How to draw UNBATZ

Holidays! It’s President’s Day here in the USA and Family Day in Canada. Meanwhile our Chinese tangling friends are celebrating their biggest family holiday of the year, the arrival of the Chinese Lunar New Year this past Friday and lasting through the weekend.

Time Magazine explains,

“This year, Chinese New Year begins on Friday, Feb. 16 and lasts until Sunday, Feb. 18. Officially, the holiday runs for three days, but unofficially it is celebrated over the course of two weeks.

… Chinese New Year traditions vary across Chinese communities, but most celebrations involve fireworks, family reunions and feasts, and paying respects to one’s ancestors. The New Year is also a chance to prepare for good fortune and luck in the coming year.

The Time article shares how to wish someone a Happy Lunar New Year in Chinese:

“Gong hei fat choy” is the most common Chinese New Year greeting in Cantonese, which is spoken in parts of southern China and Hong Kong. It directly translates to “wishing you great happiness and prosperity.” In Mandarin, the same greeting is “gong xi fa cai” (pronounced gong she fa tsai).”

We offer our best wishes for great happiness and prosperity to all in this year of the Dog.

Today we explore Unbatz, a “nifty tangle” from Texas CZT Sandy Hunter who has several great tangles on the site including the ever popular Cruffle and Akoya and … well actually, they’re all very popular! Sandy came up with Unbatz after her very first Zentangle® class.

Sandy is also the author of the excellent article “A post with no pictures” which is reprinted both here on the site and in the TanglePatterns.com TANGLE GUIDE with her gracious permission.

Unbatz is based on a grid, but an unusual one where a right-side up curve like the letter U alternates with the same curve upside-down. Sandy alternates these in rows and offers the advice to “Try to keep your COLUMNS lined up. It will matter in step three.”

Step 3 involves adding figure 8 shapes and then filling them in. For my Unbatz example I made a very slight change by only filling in the figure 8’s going in one direction. It’s a cool tangle, and it’s just a little different.

Sandy illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Unbatz here on her blog, as she notes “Lots of variations come to mind after step two, but this one is my favorite.” Sandy includes a ZIA of several interesting Unbatz variations to inspire your experimentation.

Remember to keep those columns lined up because “nobody likes a wonky unbatz.” 😉

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 sandyh for more of Sandy’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

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