How to draw BARTOM

San Antonio, Texas tangler Allyn Johnson shares her fun Bartom tangle with us and it’s her second on the site.

Be sure to check out her Contacted tangle too.

Allyn writes,

“I love round, bubbly forms in tangles, and I came up with this one day.

I named it Bartom because the patterns remind me of both a barbell and models of an atomic compound.

It’s a good filler and so versatile. Enjoy!“

Bartom makes use of the Hollibaugh technique of drawing behind as you’ll note at the third and fourth steps. Allyn gives these tips:

Vary “bubble” size and line length for different effects.

Use different patterns inside the bubbles.

For a variation, connect more than one bubble together (see Step 6).

My brain is hardwired for “organization” so it’s not unusual for me get a bit of a mental block when it comes to doing “random”. So-o-o-o-o … For my eventual example of Allyn’s Bartom I started by placing the paired strokes of Step 1, the “handles”, in a somewhat zigzag formation down the tile. From there I started at one corner and added the bubbles with the drawing behind part to link them together. Random, but organized! Happy brain 🙂

Allyn illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Bartom below where she features it with variations in a ZIA with Sayantika Ray’s Organic and Helen Williams’s Steps tangles. And I agree with Allyn: “so versatile” with fills, color, scale … even organization if you need want it!

Image copyright the artist and used with permission, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please feel free to refer to the steps images to recreate this tangle in your personal Zentangles and ZIAs, or to link back to this page. However the artist and TanglePatterns.com reserve all rights to these images and they must not be publicly pinned, altered, reproduced or republished. They are for your personal offline reference only. Thank you for respecting these rights. For more information, click on the image for the article “Copyrights and your blog.”

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 comment helps motivate them to continue to share!

Check out the tag allynj for more of Allyn’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

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Like some help with shading your Zentangles?

It's fun and easy — forget about traditional "art rules" for shading, this is Zentangle and those rules do not apply!

As we are coached in the chapter on Shading in the Zentangle PRIMER Vol 1, "Ignore the light source ... in Zentangle shading we do not consider the type or direction of the light source. ... More often, shading is a component of the tangle itself that we use to play with dimension, emphasis, and contrast."

Everything you need to know is here in two free tutorials on TanglePatterns.

1. TanglePatterns Shading Mini Clinic, Part 1 by CZT Marizaan van Beek, and
2. TanglePatterns Shading Mini Clinic, Part 2 by CZT Sandy Bartholomew

You can always locate these and many other helpful tutorials by visiting the TUTORIALS tab on the pink alphabetic tangle menu bar as shown here:

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