Recently the word “zentangle” has been popping up a lot on Pinterest feed. Yes I know. I have a Pinterest account. Basically the only reason I got it was because my art teacher insisted on it. I had this image in my head of using Pinterest being like knitting- boring and mostly done by older folk. To my surprise, it has been an invaluable tool in discovering new cool techniques and has been feeding my online shopping habit. (oops!) So I’m on Pinterest, and all of a sudden this appears.
Beautiful Zentangle Balls from Pinterest
I was so intrigued I immediately searched “zentangle” on Google to see what lovely images I could find. There are a LOT. I also found a lot of zentangle tutorials that teach you how to do zentangle the “right way,” with lots of step by step how-to-make-this-patterns. What made me laugh about this is that honestly, people have been “zentangling” since we had implements to write with. Its just back then it was called doodling.
There are 322 results for searching “zentangle” on Amazon. I find this somewhat ridiculous, especially because the official zentangle website recommends that you hire a teacher to teach you how to zentangle properly. And yet they insist that it is supposed to be relaxing. Because we live in such a perfectionist culture, even the things we do in our free time to unwind must be perfect masterpieces. I’m sorry, but I find this to be very silly. Another “rule” of zentangling is that it isn’t supposed to be representative. Like you aren’t supposed to draw a person, or an animal. It’s supposed to be abstract. Well I say “let them draw whatever the heck they like.” I drew that weird looking monster and girl below… I had a vague idea for what I wanted it to look like, so I just went with it and that was the result.
Not exactly true to the traditional zentangle model, I decided to get a little weird…
The one account that I do agree with the founders of zentangle on is that pens NOT pencils should be used. I know that if pencils were used, half of your time would be spent erasing what you drew. Don’t deny it, you know it’s true. As a (sort of) artist, I have to buy a lot of paper. Some of it is very nice paper. When I buy this and debate drawing on it, there is a part of me that is terrified to mark up this beautiful smooth surface. In fact when I first began, I would sit there with my pen hovering above the paper, trying to decide where to make my first mark. I would deliberate and take ages to just draw a simple figure. Our job is to get rid of that hesitancy. No matter what you draw, be it ugly, misproportioned, bulbous, or even acceptable in you eyes, is a masterpiece in mine. Because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what you make, it matters that you are making it.
I think I’ll call my version of zentangle, “pentangle.” My computer kept on correcting zentangle to that, so I figure my computer is trying to tell me something. I have only two rules for pentangling. They are not rules, just more like guidelines. You don’t have to follow them if you don’t want to.
1. Use Pen(s)
2. Keep every pentangle you make. No recycling (or throwing it in the trash!)
Well, that was my rant. Thanks for reading!
Happy Pentangling!
Just a Tumbleweed 