Hello there!
For some of us today is a holiday Monday off, for some of us it’s Thanksgiving Day (Oh Canada!), and for all of us it’s the start of another new week full of possibilities.
We begin our week with an easy tangle full of fun possibilities.
Taiwan CZT Mina Hsiao’s 3CJ is a simple fragment composed – as you might guess – from 3 C-shaped curves and then a J shape. But oh the creative opportunities and Mina shares a quite few.
3CJ is Mina’s 19th tangle on the site. (Be sure to check out all of Mina’s other tangles on the site!) She introduces this fun exploration and share more tiles with us:
I am so excited when drawing 3CJ because there are many possible combinations that I want to share with you.
My inspiration comes from a wrought iron railing image on the web.
I try to finish some combinations. I hope you will try to draw it.
In this tile Mina has fun with 3CJ in a wonky grid:
As you can see, changing the grid and/or repeating, mirroring and rotating the 3CJ fragment generates a variety of different looks. And that’s without exploring adding graphite or various fill ideas.
Mina illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing 3CJ below where she shows yet another way of mirroring the fragment to create another meta-pattern.
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. (Small side note: if you look at the legalese in Pinterest, you are legally responsible for obtaining permission to post every photo that gets ‘Pinned’. Giving credit or sharing the source link doesn’t count.) 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 minah for more of Mina’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.
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Zentangle's Elemental Strokes
For those who aren't familiar with Zentangle's elemental strokes for deconstructing a pattern to be drawn as a tangle,
“Usually the number of elemental strokes needed are 3 or less. Often, you only need one or two.
By ‘elemental strokes’ we mean a dot, a straight(-ish) line, a curve (like a parenthesis), a reverse curve (like an ‘S’), and an orb or circle.“ ~ from the Zentangle blog
For an ingenious example of these elemental strokes used together as a tangle, be sure to check out CZT® Mina Hsiao’s Dicso. (Note: not disco!)
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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
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- 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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October 9, 2023 | 
More like this: 
graceful, lovely, and looks very useful.
Very pretty tangle.
Very elegant tangle . Also very relaxing to create. Enjoying it a lot. We are in the mist of moving so it is keeping me relaxed an not so stressed.
What a fun one Mina. Thanks for sharing.
This tangle is so very beautiful and airy. Thank you for sharing it with us.