How to draw CC

Today’s aura-intensive tangle is named CC and is another from Taiwan CZT Mina Hsiao who has several popular tangles on the site.

After the underlying grid is drawn in pen, the only stroke used to draw CC is the elemental “C-like” curve and from this comes the name of the tangle. For more information about Zentangle’s “elemental strokes”, see Mina’s Dicso tangle.

For some odd reason there’s been what I can only describe as a rash of pattern submissions recently that begin with a pencil grid or guidelines of some sort. Knowing the considerable time and effort and enthusiasm that goes into making the submissions, it’s truly distressing for me to have to point out that in Zentangle® for a pattern to be drawn as a tangle, it “has to be done without any underlying pencil structure or preplanned [pencil] grid“.

This is on Rick and Maria’s blog and also emphasized again in their first book:

“Drawn as a tangle” means that you repeat a series of elemental strokes in a certain structured way so you inevitably end up with a particular pattern without needing to know what the pattern you are creating is supposed to look like.

Usually the number of elemental strokes needed are 3 or less. Often, you only need one or two. By “elemental strokes” we mean a dot, a straight(-ish) line, a curve (like a parenthesis), a reverse curve (like an “S”), and an orb or circle.

It also has to be done without any underlying pencil structure or preplanned grid. ~ Zentangle blog

As Zentangle created the term “tangle” for the Zentangle Method™, they define what is meant by a tangle. For more information on what is – or is not – a tangle, please see the page ZENTANGLES > A PATTERN IS NOT ALWAYS A TANGLE on the top menu bar of any page.

Mina illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing CC below and features it in a “textural” monotangle. CC is another of those tangles that really benefits from the shading added to polish it off.

Image copyright the artist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please feel free to refer to the step outs to recreate the tangles from this site in your Zentangles and ZIAs, or link back to any page. However the artists and TanglePatterns.com reserve all rights to these images and they should not be pinned, reproduced or republished. Thank you for respecting these rights.

In this Zentangle® tile, Mina filled the center white space with the Zentangle-original tangles Purk and Tipple (or orbs) as well as demonstrating how the CC “seed” or fragment can be rotated creating a different result.

As you enjoy any of the tangles on the site, please do leave a comment of thanks and encouragement to show the artists you appreciate them for sharing their creativity to inspire yours.

Check out the tag minah for more of Mina’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.
11. If you have questions about the TanglePatterns.com TANGLE GUIDE, visit the BOOK REVIEWS tab on the top menu bar of any page on the site for COMPLETE details!

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