Tangy Zoodle No. 98

Tangy Zoodle No. 98

I'm still obsessed with the art form of Zentangle and am still learning new tangle patterns. I highly recommend tangling for anyone who loves drawing and/or wants to learn to draw or improve their drawing skills. These exercises have given me much greater confidence in my ability to make art.

Tangy Zoodle

As you read in an earlier post of mine, I've become fascinated with the drawing technique known as Zentangle and expect to do more with these techniques. I also decided to take the designs I've already created and upload them to my shop on Cafe Press (shop crabulous!) and have them used on tile coasters. I also wanted to give my designs a unique name, but with a nod to Zentangle. Of course the word, doodle, came to mine and that progressed to "zoodle" and that brought back a memory.

Back in the 80's my husband purchased our first cabin cruiser, a 24' Bayliner. It was just big enough for the two of us and our two toddlers and we spent many a weekend on our boat, which we called "Valkyrie." 

We made a lot of boating friends and we were frequently hailing each other over the VHF radios on our boats to locate each other and make plans to hook up. Whenever you hail another boat, you always give the name of your boat as well and the call number of your radio license. Our license number began with the letters WTZ which are always spoken as "whisky," "tango," "zulu." 

Apparently our youngest, who was two at the time, absorbed all of this radio hailing activity and one day as we were closing the boat up for the weekend, he made his way to the cockpit, withdrew the radio mic from its holder (fortunately the radio was turned off) and started calling into the microphone, "Tangy zoodle, tangy zoodle, tangy zoodle!)

It's a phrase that has been permanently embedded in my brain for the past 26 years and I can't think of a more perfect name for my Zen tangled doodles, can you?

Zentangles 1 - 22

I was in Barnes and Noble last month looking for a birthday present for another artsy friend when I ran across this book One Zentangle A Day. Just one look at the cover and I was hooked!

Simply put, Zentangle is a meditative art form that results in miniature abstract works of art. Creating art came rather late in life to me. I had no idea until I was 39 that I was even capable of drawing; I was never even a doodler. And I've always envied other artists their ability to create random, abstract line work and wondered at their ability and apparent artistic freedom. Therefore, purchasing this book was a must and I'm at it nearly every day. I have not yet completed the six week course of self-study but I know I will as I've been enjoying the process immensely!

So, I can't resist sharing the tangles I've created thus far; and if you want to keep track of my progress, here's a link to my Zentangle Album on Facebook.