The silver lining for this year of distressing cable news in the United States is that it seems to inspire me want to be creative as I watch listen. I meld my politics addiction with my Zentangle method addiction. My latest tangle can best be described as a continuous line tangle. Linda Farmer of tanglepatterns.com encouraged me to deconstruct the steps for this tangle.
If you live in the United States, you can figure out how I came up with the tangle name, Seespan, for this continuous line tangle. As I worked on the steps for this deconstruction, I had the TV tuned to Senate hearings on the C-SPAN channel which provides live streaming of Congressional sessions.
Below are the step outs for Seespan. I’ve illustrated 8 steps, but the basic tangle is shown in 5 steps. Personally, I most like how it looks after step 8.
Seespan
Seespan tips: Try to make the curves for the ribbon at least approximately the same size. The circles nestled within each ribbon curve should be closer to the open side of each curve. The circles should end up in two distinct rows in order to achieve the ladder effect in step #4.
In the two examples below, on the left is a shaded version of Seespan without the sides of the “ladder”. On the right is an additional tangleation beyond step 8 where I’ve connected the orbs on each side, giving it the stepped effect.
On the left, the tangle is shaded, but the sides of the “ladder” are omitted. On the right, is a tangleation of Seespan.
Finally, here’s some Zentangle Inspired Art, a ZIA, incorporating Seespan along the bottom. In a fit of self promotion I’ve incorporated two of my prior tangles, Aloha and 2 versions of Dinoflor. Flux and Mooka are also discernible. The “flowers” are probably also tangles, but they just appeared out of my head, so I’m not sure of the names. If you recognize them, feel free to share their names in a comment.
I did this composition on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of white *cardstock, using *Prismacolor Colored Pencils and some *Sakura Gelly Roll Metallic pens.
Check out these other tangles on Boomeresque:
Phirst, Segundo, Tercero, Aurabead, Aloha, Spearator, Springish, Spangles, Shorely
and Dinoflor.
If you give Seespan a try, let me know how it worked for you in a comment below. Feel free to also link to your tile in the comment.
The * symbol above indicates that the following hyperlink is an “affiliate link”. If you buy something from a vendor using such a link, Boomeresque receives a small commission which is used to help support my blogging habit.
Copyright notice: You are free to “pin” any image above, including step outs, to your or another’s Pinterest account as long as you link back to this post which will happen automatically if you pin from here. You may print or otherwise save these images with attribution for non-commercial use. If you wish to use these steps commercially, please contact me.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hallo Suzanne,
love your pattern “Seespan” and wanted to give an Feedback to you:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/142276900@N05/43878814650/in/datetaken-ff/
Have a nice Weekend
Gudrun
Just wanted to say Thank you for this fun and easy to embillish zentangle pattern you call seespan. I am sitting here watching the results of todays election and I am calm and not fussing over results! I do think tangling is the opposite of politics. ha ha. anyway my first attemp didn’t turn out exactly like yours, but i kept at it and just love this one. It has such fun rythym, looks great in black and white. can be a border, a frame or even a circle. think it will morph into my tangles on a regular basis. Thanks so much.
Thank you so much. I’m glad your having fun with Seespan. Even I have refined it over time. It’s definitely a good one to help one deal with watching the real CSpan.
{ 3 trackbacks }