About me: Artist • Writer • Teacher
Art has always been part of my life in one form or another. My mother was an artist and always encouraged my artistic endeavours. Back in the '70s and '80s, it was drawing, crochet, and needlepoint. In the last ten or so years, I have become involved in painting, pen & ink, and beading, but I always look for ways to integrate several of these art forms together, hence my interest in using painting and fibers in jewelry making. In this blog, I will concentrate on Zentangle. I am a Certified Zentangle Teacher™ (CZT) since October 2010, and offering Zentangle classes in Ontario, Canada.
You can follow my other artistic endeavours on my Amaryllis Creations blog, and learn about how the Internet can help you as an artist or crafter on my Crafters' Internet 2.0 blog.
What is Zentangle?
"Zentangle is an easy to learn method of creating beautiful images from repetitive patterns. It is a fascinating new art form that is fun and relaxing. It increases focus and creativity. Zentangle provides artistic satisfaction and an increased sense of personal well being. Zentangle is enjoyed by a wide range of skills and ages and is used in many fields of interest."
--from the official Zentangle website.
Zentangle or Doodles?
from Verlin via From My Chair blog
(used with permission)
A response has come from someone who read over my blog posts on Zentangle and has seen my crosstrainer shoes asking, “What's the difference between the Zentangles and my doodles? I've been doodling all of my life." It's an honest questioning from someone who wants to know.
I often respond with, "Is your work teachable? Can you teach others to do what you do?"
At that point, I find myself in a mini-lecture with this analogy to music.
The 102 tangles are a form of standardized notation, much as in music, that students first learn to master. Each Certified Zentangle Teacher learns to master these 102 tangles so as to be able to teach students to make art in the first two classroom hours. Standardized tangles make classroom instruction possible. The students soon learn to recognize these tangles in a complex looking piece of art the way musicians recognize chord structure in someone else's music.
Yes, there are gifted artists who paint well without lessons, or gifted musicians who can write and play songs without reading music. But they have no method for teaching students their craft.
My father grew up in an Amish home where musical instruments were forbidden. While I was yet in grade school, I would see him bring home from his monthly excursions to the local auction barn keyboard musical instruments; a bellows organ, an upright piano, or several accordions. I would marvel as in a few minutes he could teach himself to play familiar hymns as the family sang along. His method of teaching me to solve any problem was, “If you just look at it long enough, it will come to you." My brain was not wired like his. I never learned to play by ear.
For certain gifted people no lessons are necessary to create art; not so for the general population. We need a way of learning to make art we enjoy. Zentangle makes that possible for us one stroke at a time.
