My First Zentangle Class at School

Today, I had the honor and pleasure to be invited to give a Zentangle lesson at a local elementary school by a friend and neighbor who teaches there.  She had taken my very first Zentangle class a few weeks ago and wanted to share it with her fifth graders.  This was the perfect time, as school is winding down and kids are getting antsy to be indoors.

And it went wonderfully well.

My Lesson Plan for Kids' Zentangle 101

Supplies:  kits for kids (pen, pencil, 4 tiles, bookmark), Apprentice letter to parents, easel, easel pad, thick marker, gray marker for shading, black tablecloth, Apprentice video,

I.  Introduction

    A.  Have you ever felt angry, sad, scared, nervous, tired, bored, frustrated?  How did your body feel when you felt those emotions?  

    B.  One of the ways to rest and calm your body and mind is to think about your breathing.  Everyone breathes, you can do it anywhere, without any supplies--if you're tired of waiting in line or scared to go into the doctor's office.  

    C.   Short breath meditation--in through your nose, out through your mouth.  Feel the change in temperature, the breath over your lips, the rise and fall of your chest.

    D.   It's all about paying attention to the moment, going step by step.  "Anything is possible one step at a time."

   E.  Zentangle is a kind of art where you create calm, clear feelings by creating repetitive patterns in beautiful works of art (break down word "Zen"--Japanese meditation-and "tangle"--the pattern of lines.)  It combines art and mindfulness.

   F.  So let's go step-by-step through the steps of Zentangle.

        1.  Gratitude and appreciation

        2.  Corner dots

        3.  Border

        4.  String

        5.  Tangle

        6.   Shade

        7.   Initial and Sign

        8.  Appreciate again

II.  Supplies and jargon--but you don't NEED any of these

     A.  Tile

     B.  Pen (keep it capped between uses)

     C.  Pencil

     D.  Tangle

     E.  String

     F.  Auras

     G.  Sparkle

III.  First tile

      A.  Z string

      B.   Crescent moon (aura)--variations including dots between auras

      C.   Hollibaugh (draw behind), dots/outlines/black in empty spaces (or reverse and do hollibaugh black); draw crescent moon or printemps in spaces or aura space

      D.   Florz (grid)--original has boxes at intersections, but I sometimes do a heart (they drew all manner of shapes)

      E.    Printemps (sparkle)--different sizes, overlapping (draw behind)  (Idea: maybe Flux instead next time)

      F.    Some comments and ideas to touch upon meanwhile:  if you can write "iSCO" you can draw tangles, no eraser = no mistakes (but show them Bronx Cheers), what does a "hollibaugh" look like? (there is no right or real in Zentangle!),  the names of the tangles are generally non-descriptive and are short hand to make it easier to discuss, shade as part of the design (not trying to create consistent internal light source), walk around to encourage and help them, look at tile at arm's length, go your own pace, everyone is different, make it your own, go back to your breath meditation if you get frustrated, borders are made to be crossed , lines don't have to be straight  

IV.  Show Apprentice video 6 of Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas while they complete their tiles and add them to class mosaic  

     A.  Maria and Rick didn't invent patterns, they came up with the list of steps to access meditation through art; the names are non-descriptive to give us a shorthand for talking about the art and to each other

      B.  Look at class mosaic together--all different, all creative and individual--with same instructions!

      C.  Distribute Apprentice letter to parents and announce them all Zentangle Apprentices.

      D.  Now what are some of the feelings you have?  

      E.  You can tap into this feeling, creativity, and beauty whenever you need or want to

      

  Optional second tile, if time:  triangle-on-log string, with zander, pokeroot, tipple, knightsbridge (or static or flux)

I was there about an hour and they were so focused, curious, and excited.  I even gave them two extra tangles (zander and pokeroot) because they wanted to learn more, even though I had to rush them.  I pointed to the tangled border of their Apprentice letter to parents and said there were so many patterns--they could even make up some!  (If they'd name them after me.)

I was surprised with how hesitant they already were at 10 - 11 years old to make a mistake; most of them admitted being very hesitant when looking at a blank piece of paper and asked to create something.  But once we got the dots, borders, and strings on the tiles, they settled in.  Still, at each step, they wanted reassurance that they weren't "wrong" and that their designs were "good."  Both the teacher and I kept reiterating that there were no mistakes, that they made the creative choices, that different was okay.  They did experiment with their borders--several drew squiggles and loops instead of straight lines--but they were surprised when I crossed the pencil borders and my printemps invaded hollibaugh!  Even still, at the end, a couple of students wouldn't join their tile to the mosaic. 

But they begged the teacher to do more Zentangle patterns; they said they felt good when it was over.  I left the Apprentice DVD with the teacher and two extra tiles for each kid (plus some extra pens in case something broke.)  I told them they could look up Zentangle online and find all kinds of patterns, that they could make greeting cards or pencil cases or whatever they wanted.  The teacher said it was the most focused her class had ever been all year.

Maybe next year, we should offer the lesson in the beginning of the year, and then the teacher can introduce new tangles as they go and the students can add them to projects at Valentine's Day or Mother's Day; they can tangle when they are anxious about a test or done with their work.  I know I would have loved it when I was a student, just like these kids did.

My Zentangle Weekend at Kripalu

The "Tangle to Tangle" workshop at Kripalu with Zentangle founders Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts and their daughters Molly and Martha was amazing.  I attended the workshop with my mom, who has been tangling on her own for about a year and was excited to take a class and to experience the restful and rejuvenating atmosphere of the mountain retreat center.  This was a class to broaden our skills by exploring how tangles can connect together.  There's no way to capture the experience of taking a class with the Zentangle founders--their generosity with supplies, their funny stories, their easy rapport, their mantras and sayings to encourage and instruct us.  So here, I'll just detail some of the tiles we made--and encourage you to take a Zentangle class with Maria and Rick or your local CZT!

We started each of the four sessions with clearing our workspaces and then a meditation to center our minds and tap into our creativity.  And then we explored several ideas in a structured step-by-step way.  But even though we all essentially followed the same directions, each tile in the final class mosaic showed our individuality and creativity.

Tile #1

Tile #1:  hollibaugh, pokeroot, crescent moon variation

Our beginning tile introduced ideas of connecting tangles together.  Hollibaugh is one of the most useful tangles for this because the lines can easily morph into shattuck, mooka, and, here, pokeroot.  We also looked at varying tangles like crescent moon to create new effects.  We paid a lot of attention to shading to take our tiles to the next dimension.

Tile #2

Tile #2:  tripoli, rixty, fracas

Here, in the center, we played with morphing from one design into another with the decoration of tripoli.  It's hard to see in my tile because I only made a few tripoli.  Then we used the negative space of tripoli as the stems of rixty.  The triangular shape of rixty complements tripoli.  The rixty also weaves in and out of the fracas, a drama tangle of black and white that pulls everything together.

Tile #3

Tile #3:  knightsbridge, huggins variation, auras, peeld, and springkle

This started with the huggins variation (which looks a bit like an old-fashioned telephone handset) which we aura'd several times.  And then I learned the new tangle, peeld, where the line seems to just jump away from the pattern, here ending in springkle.  So cool!  Again, there is a black and white drama tangle, here knightsbridge.

Tile #4

Tile #4:  spiral string with nzeppel, mooka, perfs, and pokeleaf

Here we practiced intertwining mooka and pokeleafs, with perfs and the black filler to emphasize the tangles. The spiral string complements the Zendala's round shape. 

Tile #5

Tile #5:  crescent moon variation, Bronx cheer, squid, and perfs

This renaissance tile has so much going on:  dots in the crescent moon to mirror the perfs, same with the Bronx cheer; the etching technique in the squid leaves; the intricate shading in graphite and white charcoal of the whole thing.  

Bonus:  On Saturday night, as part of a fun activity, we all decorated Zentangle pencil cases that they gave us.  It's a canvas bag covered in Mod Podge Fabric, which takes ink better.  We used an Identi-pen and a Fabrico gray marker for shadows.  And you can see where I tried to connect tangles together.

Thank you, Maria, Rick, Molly, and Martha for a great weekend at Kripalu.  My mom and I loved it--and are hoping to attend if you offer it again!

Peace, Love, and Zentangle

My son's tile, after my first Zentangle class on Friday:

Tile-A-Day: Peace