Zentangle in Art Class

This is my second year in teaching a high school art class for home school students. We created some texture drawing projects taking found objects and drawing the textures of each of the items. Since texture is expressed as repeated patterns, we used Zentangle to create a tile using the textures that we created from our drawing project.

The book, "One Zentangle a Day" by Beckah Krahula, was a great resource for introducing my students and me to the concept of drawing patterns and textures by way of zentangle. It has given me a way of introducing art concepts such as texture, negative and positive space, rhythm, balance, organic and biomorphic lines and shapes, shading and shadows, and color theory in a fun way. Beckah includes a whole chapter on color and adding color to zentangle art by using different art media. The book gives step by step directions for creating some amazing patterns but also gives enough information so that I and my students can create our own patterns and textures. Beckah starts the book with materials that can be used to make zentangle art. She also adds helpful hints throughout the book including how she covers any mistakes on her zentangle drawings. She inspires her readers by including a gallery of her art to show that anything can be tangled...it is not just for paper.

I highly recommend the book to anyone wanting to find a good activity for themselves or their students to learn art concepts and open up the areas of their brain that influences creativity. There is no wrong way to create a zentangle.

Great video showing a version of Zentangle being created and the use of color added to make Zentangle art.