How to draw FE-BA

On Wednesday morning — well before I had even posted Judy Murphy’s Calix — I received an email from Taiwan CZT Lisa Chang with her Fe-Ba tangle.

Aside from the odd-to-me coincidence of their similarity, I thought Fe-Ba was an excellent tangle to add today to demonstrate how such a small change to the way a pattern is drawn can completely change the end result.

This is Lisa’s first tangle on the site and she’s a member of the CZT19 class where many folks from Taiwan became Certified Zentangle Teachers.

Fe-Ba is also similar to Lynn Mead’s very popular Fassett, but it is a grid-based tangle where Lynn’s is drawn in a completely different way using triangles to start.

Lisa writes that she was out for a walk on a mountain road and saw some wild flowers that were her inspiration for Fe-Ba. When these particular wildflowers go to seed, they can fly everywhere and thus the name for Lisa’s tangle.

“With these beautiful flowers to show the vitality of nature, I named these flowers Fe-Ba, Chinese pronunciation means ‘to fly’.“

The little touch of shading in the middle makes such a difference to the look of this tangle. Be sure to use something, like a tortillion, to smudge your pencil to achieve a smooth, softer shading effect.

Lisa illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Fe-Ba below and features it in a beautiful Zentangle® tile along with the Zentangle-original tangle Pokeroot.

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 including pinning is prohibited under law without express permission of the copyright owner.

At first I was a little confused when I looked at Lisa’s Zentangle above, Fe-Ba didn’t seem to match how the end result from the steps looked. But after a bit a light bulb went off and I looked at the image by tilting my head a little to one side. You’ll see if you tilt your head at Step 5, you get the same result as the tile. Update: Here’s a scan of the Zentangle above with the underlying grid marked:

Lisa also sent along this additional Zentangle with the Zentangle-originals Printemps and Msst, and CZT® Tricia Faraone’s Sanibelle:

Image copyright the artist and used with permission, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

and this ZIA (because of the color) on a Zentangle tile with CZT Norma Burnell’s Dragonair and a couple of Fescu tendrils:

Image copyright the artist and used with permission, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Check out the tag lisac for more of Lisa’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

Related Links

1. Looking for tangles by Artist or Type? For details visit the ABOUT > HOW TO FIND TANGLES BY ARTIST OR TYPE page on the top menu bar of any page on the site.
2. What is a Zentangle? — if you are new to the Zentangle Method, start here for the fundamentals.
3. Zentangle terminology — a glossary of terms used in this art form.
4. How to use the site — an excellent free video tutorial showing how to use the site as well as pointing out lots of useful features you might have missed.
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.
   • Un motif n’est pas toujours un tangle — Qu’est-ce qu’un tangle ?
   • Un diseño no es siempre un tangle — ¿Qué es un tangle?
7. How to submit your pattern deconstruction to TanglePatterns
8. For lots of great FREE tutorials on TanglePatterns, click on the TUTORIALS link in the pink alphabetic menu bar below the tangle images at the top of any page.
9. Strings! Have we got STRINGS! Click on the STRINGS link in the pink alphabetic menu bar below the tangle images at the top of any page for 250 different (free) Zentangle-starters. More than enough for any lifetime!
10. Never miss a tangle! FREE eMAIL NEWSLETTER - visit the SUBSCRIBE page on the top menu bar of any page on the site and sign up to get notices delivered free to your inbox.

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