I’m going to share a few more of my doodles here, but I may not blog them anymore. I have been sharing them on the Flickr Zentangle group, there is a lot of inspiration there and they are very supportive with comments.
Isn’t “Funtangle” a great name for what I’m doing. I stole it from a friend, not sure if she couldn’t remember the term Zentangle or was just having fun, I sure am.
I’m having way too much fun with this, I’m either drawing or searching the internet for other peoples work. Besides a number of blogs, I’ve found the Flickr Zentangle Group and have even posted a few there, it’s wonderful to get comments and they seem a very supportive group.
Here are a few more Links:
Tanglepatterns.com – a great directory of instructions for patterns
The Pacific Northwest has had a lot of rain this spring. We had some lovely sunshine early on, which gave me high hopes for my flower garden, but many of my annuals, zinnias and cosmos, have literally melted away. Today is suppose to be a brief break with a record setting high for the year of 75 degrees, but while I’m waiting for the sun to warm the yard, I thought I’d show some pictures I took yesterday afternoon when the rain finally stopped.
Iris with raindrops, they’ve put on a great show and are about done.
My first Peony to fully open. I should have lots more from today’s sunshine, the plants are heavy with buds.
Blue Delphinium at it’s best.
Perennial Sweet Williams, a consistent early spring bloomer. Thank you!
Milky Way Dogwood, this is our first bloom. When I purchased and planted the tree last year I posted a picture that I found on the internet of what it would look like, and that post is the most looked at one of my blog for some reason. These blooms are really on our small tree, they are all on the top so I held the camera over the tree and snapped.
Another regular volunteer this lovely columbine.
They are pink! Who knew. I planted this perennial 4 years ago, it comes up early and is a favorite of slugs, so I never have seen blooms before. The plant managed to get big enough this year before the slugs came out in force, to bloom. A storm caused the plant to lay over against the deck, but I’m thrilled to just see flowers on it.
Lovely texture in the natural vegetation. Although I was using the close up setting on my camera, I didn’t get good detail in this shot, I’ll have to learn how to do that better. On the far left you see some jagged nettle leaves. Peeking out from the leaves on the upper left are some interesting berries. The wild Queen Annes Lace is thriving in the yard this year, there is one that is probably 10 feet tall, it will be a nuisance soon but I’ll enjoy it for now. And Ferns, gotta love the ferns.
I first tried to Zentangle a year ago, but recently I’ve renewed my interest and have some reasonable results.
Zentangle is the copywritten name of a system of doodling where you use repeating forms. Their official website is
and they offer classes and sell kits but you can “zentangle” with any kind of pen or pencil and paper. I started with pencils and ball point pens on scrap white paper, but I’ve progressed to using a Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen (black – S) and drawing on a Strathmore Sketch Pad. The pad is spiral bound (8.5” x 5.5") so it’s handy to move around with me, I keep it by my computer to sketch while I waiting for a page to load, or to quickly record ideas that I see when browsing blogs. Pigma pens (Sakura Pigma Micron) are also used by many tanglers. I now have 4 different pen tip sizes for different line sizes.
There is a wealth of information and examples on the internet. Just Google the word “Zentangle” and you will be offered many places to explore, examples, lessons, you-tube videos, Flickr groups, and of course blogs, several of which I have subscribed to for inspiration.
http://zentangle.blogspot.com/ is published by the creators of the Zentangle system. Of course they are selling their kits and classes, but they also freely share a lot of designs.
There is a strong correlations between free motion quilting designs and zentangle designs, so of course a lot of quilters are attracted to Zentangling. That’s how I stumbled upon Jane Monk’s studio, the first post I read showed a Journal cover she had machine quilted in a Zentangle type design. Her blog is a constant inspiration to me for creating new designs.
A few other places to get you started:
Life Imitates Doodles where the author not only shares her own patterns, but includes links to many other great designs.
