How to draw NSTITCHES

Hello again my friends and welcome to Monday’s super easy tangles. Yep, that was plural!

Today’s two tangles, Nstitches and P1, come from a new tangler from North Carolina, Eris Swanstrom, and they’re her first on the site.

First up is Nstitches, which makes excellent use of the tangle enhancer called rounding.

Eris introduces herself and her tangles,

I’m a knitwear clothing designer and graphic artist. I stumbled across Zentangle® a couple of months ago when looking for more art deco patterns for my hobby drawings.

I was immediately impressed and excited to find Zentangle, and my best friend and I dove in head first, voraciously buying books and learning to tangle. We pretty much have tangle dates every day! We live in Raleigh, NC, and hope to make it out next year to a tangle gathering.

My humble tangle submissions come from years ago, when I went through a period where I couldn’t knit, so I *drew* knitting instead. But knitting can be complicated to draw, so I developed an “easy” method for drawing knit and purl stitches.

Also, the tangles are really fluid and can distort most excellently.

I have seen in the Tangle Directory that there are (at least) 2 knitting-based tangles, and Benio which looks similar but creates a different effect!

The two knitting-specific tangles Eris refers to are Lyndel Churchill’s Knyt, and Suzanne McNeill’s Knitting. Both Nstitches and P1 make excellent texture tangles for your tiles.

There are similar tangles beginning with zigzags but Nstitches has an interesting energetic look and feel to it that sets it apart. As Eris says, it’s fluid. Adding the rounding and shading to Nstitches is a relaxing meditation.

Nstitches is an especially perfect tangle for those new to Zentangle, or really anyone who believes their strokes must be perfect. Its loose approach helps let go of control, and go with the flow. It’s the Zen that goes with the tangles 😉

Eris illustrates two approaches to tangling Nstitches in her step-by-step instructions, in her first method she features it in a simple, “untamed” monotangle. “I hope these will bring you joy!”

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

Eris’s alternate method of tangling NStitches uses a channel grid, with this version for her Zentangle example she includes Anita Roby-Lavery’s Antidots and Beth Snoderly’s Chime.

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!

Stay tuned for P1 coming to your inbox shortly …

Check out the tag eriss for more of Eris’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

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!
10. Never miss a tangle! FREE eMAIL NEWSLETTER - visit the SUBSCRIBE page on the top menu bar of any page on the site and sign up to get notices delivered free to your inbox.

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