How to draw JAXSTAR

Canadian tangler Cyndi Knapp is back today with her JaxStar tangle. Earlier this year she shared her D’eneh tangle with us.

Cyndi explains how JaxStar came about,

For some reason, hearing the name Jack triggered the memory of metal jacks (of the same titled game) and inspired me to create JaxStar.

This simple pattern is unique in that it can be tangled randomly or in a faux grid and it also has numerous variation and shading possibilities.

JaxStar reminds me of heraldic designs, perhaps it’s the crossed motif that inspires that thought. For my example of this very easy tangle I added some diamond shapes with a touch of graphite in the spaces surrounding the basic JaxStar motif, inspired by Cyndi’s white-on-black monotangle below.

Cyndi illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing JaxStar below and suggests some variations in Step 6. She features it in two lovely Zentangle tiles — in the large tile JaxStar is shown as a free-form tangle together with D’eneh and in the black Bijou tile as a grid-style monotangle.

Image copyright the artist and used with permission, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please feel free to refer to the steps images to recreate this tangle in your personal Zentangles and ZIAs, or to link back to this page. However the artist and TanglePatterns.com reserve all rights to these images and they must not be publicly pinned, reproduced or republished. Thank you for respecting these rights. Click the image for an article explaining copyright in plain English.

As you enjoy any of the tangles on the site, please 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 cyndik for more of Cyndi’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

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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.
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