Strings

Choosing a String Resource

In Zentangle® a string, a light pencil guideline, creates spaces to be filled with Zentangle® patterns. The string got its name from Rick’s childhood experience of watching his grandmother drop strings into sugar water and pulling out beautiful rock candy. The string is a foundation for the placement of tangles in Zentangle® art. The string removes the blank paper which scares many artists. The string sits quietly in the background as a guideline. It’s not a wall thus may be ignored by the tangler if so inspired.

Both the tangles used and the resulting completed tiles are intended to be unplanned. Not knowing the outcome is an important and unique aspect of Zentangle®. But like choosing a pattern to draw, deciding on the string also tends to throw the tangler into planning mode. Thinking about the space and the patterns to use removes the Zen from this art.

To find a string and get the left-brain out-of-the-way go to TanglePatterns or purchase a string guide  (scroll down). Then use a random number generator to choose a number between 1 and the last string number listed in the guide to find a string number to draw.

If drawing any string seems complicated to you, print out the string and with soft lead pencil blacken the back of the print-out. Then center it on your tile and with your pencil trace the transfer directly onto the tile.

OR

Close your eyes and, with a pencil, blindly draw a string with a scribble on your tile.

OR

Purchase Prestrung Zentangle® tiles from me or at https://www.zentangle.com/product/zentangle-tiles-pre-strung.

OR

Candleholder
top and bottom traced

Use CZT Margaret Bremner’s idea of “Using tangles as strings,” an enlarged and “perhaps simplified,” tangle as a string. Margaret has many other string ideas. My favorites are:

• “Superimposed strings,”
• Using a number as in her “‘2014’ Diva challenge” post,
• Tracing an object as in her “Key string” and “Traced object string challenge” posts (see photos below),
• From designs on objects as in her “Cookie tin string” post and
• “News flash! Looped border creates its own string!”

OR

my traced object string

Make Alphabet strings as in CZT Sandy Hunter’s “trash/treasure” post.  Click on any image to open and download.

OR

Try CZT Michele Beauchamp’s “A Zentangle Spiral Guide”  for a string.

My rendering of the above string
Ing + Ing variation, Yincut, Inaura, Tripoli and Mooka

KEEP YOUR ZEN AND HAVE FUN!!!