Following the Inspiration: Part 6

Part 6: Where to get more tangles?

Once you get started where do you go to find more tangles?  As I have mentioned just by doing a cursory search on the internet for “Zentangles” you can come up with plenty of places to find new tangles.  I have mentioned  Sandy Steen Bartholomew, the Zentangle website, and fellow BJPer Robbie as places to start but what if you want to look for your own sources; where do you go.

The good news is that inspiration for tangles can be found around you in your everyday life.  The basket you keep your favorite crafting supplies in, your favorite rug, a stack of CD’s sitting on your desk.  In their basic form tangles are repeating patterns.  You can take them beyond that but finding repeating patterns just takes a look around and inspiration hits.

Another place that I found amazingly interesting for inspiration was an art museum.  I trip to DC to see an exhibit that I was really interested in and I ended up full of ideas for tangles.  The inspiration doesn’t have to be something new.

The exhibit I had wanted to see was “Falnama: The Book of Omens” at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. The Falnama’s are rare 17th-century works of art, pictures that were used for prognostication created at the end of the Islamic millennium.  After preforming ablutions and reciting prayers the person would open the large manuscripts to a random page to answer a question.

I really love illuminated manuscripts and miniature paintings with all of their elaborate details.  I try to get to any special exhibits that I can that feature this kind of art as they truly speak the detail part of me.  I really lucked out as we visited this show shortly after I had started tangling and I saw right away that there were loads of patterns within these wonderful, colorful pages.

 I just had to buy the book that went with the exhibit so that I could take these home with me and poured over the pages finding different patterns that I could use.  I added couple of dozen new patterns in just my first times through the book and when things get more settled I will look for more inspiration from these pages.

Another source for some unexpected ideas came from The Washington Post.  They have a magazine each Sunday and when I saw the cover done in black with zentangle like images in white on it I was struck how if you are open to it inspiration for art can come from the most unlikely places.

When I ordered my Zentangle Kit I got a zentangle legend with 20 different zentangles on it.  I thought that was a great idea and so started making some more with ideas I got from their newsletters, other blogs, and other images online as well as those I pulled from the Falnama book or came up on my own.  I have fallen a bit behind and need to work on adding more ideas to the cards.

Since we have been so busy with the house and decorating and I am behind with my posts so if you wish to see all of the photos for all of the inspirations, trials, and the start of my BJP for 2010 you can go to my Web Gallery.  You can also see photos for the building and decorating of our house.  If you want to read about any of that you can visit my main blog.