Zen Moments for Tangling
By
- Zentangle by Maria Thomas
Zentangles or Zendalas are a fun way to express your inherent creativity. Derek from Pieces of Zen introduced me to Zendalas or Zentangles through this video.
What are Zendalas?
Zendalas, as the word suggests, is a combination of Zen Art and Mandala Art. Its a creation of intentional and focused black-colored line art created in a mandala-like circle. These are a fun way to relax simply drawing a circle and adding repetitive patterns created from lines with a felt pen to begin with. After ‘mastering’ this art somewhat it may be appropriate to use archival paper and an archival quality pen.
How are Zentangles different?
Zentangles discard the mandala or circle and are created on small square paper tiles or any kind size of archival paper. Zen-style most often color is omitted; a simple black will do.
According to Julie Fei-Fan Balzer:
“Zentangling is basically the idea that you are going to take a Zen Moment or a moment of relaxation and centering for yourself and mix it with doodling or tangling.”
It’s creating beautiful images from repetitive pattern. Even getting off the page or out of the circle doesn’t brake any artistic rules.
Zentangles are created with conscious and deliberate strokes as an artistic meditation, relaxing yet focused and inspirational. Hence its reference to Zen.
How to Tangle the Zen?
Start with a circle or square on a piece of paper and draw lines that divide the circle or square into several regions or segments. Then in each segment, it can be any shape, draw a repeating and overlapping pattern.
For those uninspiring moments create your own Zentangle legend, samples of patterns, to give yourself a kickstart. Another tip is to use a small sketchbook that fits perfectly into your purse for those times when you have extra time at hand while out of the house. Shading creates an interesting 3D effect.
You may also want to try using your left hand in drawing Zentangles as this increases creativity and problem solving due to activating a different brain circuitry.
Maria and Rick, the Zentangle pioneers, tell us that with Zentangles you uncover pictorial expressions of hidden feelings of the subconscious mind – while creating beautiful art.
Let’s go and tangle those Zen moments…
Resources: Zentangles.com & Milliande.com
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I enjoyed reading this article. For me everything has come complete circle.. It was because of looking at your wonderful mandala art on here that I did a search for mandalas on Google and came across the Zentangles. So I thought I would start doing Zentangles or Zendalas, and I find them most relaxing and revealing – in a very Zen sort of way. And now again, I am back here enjoying reading your post.
To me the monochrome drawing is typical of Zen, as the practice is about trancending the dualism (perhaps represented by black and white)with the circle a representing unity. But I have been experimenting with colour.
Derek´s last blog ..Zen Flesh, Zen Bones – A Book Review.
hi Derek, the typical monochrome drawing of zen is perhaps to make it more meditative, just like the whole zen approach in art is profound simplicity; it presents the essence and drops the fluff, hence creates clarity. i love it – just sometimes i find it a bit boring. i guess at those times the mind wants colorful ‘food’ to be more entangled in the world…
here is a great article about sumi-e, the ancient art of japanese brush painting deeply rooted in zen. essentially it says that it “embodies many of the tenets of the zen aesthetic including simplicity and the idea of maximum effect with minimum means. – much is achieved with a combination of empty space and monochromatic strokes that range from the extremely light gray to black. the effective creation of light and dark elements in a design is fundamental to its clarity. light and dark shades of gray is effective for creating depth and movement in a composition.” simply less is more.
http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2009/10/a-fundamental-design-and-life-lesson-from-the-zen-arts-is-to-never-use-more-when-less-will-do-this-goes-for-the-use-of-color.html
thanks for your comment and continuously staying in touch!
Hi Udaysree, Thank you for the link it is very interesting to read. Yes, Zen is about being simple and giving up all our complexities. Ultimately become so simple that we give up our identity to find Self. I tend to rebel against this when I am in my mind, but it’s so refreshing to come back and look at thos monochromatic strokes. So simple yet so deep, so much less yet so much more.
Derek´s last blog ..Zen Flesh, Zen Bones – A Book Review.
we gradually give up our identity and at the same time slowly start re-discovering our own being. it’s normal to rebel against it as the ego likes to hold on to it’s identity… you can read more on this in 2 great books i always recommend: Living Enlightenment and Guaranteed Solutions both by Nithyananda available through amazon.com
Thank you Udaysree.. I’ll check for the books on Amazon UK.
Derek´s last blog ..It’s Up to Each of Us