WinterZendala from Jean Theurkauf on Vimeo.
Using just a simple compass, a basic string is drawn. Filling the string are many tangles, including the official tangles: Zinger, Betweed, and Flux. Please visit http://www.artofthetangle.com/classes.php#zendalas-and-mandalas to learn more about how to draw your own Zendala strings.
Zentangle(r) Inspired Art for the Holidays from Jean Theurkauf on Vimeo.
Using simple shapes, create a Holiday inspired Zentangle(r) piece. Created by Jean Theurkauf, www.ArtoftheTangle.com
One of my favorite things to do with Zentangle(r) is to add color. I have done quite a bit of experimenting, comparing brands, and have settled on Caran d’Ache Supracolor Watercolor pencils
Caran d’Ache doesn’t have the waxiness that other brands like Derwent, Prismacolor and Koh I Noor do, which means they are easier to blend and mix when water is added. readmore….
The superior quality of these Swiss-made pencils is well worth the price. I have purchased a large selection of colors to offer students, with an eye
toward collections of colors that work well together.
There are collections of brights, pretties, bolds, jewels, muted, lights, and so on.
A number of students have asked for help selecting colors, I am happy to help!
I will be highlighting special color combinations, and will be offering them for sale.
Each collection will have 6 colors that can be used together, and layered for beautiful color work on Zentangles and other types of drawings.
Each pencil collection comes packaged in a nice clear tube for easy storage and access.
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This month’s collection celebrates the beauty of the New England autumn.
Zentangle in Autumn Evening Colors
The evenings, just before sunsets are truly magical, the sky turns a deep indigo, the sun, at a low angle in the sky, makes the yellows, oranges of the leaves shine.
Click to Order
I ran across this article by Elliot Eisner. It speaks to why art is so important in education. Many of the points he makes are so applicable to Zentangle ® that I thought I’d share it here:
By Elliot Eisner
The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships. Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.
The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.
The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.
The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.
The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor number exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.
The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects. The arts traffic in subtleties.
The arts teach students to think through and within a material. All art forms employ some means through which images become real.
The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said. When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.
The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.
The arts’ position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young what adults believe is important.
SOURCE: Eisner, E. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach and How It Shows. (pp. 70-92). Yale University Press. Available from NAEA Publications.
I especially like the points made, that problems can have more than one solution, and that we celebrate multiple perspectives.
Its always amazing to me how different beginning students first tiles are, when they are all given the same instructions!
Here are a couple of examples from recent classes
Its so nice to see spring coming along! The forsythia in Massachusetts are in full bloom, and little green things are poking up everywhere!
I ordered a batch of the new Zendala tiles from Zentangle, and just had to try them out! A rainy day was a good day to do some tangling.
I turned the process into a little slide show. Not exactly a very “zen” experience, but pretty fun anyway.
Zentangle (r) Zendala ~ Welcome Spring! from Jean Theurkauf on Vimeo.
While image use without regard to copyright and proper attribution has been a problem for a long time, the sudden popularity of Pinterest seems to have brought the issue to the fore recently.
I have been using a great little tool.. Light Image Resizer… to resize images before uploading them, and to add watermarks.
You can download it here .
I’ve also created a video tutorial using Light Image Resizer to help get you started.
Bleeding Hearts, a beautiful early spring bloomer, and a great valentine tangle.
One of my recent students shared these beautiful Zentangle Inspired Valentines with me. I’m constantly amazed at the talents that people discover that they have and that they share 
Thank you Connie! Your work is so beautiful
I am always blown away by beginning students’ Zentangles. Such a variety in drawing style! Each one so different from the next, and each one so beautiful..
A recent “Taste of Zentangle” beginning Zentangle class really reminded me of how a group of people, each hearing the same instructions, can interpret them in such different ways.
This mosaic shows such diversity of style in a beginning Zentangle Class
A closer view shows the beauty of each student's work
Its always fun to see how blown away the students are by their own work!
The group admires the artworks of each other
Another class at Western Ave Studios consisted of two students who were mathematically/engineering inclined, one a mechanical engineer, the other a systems engineer turned professional weaver. You can see how meticulous their pieces are.
Some brand new Zentangle artists create beautiful, meticulous Zentangles
Other students, like these at a class a few months ago in Worcester, approach Zentangle in a more freeflowing way.
Other approach Zentangle in a really freeflowing way
Just reminds me again, that there is no “right” way and no “wrong” way… just fun!
This gallery contains 3 photos.
Last weekend, I demoed Zentangle for 5 hours in beautiful (but a bit windy) weather at Worcester’s Annual StArt on the Street Art festival. I hear the crowd attendance was around 35,000 people! 250 artisans, numerous musical and other kinds … Continue reading