How to sign up for a free subscription - never miss a tangle!
What is Zentangle?
Linda Farmer, Certified Zentangle Teacher

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

All contents of this website are Copyright © 2010 - 2024 Linda Farmer, TanglePatterns.com, and artists where named. Copying content in any form other than for your own personal offline reference and inspiration is expressly prohibited. No content may be reproduced, pinned or republished without express written permission. This work is not allowed to be used in training AI systems. Commercial use of any content is prohibited. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Artists for Respect
Your support helps keep TanglePatterns available!
Make your contribution to keep TanglePatterns going in 2025

RANDOM SELECTOR

Use this Random Tangle Selector with your TanglePatterns.com TANGLE GUIDE to help you select tangles. See Pages 7 and 9 of the Guide for instructions. You can also use this to select random Strings: simply pop in any number in the range of 1 to 250.

ARCHIVES

How to draw SPYNES

Zentangle pattern: Spynes. Image © Linda Farmer and TanglePatterns.com. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. You may use this image for your personal non-commercial reference only. The unauthorized pinning, reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.Hello my friends! Thanks for joining me on this Happy Friday.

It’s our Memorial Day long weekend here in the USA. This is certainly one for the books now that weekends don’t seem much different from weekdays.

I hope you’re hanging in there, safe and healthy. Here’s a fun tangle to explore in your safe-at-home-ness.

Today’s Spynes tangle is from fellow Floridian and CZT Heidi Kay. Like her Quasahnt tangle, Spynes can be a little bit more challenging but very satisfying when you get into the flow.

Heidi writes,

Here is a tangle that fell out of my pen. I think it has great possibilities, I am calling it “Spynes”.

You can do Spynes with different tangles as the spines.

You can unfurl the spirals and join them and play accordingly.

Heads up! Here are some useful tips from Heidi for tangling Spynes:

  • the ‘spines’ can be any shape, fragment or tangle but the rule is that they must protrude out further than the spiral ring they are sitting on.
  • the tangle is easier to draw if after you add a round of triangles (Step 2) that you back up over the last portion of the spiral you drew in a takeoff and land fashion to draw the next spiral section. Otherwise it’s hard to reproduce the exact same curve that the spiral was going in, and it doesn’t look natural.

Heidi illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Spynes below where her sample tile includes some of the variations she described.

How to draw the Zentangle pattern Spynes, tangle and deconstruction by Heidi Kay. Image copyright the artist and used with permission, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Image copyright the artist and used with permission, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. These images are for your personal offline reference only. Please feel free to refer to the images to recreate this tangle in your personal Zentangles and ZIAs. However the artist and TanglePatterns.com reserve all rights to the images and they must not be publicly pinned, altered, reproduced or republished. 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 thanks helps motivate them to continue to share! And please share a link to your favorite tangles on social media. Thanks!

Check out the tag heidik for more of Heidi’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

.oOo.

Never miss a tangle - FREE newsletter subscription!

Sign up to get new tangle posting notices delivered free to your email inbox in a few easy steps:
  1. Click here: Subscribe to TanglePatterns by Email and enter your email address. OR, sign up from the SUBSCRIBE page on the top menu bar.
  2. Double check that you've entered the correct email address — typos occur more often than you'd think.
  3. If you entered your email address correctly you will immediately receive a "Thank you for subscribing" email from FeedBlitz on behalf of TanglePatterns.
  4. Add linda@tanglepatterns.com to your address book/whitelist so the email isn’t blocked by spam filters. Gmail is particularly brutal about deciding everything important is spam.
  5. If you subscribe to all three lists (Daily, Comments, Weekly Digest) you may receive a separate email for each subscription.

How to manage your TanglePatterns subscriptions

You can change your email address, temporarily pause your subscription while you're on vacation, or unsubscribe at any time by using the subscription management links at the bottom of any of your TanglePatterns emails. Whether you subscribe to the daily TanglePatterns email, the Comments email, or the Weekly Digest email, each one is a separate subscription so use the links in the relevant email to make your changes. For more information see ABOUT > HOW TO CHANGE YOUR EMAIL SUBSCRIPTION on the menu bar at the top of any page.

.oOo.

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.
  7. How to submit your pattern deconstruction to TanglePatterns
  8. For lots of great FREE tutorials on TanglePatterns, click on the TUTORIALS link in the pink alphabetic menu bar below the tangle images at the top of any page.
  9. Strings! Have we got STRINGS! Click on the STRINGS link in the pink alphabetic menu bar below the tangle images at the top of any page for 250 different (free) Zentangle-starters. More than enough for any lifetime!
  10. Never miss a tangle! FREE eMAIL NEWSLETTER - visit the SUBSCRIBE page on the top menu bar of any page on the site and sign up to get notices delivered free to your inbox.

.oOo.

Enhance your Zentangle experience while supporting TanglePatterns:

CURRENT EDITION! TanglePatterns.com TANGLE GUIDE, 2024 Edition

TanglePatterns.com TANGLE GUIDE, 2024 Edition The 13th Edition of the TanglePatterns.com TANGLE GUIDE is an instant-download 109-page interactive digital eBook/PDF containing approximately 2,000 tangles on the site from May 2010 through December 31, 2023. It's a great resource and a must-have digital tool for using the site. Visit the STORE > E-BOOKS page and help keep TanglePatterns.com going by getting your copy now!

"Linda, Thank you! I was relying on too few and getting stuck after 3 years of daily working with Zentangle. This has inspired me to ‘begin again’ with renewed excitement." ~ Barbara R.

See the BOOK REVIEWS page for more details on its features and view a sample page. Note: this is a digital product you download immediately when you place your order, nothing will be physically mailed to you.
GIFT ORDERS FOR ANOTHER PERSON: To give the TANGLE GUIDE as a gift, visit this page to place your gift order.
If you're new to Zentangle® and tangling, my TanglePatterns.com BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO ZENTANGLE is just what you need to get started. Also available en Français and en Español.

Zentangle Primer Volume 1 This is the only Zentangle book you'll ever need: the fabulous Zentangle PRIMER Vol 1. It's your CZT-in-a-book by the founders of Zentangle®. Visit the STORE tab on the top menu bar or click on the image. For more about the content and to read the rave reviews, visit the BOOK REVIEWS tab.
NEW! Now available in KINDLE format for $9.99. Spanish Edition here. Japanese Edition here.
"Absolutely the best Zentangle Book yet! As an accomplished artist I used to think I did not need instruction on this art form. How wrong I was! My tangling improved by leaps and bounds after reading this book. If you think you have Zentangle down then you need this book more than ever!" ~ Kris H

.oOo.

4 comments to How to draw SPYNES

  • Joyce Blodgett

    Hello Linda!
    I got a kick out of your comment about how the weekends don’t seem much different from weekdays during this time (so the holiday w/e isn’t going to be much different); ever since I retired on November 1, 2016, I’ve felt that same way—there’s virtually no difference in the days, other than that from sunset Friday night until sunset Saturday night, it’s the Sabbath, which is very special in my faith (not Jewish, though). I have a hard time differentiating one day from another until Friday rolls around, and it’s time to prepare for the Sabbath, which most definitely “feels” different from all the other days of the week, at least for those of us in my faith 🙂

  • Wow! This is super fun! I’m excited to play with it. Well Done!

  • Brenda Urbanik

    Super tangle! I am in awe of those who have this ability to “see” in this way! Going to play with this one!

  • Jane Callanan

    I am really enjoying this tangle. There are so many ways you can accent the prongs!

Leave a Reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

  

  

  

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.