How to draw FLAIR

Today’s cool tangle pattern is from West Virginia tangler Beth Snoderly and Flair is Beth’s 20th tangle on the site! Our congrats and many thanks to Beth for sharing her wonderful tangles with us.

Beth has also contributed many strings to our community resource (and there’s more to come). You can locate them all by using her last name in the Search TanglePatterns.com box at the top right of any page.

Although Flair might look rather complicated, it is a breeze to draw.

Beth writes,

“This tangle is such a versatile one. It is so simple to make and is very forgiving to a shaky hand.

You draw a square grid then make Xs crossing two rows, then continue them down the rest of the rows. Once I have the grid, I make the parentheses shapes starting at the top of one of the squares and continue all four swipes without lifting my pen. First down, second up, third down and fourth up. They get smaller as you go.

Then I turn my tile and complete the other diagonal. Here you can purposely match the parentheses up for an interesting effect. 

I also change up the grid by drawing all diagonals in the same direction or in a zigzag. You can also use the Flair Square by itself.

Coloring in the Flair Squares also creates many different looks. In my example I colored in just the second space.  Just coloring in the second and fourth space creates an entirely different look.

My second example I made the grid with just diagonals and colored in the first space with pencil. “

In her step-by-step instructions Beth includes a closeup of how to draw those strokes in Steps 3 and 4. While Flair is easy to draw, you will find you need your full concentration to the keep the parentheses curves in those steps going in the right direction. Beth’s interesting Zentangle® featuring Flair also includes several Zentangle-original tangles.

Image copyright the artist and used with permission, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. You may use this image for your personal non-commercial reference only. Republishing or redistributing pattern deconstructions in any form is prohibited under law without express permission of the copyright owner. For more information, click on the image for a discussion entitled “Artists for Respect” by several prominent artists.

For Zentangle-inspired art, Beth writes, “I sometimes color in different sections to get many different effects.”

Check out the tag beths for more of Beth’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

Related Links

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5. Linda's List of Zentangle-Original Patterns — here is the complete list of original tangles (aka "official tangles") created and introduced by founders Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas, including those not published online. If you are new to the Zentangle Method I highly recommend learning a few of the published Zentangle classics first.
6. "A Zentangle has no up or down and is not a picture of something, so you have no worries about whether you can draw a hand, or a duck. You always succeed in creating a Zentangle." Thus patterns that are drawings of a recognizable naturalistic or actual object, figure, or scene, are not tangles. A pattern is not always a tangle — here's what makes a tangle. TIP: tangles never start with pencil planning.
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