Hi everyone, hope you’re all enjoying a relaxing Labor Day weekend 🙂
It’s hard to believe but for the first time in a very long while — as Labor Day is traditionally the peak of our hurricane season — we aren’t in some kind of storm monitoring mode here in South Florida. It sure makes for a change and it feels pretty wonderful not to be in that uncertainty kind of Labor Day headspace!
Dancer is today’s sweet and easy Monday tangle and it’s from Missouri CZT LaJuania Dorman. Dancer is LaJuania’s first on the site.
LaJuania has been a member of our Zentangle® community for a few years and last year she took advantage of Zentangle’s first online certification seminar, CZT36 to become a Certified Zentangle Teacher.
She introduces herself and her Dancer tangle:
I live in Kansas City, Missouri. I’m a proud wife, mother of two, grandmother of five, great-grandmother of six, and 6 grand-dogs!
My Zentangle journey began in October 2017 shortly after I retired. I was “window-shopping” in a local hobby store and picked up a very interesting book titled “The Joy of Zentangle”. Being a frustrated artist, I was intrigued by the concept. Right then and there I bought the book and all of the suggested supplies to get started. I worked my way through that book and many more, as well as watching multiple YouTube instructional videos, finding Rick and Maria and “Z” crew a well as many talented and creative artists. Finally, in 2020, I was fortunate to participate in CZT36, the first-ever online CZT seminar.
As a CZT, my interest lies in sharing my love of Zentangle with anyone that shows an interest! I currently have three ladies in my “Beginnings” class. This is finally a job that I love doing, BUT, I’m retired! How fun is that.
The tangle Dancer evolved as many tangles do; a mis-stroke of a familiar and comfortable tangle. But, since “there are no mistakes in Zentangle,” (according to our wise founders) I just kept tangling to see how it would develop.
Dancer can act as a focal point and it can also make an pretty frame around a tile, ribbon-style. Perhaps influenced by Day 3 in Project Pack #15, I decided to “beef up” Dancer‘s C-shape curves just a tad in my example. It is fun to play with shapes and sculpt them with the Micron.
LaJuania illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Dancer below where she pairs it in a simple Zentangle tile with the Zentangle-originals Pokeleaf, Pokeroot, Flux and a touch 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. Click the image for an article explaining what copyright means in plain English. “Always let your conscience be your guide.” ~ Jiminy Cricket
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 lajuaniad for more of LaJuania’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.
Shana Tova to all our Jewish friends!
Sunset tonight marks the beginning of the two-day Jewish New Year celebration of Rosh Hashanah.
Related Links
- 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.
- What is a Zentangle? — if you are new to the Zentangle Method, start here for the fundamentals.
- Zentangle terminology — a glossary of terms used in this art form.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
- How to submit your pattern deconstruction to TanglePatterns
- 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.
- 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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September 6, 2021 | 
More like this: 
Lovely! Because I earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Dance from U.C. Irvine (in the previous century), the name of this tangle immediately caught my eye. 🙂 Its graceful combination of curves sent me right to my studio for pen and paper. I love playing with such versatile tangles! Thank you, LaJuania. I hope you’ll continue to create and share your tangles with the Zentangle world!
What a lovely tangle! I like the different ways you showed shading it! It is amazing to me what a difference a little graphite makes in a design! Keep up the wonderful work! Thank you!
Lovely tangle that I played with tonite. Thank you .
Thanks for sharing. Looks like a fun one I’ll have to have a play with soon.