It was a great pleasure to attend a local class with CZT (Certified Zentangle Teacher) Katy Abbott recently. She is a top drawer teacher with tons of energy, enthusiasm and she brings creativity to the mix. Since my first tango with tangling was less than creative, this gave me a TON of pleasure.
Katy was able to describe the difference between "tangling" and doodling. Tangling is mindful; doodling is not. It is that simple. You can read all about the inventors of Zentangle, Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas over at Zentangle.com. There are tons of examples of tangles. Take a look at the newsletters, listed here and you'll find enough tutorials to keep you tangling for a long time. All for free.
The materials for Zentangling are really simple: pencil, pen and paper. You can be tangling within minutes after reading this post. The Tanglers-In-Chief recommend a square "tile" available on their website. They also recommend a Micron .01 pen. This is readily available. Not necessary but nice.
I made a long accordian book by slicing down a piece of 11" x 17" paper in half width-wise, yielding two 5.5" x 17" sheets. I folded in one short edge on each sheet, glued them together and commenced with folding up my accordian book. It is a great place to store explorations and practice. I folded up a black accordian book and am using a white pen. My favorite white pens are the Uniball Signa and Gelly Roll White from Sakura (both links from JetPens).
I hope you'll give this a try! It's slightly addictive ...
