Park Hill Art Club Zentangle Workshop

I had a wonderful Saturday tangling with some talented ladies (watercolor, oil, and acrylic painters, and even a floutist) from the Park Hill Art Club in Denver. Micheon coordinated a spacious, sunny room at the neighborhood Methodist Church. She supplied us with a table full of comforting treats, and we settled in to a day of learning the Zentangle drawing method. After lunch we powered through learning as many tangles as possible and progressed to a "Botangle" piece.

My sample Botangle; an anemone that I provided a template contour for as a final exercise.

My happy, "zenified" class.

Works in progress.

My special reward came today when one of the ladies emailed me this story and her image of a card she tangled for a friend after the class; "Here is my rendition of the flower. I will send it to my 81-year old friend who received her 3rd cancer diagnosis last week. What to say? A get well card? Hardly. But, if I send a Zentangle card every week, maybe I'll entice her into a Zen art activity. Thanks, Annie for the inspiration!"

This is why I love teaching art, especially Zentangle.

Monotangles in 2015

This is my first post of the new year, 2015, and I'd like to focus on "monotangles" as Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas call them. (Rick and Maria are the founders of the Zentangle method. See Zentangle.com. A monotangle is when you use just one tangle pattern to complete a tangled tile.

Here are a few examples of mine from earlier. I'm working on one with just "Swirls." My tiles were created (in order) with "Shattuck," "Paradox," and "Mooka," The Mooka pattern started to develop into a blossom (by itself) so I kept going in that direction. NOTE: The best tangles are those that take on their own lives. Letting your inner self guide you and not a planned idea results in the most incredible, spontaneous artwork. I call these tangles "pictures of your soul."

Have fun trying this exercise! Happy New Year! I wish you all the peace and relaxation that this drawing technique brings all who try it.