How to draw LEX

With the continuing heartache caused by Hurricane Florence in the Carolinas plus Typhoon Mangkhut, an even stronger storm in the Philippines and China, I needed a super, SUPER easy Monday tangle.

CZT Angie Gittles’s Lex tangle fits the requirement absolutely perfectly.

Lex is Angie’s third tangle on the site, she’s previously shared her Deeday and Flog tangles with us.

There are some tanglers who dismiss or avoid grid tangles and I think that’s a real shame. They’re missing out on the zenful comfort of the methodical construction of this type of tangle.

It matters not that your grid lines are straight because they disappear into the pattern. And as I’ve often noted, deliberately (or not) making wonky lines can add unusual interest to a tangle. Grid-based tangles fill up a tile so easily too. They shouldn’t be overlooked.

As Rick and Maria note in The Book of Zentangle,

“If a tangle feels awkward, stay with it and watch what happens.

Many tanglers assume they won’t enjoy a particular tangle, but after playing with it, it becomes their favorite.“

Lex is a very easy grid-based tangle that takes variations in shading wonderfully as Angie demonstrates in her Zentangle® tile. I also see fun possibilities for embellishment, especially with and around those little orb “stoppers” of Step 5. And what about some colorful ZIA opportunities? Sakura’s lovely, glittery Stardust Gelly Roll pens come to mind …

Angie illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Lex in a simple duotangle with the Zentangle-original tangle Onamato:

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, altered, reproduced or republished. They are for your personal offline reference only. Thank you for respecting these rights. For more information, click on the image for a discussion entitled “Artists for Respect” by several prominent artists. “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” ~ C.S. Lewis

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. Your comment helps motivate them to continue to share!

Check out the tag angieg for more of Angie’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
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