How to draw UZU

Hello there my fine tangling friends!

As a citizen of both the USA and of Canada — the latter, my birthplace and where my dear family resides — today I sing “O Canada!” in recognition of Canada Day, a national holiday celebrating the anniversary of its confederation in 1867. July 1st is Canada’s version of July 4th, complete with the picnics, BBQs, street parties, burgers, hot dogs and fireworks. So …

.oOo.

With Hurricane Beryl, our first and earliest Category 4 Hurricane on record in the Atlantic Ocean out there and today menacing the Windward Islands, it seemed fitting to me to have a tangle that goes around and around! By all accounts 2024’s storm season promises to be “hyperactive”, fingers crossed we all remain safe but a Cat 4 this early in the year?? Oy, scary omen …

Japanese CZT Tomomi Kamiya’s Uzu is our sweet tangle for today and it’s her first on the site.

Tomomi includes this lovely ZIA Zendala featuring Uzu as the focal point.

Tomomi’s Uzu was inspired by whirlpools, as she explains:

The ‘Uzushio’ in Japan is famous.

In the ocean, fast currents collide with slow ones, creating whirlpools.

I wanted to tangle the rhythm of spirals, and when I drew it, it turned into something like a flower.

Such is the popularity of whirlpools in Japan there are even sightseeing boats to see “the world’s greatest whirlpools”. The video at the top of that page is pretty impressive! Coincidentally, Canada’s Maid of the Mist also offers sightseeing trips for visitors to view the whirlpools created by Niagara Falls. Just sayin’.

Tomomi illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Uzu below and shows us a few simple ways to vary it.

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Check out the tag tomomik for more of Tomomi’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

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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.
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