The Joy of Zentangles.

Post Reply New Topic

I found this new book at a nearby store called Joy of Zentangle but didn't get it because they wouldn't let me use my 40% coupon. Instead, I came home and ordered it off Amazon which is loads cheaper than the $25 retail price and since certain stores insist on issuing coupons for barely anything they sell although in big letters, it says one of anything in the store 40% only to have a myriad of exclusions in very fine, small print, I feel justified to go ahead and find it online at a much lower price.

Anyway, Zentangles are patterns created using pencil, map pencils, pens, markers, crayons, just whatever you want to try using. It is supposedly good relief for your brain cells, creating your own zentangles, and you can put them in your sketchbook and have a rewarding collection of them to look through later on, even pass them down to family so they can have an heirloom of your zentangles. I like having tangible rewards rather than just the activity for the sake of doing or learning, perfecting it, but that's just me. Joy of Zentangles breaks it down from the first layer to the finish so you get this exercise on step by step processing instead of seeing a jumbled design at the end. You simply follow the steps and diagrams and you end up with the pictured zentangle and when you've gone through them, I am sure it is easy enough to come up with your own using the step by step process you have trained your brain to accomplish.

This is what zentangles look like:



Anyone draw them?

Here's a neat page I discovered on how to get started on a Zentangle Odyssey of your own:

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Zentangle

I bought some books on this but have yet to find the time/energy to get around to trying it. Some of the things people come up with using these are amazing, and there's something soothing about drawing a repetitive pattern and making it into art. I'd like to try making some sort of mandalas using Zentangles sometime.

Here's a cool site I found some time back that has lots of different tangles listed:

http://tanglepatterns.com/

I have been learning how to do Zentangle the past year. It has helped me a lot with the tons of changs. This is an example of my work.