Before we get to today’s tangle I want to express our hearty congratulations to all the new Certified Zentangle Teachers from CZT#34 who “graduate” today! The seminars always produce new life-long friends and more people to share the Zentangle® love around the world. What could be better than that!
Today’s cool and easy Tweak is from UK tangler Jacqui Bull and it’s her first on the site.
Recently we explored a tangle named Happy by CZT Nadine Roller and I commented then that it was the first time I had received two tangle submissions within days of each other with the same name. Well Jacqui’s is the second tangle I was referring to and she has graciously and amusingly Tweaked her original name. And she adjusted her steps illustration with a sense of humor too!
Off the top of my head, tangles based on a random grid construction similar to Tweak are Lori Howe’s Cracked, Beth Snoderly’s Neuron, and Suzanne McNeill’s Star Map.
Jacqui shares two tiles featuring her tangle, the first a monotangle:
Her second tile includes the Zentangle®-original Florz and a tiny touch of rounding on the auras within Tweak.
Jacqui introduces herself and explains her inspiration for Tweak,
I’m a lone tangler from Yorkshire, England and came across a Zentangle book several years ago and dabbled with it a little, but it wasn’t until I retired in 2017 that I really became enthralled with it.
I joined the official Zentangle Mosaic app last year (my Mosaic tag is Happy Flamingo) and found a whole worldwide group of like minded folks who were more than happy to lend encouragement, enthusiasm and most of all inspiration. I may be a lone tangler, but not lonely, with Tanglepals all over the World!
I was inspired by a programme link on television that featured, what seemed to me to be laminated pieces of wood, you know, where there are layers and layers and some random shapes. Next time I sat down to tangle out came the idea.
Her tips for tangling Tweak:
After putting in the random grid (three directions to give variety of shapes), aura two, three or more sides a few times, but leave at least one edge un-aura’d.
Then aura round the whole of the remaining shape and colour in for maximum effect. Any areas that are too small to aura, just fill in.
For my example of Tweak I left a couple of strategically placed white spaces because I liked the overall structural/sculptural look at that point. I was reminded of Maria’s lesson about the value of contrast and “light or even white white spaces also offer contrast, calm and a place for the eye to rest.” Much like Jacqui’s second tile above.
Jacqui illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Tweak below. Both Cracked and Neuron include curved grid lines in their mix at Step 1, that could be an interesting variation here too.
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. Click the image for an article explaining what copyright means in plain English. “Always let your conscience be your guide.” ~ Jiminy Cricket
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Check out the tag jacquib for more of Jacqui’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.
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- 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.
- "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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June 19, 2019 | 
More like this: 
This pattern is fun and beautiful. It admits interesting shading and effects of depth and superposition, dynamism and structure, formal variety and compositional play, balance of white, black and gray, polygonal lines or curved variations. How many possibilities! Great. I already think it’s a classic. By the way, Jacqui, I love the joyful presentation of your deconstruction and typography.
I love this!! We’re on a road trip & this is just the thing for me to play with in the evenings! Thank you. 🙂
Well done Jacqui ! Great tangle
Wow! I haven’t been in the mood lately, and nothing seems to get me going. That’s all changed with ‘tweak.’ I am going after this one, you can be sure. Thank you!
Jacqui I love Tweak! It is funny to me how a tangle can look too difficult for me to attempt until I see the step-outs. I can do this! I love both of your beautiful examples. Thank you for sharing your creative talent with all of us. Thank you, Linda!!!
Fun tangle to play with–and I certainly agree with Tomas Padros in his excellent description of the tangle; I’m finding that I want to keep expanding it, even though I’ve reached the limits of the drawing surface :-D. It draws me in as I work on it, and I forgot to eat lunch, I got so engrossed in it! No wonder you originally named it “Happy,” because it certainly is that!
Absolutely gorgeous tangle!
I really like this tangle and have already used it in a tile. I’ve tagged it as a favorite so will be using it again for sure. Well done and thanks for sharing. I also appreciate your tips as I was making up my own, which needed their own tweaking 🙂
Love it
I can already see that this tangle is a goer and I know I am going to have fun with Tweak! Cant wait to get at it…..
Thanks for sharing and thanks Linda for sharing too!
Great tangle Jacqui. Although I find it’s all too easy to forget to stop your auras after only some of the sides. But that’s good in a way – it reinforces the need for mindful tangling.
I just today drew “Tweak” along with Dennie York’s “Haf n Haf” on the same card, dividing the area into fourths–1/4 for Tweak, 1/4 for Haf n Haf, repeating once each. It produced a rather interesting combination, and gave my brain a bit of a workout, keeping the two tangles straight–or not, since I used a wonky grid for Tweak 😀
Great Tangle, simple and elegant.
Hi, love the tangle. I had a sari (Indian sarong) with the same pattern as the final picture in Jacqui’s illustration of Tweak. Lots of possibilities. Thank you for sharing.
Jacqui – I love optical illusions. At first, I thought some of your “cells” had an inside aura on all sides and I thought, “How did she do that?” Without shading inside the original grid, it is definitely an optical illusion. You made it so simple. Thanks.