How to draw FAIRYWINGS

Here’s a breezy, fun and easy one for your Wednesday tangling pleasure.

Ohio tangler Joan Stark shares her sweet Fairywings ribbon-style tangle for us to explore today. Most recently we enjoyed her Tut tangle and she has several others on the site you’ll have fun with too.

Joan writes,

Fairywings happened upon my paper as I was playing with ribbons and loops — both of which I tend to draw when I’m trying to relax. Every time I draw this, it turns out differently. But I like each result.

It starts with a random shape. Next another shape is drawn crossing back and forth across the first random shape. The end result will be ribbon-ish.

Then the real fun begins. At each intersection a skinny “8” is drawn followed by perpendicular skinny “8”s.

Above each loop of the 8s, a flame shaped line is added. If you have problems with the points of the flames, it can be another rounded loop. It’ll turn out differently but it’ll still be ok…. a reminder that are no mistakes when tangling. These can be filled in to look like solid loops or wing outlines.

Finally at each intersection, THREE loose ends are drawn. I found that giving the challenge of drawing exactly 3 loose ends would cause me to become a bit more absorbed into my tangle. That, in turn, helped to block out random annoying thoughts.

Joan included the two examples above, “one with all Fescu-ish loose ends and one where I challenged myself to come up with different loose ends for each intersection. I found that to be quite fun and zen-like.”

Joan illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Fairywings below where she features it in a monotangle. Joan points out that at Step 6, “at each intersection, THREE loose ends are drawn.” But as she notes, “It’s easy and no matter how you make it, it’ll still look good.”

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 joans for more of Joan’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

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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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