Saturday, August 8, 2020

My New Tangle: POKEVINE

 Pokevine is inspired by original Zentangle Headquarters tangle, Pokeleaf, as well as by mandalas and henna decorations.  It can be drawn in a circle or as a border.  I like the aura-ed outer crescents.  I imagine you can also add inner ones, as well as many other variations.  For me, it is very alive and organic, perhaps a reference to the circle of life, the tree of life.  It is also delicate and almost like lace.  Enjoy!






Sunday, June 28, 2020

Summer Tangles Challenge 2020

It's that time again--our third annual Summer Tangles Challenge! 

This year, I think we need some solace so we're focusing on comfort tangles for challenging times.  Simply take a look at the list, choose any tangles, create a tile with that tangle and others--and then share it at #summertangles2020.  If you don't see one of your favorite tangles, do it instead.  It's meant to be easy, enjoyable, and encouraging.  I'll be posting my tiles on Instagram @yankeetangler as well as on FB: https://www.facebook.com/summertangleschallenge

Hope to see your tiles this summer!




Thursday, June 25, 2020

Zentangle™ as Spiritual Practice: A Drawing Meditation


Zentangle as Spiritual Practice: A Drawing Meditation

Jamie W. Johnson, Ph.D., CZT



Overview
Zentangle™is a fun and easy-to-use technique to create beautiful patterns with a focus on staying in the moment and mindfulness. In this particular lesson, you will quickly learn how to create an image using repetitive patterns around a word, phrase or symbol that is meaningful to you. While there are a plethora of fine art supplies available, I have suggested basic supplies to stress that you can practice this anywhere—all you need is pen and paper.

In Zentangle™practice, we say there are “no mistakes.” This is not about creating a perfect product but about how you feel while you draw, which is why I emphasize that it is a “practice.” Adults often say they are not artists, but anyone can learn Zentangle™. The prescribed 8-step process is designed by Zentangle™ founders Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts to help overcome artistic self-doubt. We also say, “Anything is possible one step at a time.” Follow the steps below and you will have a valuable experience with a final product at the end.

This particular lesson has been adapted from the original Zentangle™ method in order to accentuate the spiritual contemplation of the participant. In an unpublished research project, I found that 99% of survey respondents describe their Zentangle™ practice as improving their emotional well-being, while more than half specifically defined it as a spiritual practice.[1] As chaplains, spiritual caregivers, and mental health professionals understand, self-care is important in building resilience and coping with difficult events such as grief, loss, and trauma. Hopefully, this practice will become part of your spiritual self-care toolkit.
Supplies:
  • paper
  • pen
  • pencil

Procedure:
*Please see the video that accompanies this lesson plan: https://youtu.be/J0PXO8T5mrA


  1. Gratitude and appreciation: Gather your supplies. Take a moment of stillness and quiet before beginning. Breathe in, breathe out. Say a prayer or give thanks before beginning.
  2. Corner dots: With your pencil, on your piece of paper, put one dot in each corner to make a square large enough to write and draw in. This will be your practice space.
  3. Border: With your pencil, connect those dots lightly. The line does not need to be straight. While we call this the border, you do not need to stay in the lines!
  4. String: Now with your pen, in the middle of your square, write a word (love, hope, joy, or even a short phrase or verse) or draw an image (heart, peace sign, star, cross, etc.), or combine the two. If you include words, you might want to outline the whole shape of the text. You can also subdivide the remaining space, with your pencil, to make smaller spaces to fill.
  5. Tangle: Now add your patterns! A pattern (or tangle) is a series of repetitive steps drawn to create a beautiful design.
  6. Shade: Add pencil shading to create patterns of light and dark. This does not need to create a sense of a single light source but is just another kind of pattern. Remember, you must leave some parts light to accentuate the dark shades.
  7. Initial and date: You can even create a special symbol or signature for all of your drawings.
  8. Appreciate: Look at what you’ve created! Give thanks for this time of meditation and creativity.


Suggested Online Resources
  • Official Zentangle™ website: zentangle.com
  • A treasure trove of tangle patterns with instructions (“step-outs”): tanglepatterns.com
  • Google “Zentangle”—there are a multitude of resources on YouTube, Pinterest, and personal websites. “CZT” indicates that a person has received trainings and certification from the Zentangle™ founders


About Me
I am a Certified Zentangle™ Teacher (CZT) who practices and teaches in Connecticut under the name “Yankee Tangler.” I also hold a Ph.D. in art history and spent a decade creating and overseeing education programs in art museums. Now, as a student in the Masters of Divinity program at Hartford Seminary, I am journeying to become a hospice chaplain. As a Unitarian Universalist, I believe each person explores their own spiritual path of growth. Zentangle™ practice has been one of mine.  

Follow me at:




[1] Jamie W. Johnson, “Zentangle™ as Spiritual Practice: Surveying a Community,” Hartford Seminary, unpublished paper, December 19, 2019.  See abstract at https://yankeetangler.blogspot.com/2020/05/abstract-zentangle-as-spiritual.html

Monday, May 18, 2020

ABSTRACT Zentangle™ as Spiritual Practice: Surveying a Community

Zentangle as Spiritual Practice: Surveying a Community[1]
Jamie W. Johnson, Ph.D., CZT

tile by the author

Abstract
Created by Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts, the Zentanglemethod is a fun and easy-to-use technique to create beautiful patterns with a focus on staying in the moment and mindfulness.[2]  Thousands of adults have been trained as Certified Zentangle Teachers (CZT), offering classes to students and practicing the art form all over the world.  While Zentangle is promoted by companies selling supplies and workshops, including the official Zentangle headquarters, as meditative and stress-reducing, I set out to investigate how practitioners themselves view their Zentangle practice.   My main research questions were “Do Zentangle practitioners view their experiences as spiritual?” and “How do online communities contribute to their Zentangle practice?”  Utilizing an online questionnaire, I surveyed 82 “tanglers”—people who practice the Zentangle method—about their artistic practice, its personal meaning for them, their online habits, and their own spiritual or faith practices.  Overall, my research project found that 99% of the respondents described Zentangle in terms of their emotional well-being.  Words such as self-esteem, satisfaction, pride, relaxation, calm, and peace appear repeatedly.  Many participants reported that they viewed Zentangle as a spiritual practice in which they engaged to maintain that sense of calm throughout their lives.  Even more than that, some people indicated that their Zentangle practices had wide-ranging, transformative effects on their lives, from living with physical pain to coping with the death of a loved one. As a transformative spiritual practice, Zentangle can best be understood using functional sociological frameworks.  As sociologist Nancy Ammerman describes in her introduction to Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives, “We do not assume that religion is always about ‘eternal truths’ that divide the saved and the damned.  Nor do we follow rational choice theorists in positing that religion is always about ‘supernatural rewards’ . . . . religion is bigger than the theological ideas and religious institutions about which typical surveys have inquired.”[3] There was, however, a distinct group of responders, about a quarter of participants overall, who rejected the spiritual notion of Zentangle, seeing that idea in conflict with their own, more substantive, definitions of religion.  This parallels the larger trends in American society, with religious manyness and secularization not only encouraging a wide variety and definition of spiritual activities but also creating discomfort for those with more traditional views of religion. 


[1] Jamie W. Johnson, “Zentangle as Spiritual Practice: Surveying a Community,” Hartford Seminary, unpublished paper, December 19, 2019.  The author was awarded the Hartranft Scholarship for this paper at Hartford Seminary’s commencement, May 15, 2020.
[2] “What is it?” Zentangle, https://zentangle.com/pages/what-is-the-zentangle-method [accessed December 3, 2019.]
[3] Nancy T. Ammerman, “Introduction: Observing Religious Modern Lives,” Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); 5-6.

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Tanson, a New Tangle

I have a new tangle, a rather baroque, grid-like pattern that I'm calling Tanson (a combination of my last name and my wife's, as well as a reference to "tangle.")  I think it has so many possibilities. Because of the way you create the tangle, there are two different kinds of shapes created--one is essentially rounded, the other "pointy."  You can alter the connecting shapes from "rice" or ovals, fill the interior with various tangles, add more auras, etc.

While I've seen similar patterns in architecture, upholstery, woodwork, ironwork, and the like, the most direct inspiration was a piece of embroidery I saw online:


I played around with it for awhile, first with differentiating the "m-shapes" top and bottom, and then keeping them the same through one whole iteration.  It's hard to explain verbally.

Just some practice tiles . . . .

The tile on the left has the "m-shapes" in different directions for the top and bottom of each part of the grid--they sort of look like little bats!  The tile on the right has the "m-shapes" in the same direction connecting all four "rice" shapes, which then makes two rows of slightly different shapes.

Here are two different versions of the step out, one for submission to Linda Farmer's great Tanglepatterns and the other using a CZT-template from Zentangle HQ.  



And now on tiles . . . . 

Stagger the spacing of "rice" shapes

Connect "rice" shapes with m-shapes.


Connect four rice shapes with "m-shapes" all facing the same way.

Continue in same row.


If you do every other row with rounded m-shapes, then the alternate rows appear "pointy."

Aura the shapes.

You can leave it blank or . . . .

You can add filler, alter connecting points, perhaps even change the "m-shape."
Here is a single Tanson, with Sproing, Crescent Moon, Diva Dance Rock n' Roll, and a tangleation of Diva Dance with Orbs (Diva Dance Ball??)

Here is Tanson in the corner; a single row can also be used as a border.


Happy tangling with Tanson!

Friday, May 31, 2019

Summer Tangles Challenge 2019




It's the second annual Summer Tangles Challenge!!  

Like last year, I've drawn the tangles from the current TanglePattern's 2019 Tangle Guide so that everyone has access to the step outs; the list of tangle creators is included in this wonderful resource (I highly recommend supporting Linda Farmer's efforts by purchasing the guide.)  Some are old, some new; some "official" from Zentangle HQ, most not.  There are grids, organics, fillers, borders, and more.  For the most part, I chose tangles that I have either rarely or never used so that I can add to my comfort repertoire.  I've also chosen a few techniques, or trends, popular among CZTs (Certified Zentangle Teachers) and other tanglers, such as marginalia, inkless tangling, and Zentwining.  I'll post my tiles here, on my FB page, and on Instagram ("yankeetangler"), and encourage others to post their own, using #summertangles2019.  Below I include an explanation of some of the terms, with links and examples.

The Zentangle Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns.  It was originated by Maria and Rick Thomas.  For more information or to find a Certified Zentangle Teacher near you, visit Zentangle HQ.


Have fun experimenting and spread the word!





July 4:  Ellish
July 5: Icantoo
July 6: técnica seca*:  María Tovar's inkless tangling
July 7:  Bilt
July 8: Counterpoint
July 9: Surf’s Up
July 10:  Wholly Hollibaugh
July 11:  Marginalia*: decorative borders or embellishments
July 12: Andante
July 13: Enthatching*:  Hatching technique described in Twelve Days of Zentangle video
July 14: Ticking
July 15: D’eneh
July 16:  Ribbon Rose
July 17: Cindyer
July 18:  Cartouche*:  A decorative frame highlighted in Zentangle Project Pack #5
July 19: SlowPoke
July 20:  Antique
July 21: BRRRST
July 22: A-frame
July 23: Copada
July 24:  Beadlines
July 25:  Sproing*:  A tendril-like aura, introduced in Twelve Days of Zentangle video (around 5:40)
July 26: 1 2 3 O’Leary
July 27: Fe-ba
July 28: Dewd
July 29: Frunky
July 30:  Cirquital
July 31:  Ratoon
August 1:  Zentwining*:  See Lynn Mead's tutorial
August 2: Mazorito
August 3:  Tamisolo
August 4: Avreal
August 5: Dooleedo
August 6: ½ Orbs
August 7: Scarabou
August 8:  Cookie Cutter string:  see my upcoming post
August 9:  Double Double
August 10: Knyt
August 11:  Gutz
August 12:  Barquillos
August 13:  Well Well Who
August 14: Eleganza
August 15:   Rose Window*:  See Melinda Barlow's video
August 16: Narwhal
August 17:  Caracole
August 18: Zig Zag Track
August 19: Alaura
August 20: Crezendo
August 21: Loop
August 22:  Dingsplazt*:  See this Kitchen Table Tangle video
August 23:  Hexonu
August 24: Konked
August 25:  Pendrils
August 26:  Blankett
August 27: Swimz
August 28: 8C
August 29:  Roscoe
August 30: Vea
August 31: B-Leaf
September 1: Romanancy*: a technique now named for the late Nancy Sampson
September 2:  Courant