How to draw DNA

Hi everyone! Welcome to Friday and our first tangle of July.

It’s our Independence Day long weekend here in the USA, a very hot and humid one this year for sure! In South Florida we’re keeping our eyes peeled on Tropical Storm Elsa — a whole month earlier than we normally expect to be on the alert. Mother Earth is on fire …

Today’s DNA tangle is from Russian/Croatian tangler Elena Bratkovic and it’s her first on the site.

DNA is all about having Zentangle® in your blood!

Elena introduces herself and explains the origins of her tangle:

Originally from Russia, from distant Siberia. But now I have been living in Croatia for 26 years.

Once I felt a great desire to paint. “This happens at my age” – I thought then. Suddenly, drawing resulted in a Zentangle®. And now I have been with you for more than three years.

This year was very difficult for me, at one point I had the thought to abandon everything.

But one obsession was spinning in my head: “Zentangle is already in my blood … Recorded in DNA” This is how this tangle was born and several works with it. Now it’s unlikely that I’ll ever think to say goodbye to Zentangle!

(Oh boy, dare I say it …) DNA shares DNA with CZT Sue Jacobs’ Coil tangle. I found it helpful to start DNA the way Coil begins by first creating parallel rows of pen dot pairs which you then join with reversed “lazy S” strokes. I’ve added exaggerated red dots over Elena’s Step 1 to show what I mean. This helps keep your ribbon of DNA nice and even 🙂

Elena illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing DNA below where she features it in a lovely tile with the Zentangle-originals Pokeleaf, Fescu and a dash of Tipple.

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 elenab2 for more of Elena’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you back here on Monday!

Image courtesy insidethebeltline.biz

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
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!
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11. If you have questions about the TanglePatterns.com TANGLE GUIDE, visit the BOOK REVIEWS tab on the top menu bar of any page on the site for COMPLETE details!

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