Final four pages of my tangling encyclopaedia - mostly Zentangle tangles toward the end

Here are the last four pages of my tangling reference project.

This one is a little sneaky, because the centre square was my contribution to Adele Bruno’s It’s a String Thing challenge #297. I did not want to stop working on my tangling encyclopaedia, but also wanted to join in this challenge -- so I combined the two.

Creating these pages has been an interesting journey. I have noticed my confidence growing, the quality of my drawing improving, and I have been more creatively relaxed. It has also revitalised my respect for the Zentangle folk -- Rick and Maria, and Maria’s daughters Molly and Martha. I had lost faith a little during their dispute over whether other groups were stealing their method, but I now feel that there is a quality of the Zentangle approach that is special.  I believe that Zen- (meditation) -tangle (drawing) is a genuine attempt to offer meditative creativity to others.

So over the last several weeks I have succeeded in being more completely present with the line I am drawing, and giving that line my full attention. Through my own meditation practice and through my drawing I have deepened my relationship with each.

Now that this project is finished, what next? I’m not sure yet, but something will arise.

Tangling Encycoplaedia including all Zentangle official tangles

I have plodded on with my tangling encyclopaedia and it is now finished. There are eighteen  reference pages in all. Toward the end of this project I decided to find and include every ‘official’ tangle of the Zentangle Inc organisation. I used the list of official tangles on Linda Farmer’s blog. Tracking some of them down was quite a task, and several do not have published step-outs. Hopefully everything I found is accurate.

I seem to have blogged up to page 10, so here are pages 11, 12, 13, and 14.

I’ll post the last four pages tomorrow.

Zendala - circular mandala-like tangleations

I have just tried out tangling mandala-like shapes for the first time. They have been in my ‘want to do’ list for a while, and finally I found time.

Zendala-Moments Template #1
Petals/Heartband/Well well who/Hut plant/Coil/Petals

 Many thanks to Annette for her Zendala Moments templates which can be found on her blog.

Zendala-Moments Template #2
Incantoo/Knase/Q-belle

Visual tangling encyclopædia – pages 9 and 10

When I started the tangling exercises for my encyclopædia I grouped the tangles in types – ribbons, grids, motifs. I started with favourite tangles, but then decided to include every tangle I had ever learned in one or more exercise. These two pages—9 and 10—are the last two that have a theme to them. It is interesting how the majority of tangles I know can be categorised as ribbon or border tangles. They far outnumber the others. There are also quite a lot of grid patterns.
I think these two pages illustrate a change in the quality of my line. This was where I started to slow down and become more meditative in my execution. I think the evolving ribbon of exercise 9 is fun. They flow into one another quite nicely. I enjoyed trying to draw the spiral patterns in a spiral shape from the classic printemps centre in exercise 10 – though it did lose its structure a little part way through.

Exercise 10  –  spirals

Exercise 9 – ribbons

Tangle exercises – creating a visual encyclopædia

I realised—belatedly—that what I was in fact doing with my tangle exercises, was creating my own visual encyclopædia. I already have my sketchbook with drawings of step-outs, and my spreadsheet of tangle names with their location in my sketchbook and some hints at what they are, but these exercises seem to be a more immediately accessible means of viewing the tangles. Realising this, I then had to go back through the exercises and name all the tangles. They are a bit like the zentangle spinner—which I still intend to make one day—in offering a method of choosing what to play with in a tangling session.

Exercise 6 – ribbons

Exercise 7 – ribbons

I now have 13 exercises which include a visual reference to all 470 of the tangles that I have learned so far. It has been an interesting journey. I have discovered forgotten tangles. I have developed an appreciation for tangles that made no impression on me when I first encountered them, or did not appeal to me. I have recognised that some tangles I will possibly never draw again because they do not draw me in (if you’ll excuse the pun).

Exercise 8 – grid tangle fragments

Exercise 8 will be ongoing as I learn new grid patterns. Currently it is 2½ pages, two of which are shown above.
Creating the encyclopædic pages has changed my relationship with tangling. My drawing has become slower and more meditative. Through drawing so many tangles one after another, I have noticed patterns of similarity, clever techniques used in different ways, and many other insights. I have developed a confidence that allows me to be more playful in combining tangles, or developing them through experimentation. I am grateful to the many tanglers who have taught me so much.

Tangling in 2019

Last year I joined the Its’s a String Thing community and created a tile for most of Adele Bruno’s weekly challenges hosted on her site Tickled to Tangle. It was fun. here is one of my favourites for that year. They are posted on Instagram.

I enjoyed learning new tangles and being stretched by working within the parameters of the challenge. I am grateful to Adele for her commitment to posting weekly challenges, and impressed with her skill in combining tangles and a string that can evoke such beautiful and inspiring tiles from the contributors.
This year I am not going to contribute to the challenge every week. I’ll continue to check in and see which tangles are included, and also to view everyone’s contributions for ongoing inspiration, but I am going to play with tangling in a different way this year.
I started by making an analysis of all the tangles I have learned, from multiple sources, for which I have noted the step-outs – 433 so far. I do not record the step-outs for every new tangle that I come across because some are so similar to ones I already know – perhaps with just an extra line, a spiral detail, or an aura, or so on. It was noticing this that made me understand that new tangles arise from playing with known tangles. I can do that!
From my analysis I have identified some personal categories:

• tangles that grow and/or are random
• tangles with a spiral element
• ribbons and borders
• motifs
• grid tangles
• striping
• radiating
• overlapping
• optical illusions 

There are many tangles that fall into two or more categories. For example, border tangles often work just as well in a grid, and vice versa; radiating, overlapping and motif tangles can be combined or changed by putting them in a grid or a border structure, or letting them grow. The point of doing this analysis was to develop my artwork and move beyond the domination of step-outs. I had needed that guidance and stage in my process, but now I am ready to stretch in another way.

This is my analysis of the elements of border patterns:

I was surprised at how few basic elements there were. I may not create this type of analysis for each category, but I hope to create an exercise for each. I have completed the first one so far, a border tangles exercise:

It was great fun to create. I’m working on a second exercise based on motifs at the moment. It will take a while, but I’ll post it when I’m finished. Bye for now!

Inktober Zentangles – 28 to 31

October Inktober is over – and it’s been a great experience. I’ve really enjoyed drawing every day. I’ve enjoyed the simplicity of a single pattern executed with a pen and shaded with a pencil. Having said that, I am looking forward to adding a little colour to my next tile.
The Inktober experience has been valuable in honing the quality of my line, slowing me down, and enabling me to explore the possibilities of a single pattern at a time. If my life allows it, I will certainly get involved again next year. As another trip to Bhutan is planned for October/November 2019, however, I may have to miss a year or only take part for some of it.

28 – Oybay

29 – Wud

30 – Frunky

31 – Cruffle

Inktober Zentangles – 23 to 27

Here are my tiles for October 23rd to October 27th.

23 – Ixorus 

24 – Patience

25 – Sand swirl

26 – Q-belle

27 – Cross-ur-heart

Only four more tiles to go to complete the Inktober Zentangle challenge. I am pasting the tiles into a book, and am a little behind with this aspect of the project, but it will be a nice to have them all displayed there.

Inktober Zentangles – 18 to 22

I had thought that drawing a zentangle every day would make me feel that I had to draw fast. In fact quite the opposite has happened. The experience has become slower and more meditative. I seem to take my time over each line and be more focussed.

Here are my tiles from October 18th through to the 22nd.

18 – Luv-A

19 – Abeko

20 – W2

I wasn’t happy with this one after I had finished it. I am not a huge fan of geometric grid patterns anyway – which is why I drew it with wiggly lines. It has grown on me however.

21 – Hamadox

 I love the organic flow of this tangle.

22 – Yuma

Inktober zentangles – 13th to 17th

Here are the next five of my tiles for the Inktober Zentangles challenge. The five tangles for these days were: Dewd, Ando, Inapod, Joki, and Narwal. I knew Dewd and Inapod already, but the other three were new to me.

13 – Dewd

Dewd had been a tangle that did not really attract my interest when I first came across it. It seemed a bit simple and obvious. However, in using it for a monotangle I quickly realised it is far more clever and subtle a pattern than my first impression grasped. In fact I had to discard my first attempt at a tile because I kept making mistakes in drawing the tangle. Although it looks like the inner lines create separate areas, the white background is in fact continuous. Fascinating. This is one of the things I love about zentangle.

14  – Ando

Ando is a lovely ribbon pattern. I decided to use it to create a zen-button. I’m happy with the result.

15 – Inapod

16 – Joki

I love the swirls of Joki and am sure to use it again.

17 – Narwal

I couldn’t wait to start drawing when I saw this tangle. So clever and so lovely.

Inktober zentangles

We have the builders in at home at the moment, which is a most distracting experience. Sometimes they turn up, and sometimes they don’t. When they turn up their work is first class, but they are so unreliable that they are already a week behind schedule. Today was a no-show day, so I went for a long walk once I had given up on them. It was good to be out in the windy weather, away from our half-finished lounge.

I’m catching up with my Inktober tangles. Here are my tiles for 7th - 12th October. The 12th of October tile is also my zentangle for the IAST challenge #264, which happened to include the tangle heartswell.

07 - onion drops

08 - cockles 'n' mussels

09 - fe-ba

10 - sez

11 - copada

12 - heartswell

Zentangle Inktober – fleavy and pais

The prompts for October 5th and 6th were the tangles Fleavy and Pais. I really like both of these.

Fleavy

Pais

Zentangle Inktober – Facets

The tangle for October 4th was Facets. I am not a huge fan of grid patterns. There are a few I like, such as Cubine which looks fabulous for creating a 3D effect. I used it in the tile below.

To find some inspiration from the prompt of Facets—taking responsibility for my limitation—I decided to use a cell of it as the string, and then tangle Facets within that framework. I’m quite pleased with the result and enjoyed creating the tile. Maybe I will be able to overcome my prejudice against grid patterns!

Zentangle Inktober -- Ginilli

Ginilli is a very soothing tangle to draw. As the tile turned out, it reminds me of seaweed rather than flowers.

Zentangle Inktober

Inktober is an idea that has been around for a while -- creating ink artwork through the month of October following prompts. In recent years it has been adopted by the Zentangle community. The prompts for Zentangle Inktober are particular tangles each day. I found out about it for the first time half way through October last year. This year I am joining in completely. It is quite a challenge to create a zentangle every day for a month, and I do not know whether I will succeed. It will be fun to try.

Here are my contributions for October 1st and 2nd.

01 -- Mooka

02 -- Yah with string #124

I am thinking of making all the Inktober tiles monotangles (just the single tangle as prompted), and all just in black ink and pencil. This may change as the month progresses. Yah was a new tangle for me and I really enjoyed learning it. Quite a few of the tangles over the month are new to me, so that will be fun.