down then you need this book more than ever!" ~ Kris H

.oOo.

1 comment to Tangle Refresher 124 – Featuring thoughts from Maria about what it means to draw your tangles with deliberate strokes

  • Suzanne

    This is a timely reminder, when I focus on the strokes I totally enjoy the process but sometimes it is easy to slip into focusing on the results. Never as satisfying and a reminder about Zentangle basics is really helpful. Thanks for sharing!

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