Zentangle books I like, part 2

I felt a bit stuck in my Zentangle(R) practice until I found two books by Cris Letourneau, CZT: Pattern Play: A Zentangle Creativity Booster and Made in the Shade: A Zentangle Workbook.

Please do not consider this post or the previous one to be any sort of recommendation! These are just my personal favorites. I do not derive any sort of remuneration for writing this.

Pattern Play is essentially about tangleations, which Cris describes as "structurally based on the original tangle . .  but it looks different." (p. 35) For example, using curved instead of straight lines for Hollibaugh or using a very oversized Crescent Moon instead of a string. For every tangle she introduces, Cris provides at least SIX tangleations. I found that these variations spurred me to try some on my own.
If shading confounds you or if it seems tedious and maybe unnecessary, that's where Made in the Shade comes in. I had no idea that there were so many techniques and possibilities. For example, starting with a simple circle (orb), Cris shows five ways to give it life, transforming it into a sea urchin, a bubble, and a pearl among others. I also learned that using the point of a sharp pencil to make multiple lines (carefully) could produce such smooth shading.

Yes, there are hundreds more books about Zentangle out there, so find one that you like and that works for you!

Zentangle books I like, part 1

As Zentangle(R) has become more popular and as the number of Certified Zentangle Teachers (CZTs) has increased, it's logical that people want to share their enthusiasm for Zentangle with others by writing books. And have they ever! When I last searched for "Zentangle" on Amazon.com, I found over 400 items listed!! 

Out of that long list of possibilities, I have a few that I own and like.

Please do not consider this post or the following one to be any sort of recommendation! These are just my personal favorites. I do not derive any sort of remuneration for writing this.

The ultimate guide to all things Zentangle is undoubtedly The Book of Zentangle by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas, founders of Zentangle. This is their self-published book about the origins, theory, method, and practice of Zentangle.* Almost every other page of text has a Zentangle illustration drawn by Maria facing it. What a feast!! And the most delicious feast of all, I think, are the Notes at the back of the book where they describe the inspiration for almost all of the illustrations in the book--in detail.

I think there's also a lot to be learned from studying the illustrations to see how Maria weaves the tangles in and out (of course, she's been doing this for more than 10 years!) and how she combines and merges the tangles.

If you really enjoy Zentangle and someone asks you for a gift suggestion, this might just be it!* The Book of Zentangle is only available through Zentangle.com. Here's the link: The Book of Zentangle.