We’re back online!!! To celebrate this I want to publish a post I have already written quite some time ago and I hope you’ll enjoy it!
I’ve waited quite a bit for this moment and now the time’s come to present to you my new tangle: Ann! Since I discovered Zentangle back in August 2011 I always wanted to invent or deconstruct my own tangle that I’m proud of because I think no one has thought of that idea before**. However, I’m not that inventive. I always need a point to start from and seeing that huge mass of already deconstructed patterns is always quite intimidating, too. So.. where to start? Some day in Spring 2017 I remembered IX, a tangle, that is based on a letter – I thought that might be something that I could try. Quite fast I settled on the letter N and the first four steps from the step-out below came to me pretty fast, too. But something was missing. I couldn’t point a finger at it, but it just wasn’t finished yet. However, I was at a loss for the last step.
The final form of Ann was found back in June 2017 (yep, I’m quite slow posting about it XD) when I sat down with my friend and fellow tangler Christina from W wie Windspiel to tangle in an Asian restaurant after a Zentangle meeting. I showed her what I had come up with and after discussing a few ideas she suggested adding a Cubine-like “window” between the N-starting-shapes. It immediately felt perfectly right and the final step from the following step-out was added. I was really happy that finally I had found what I was looking for. Now it was perfect! Still, there was one issue left: the name. But here my friend was a great help again. Due to the tangle being based on the letter N, she suggested the name this tangle has today. It was just perfect! I had never seen a tangle like this before* and I’m still very happy with it.
I already have deconstructed the tangle Sweaf, but like Printemps, we never came to develop some kind of long-term relationship. It’s nice but… actually not my kind of favourite tangle. It’s different with Ann, though. I love it and it has become one of my go-to tangles since it’s deconstruction a few months ago.
I won’t bore you any more with details, here are the step-outs to tangling Ann:
Here are a few tips for tangling Ann:
1. To make the tangle more lively, try tangling the N-shapes in different sizes, draw curved lines instead of straight ones and vary the spacing between the Ns.
2. You can draw the two “teeth” (they do look a bit like a vampire’s cuspid, don’t you think?) in step 3 either as one line (going back and forth) or as two lines. I prefer 2 lines and to turn my tile in a way that the “tip” of the two “teeth” is pointing to me so that I can pull the pen towards me.
3. You CAN start drawing the inner line of the out “tooth” in the center (step 3). However, I think it looks more interesting if you don’t start in the middle but a little off – you can vary the look here very nicely, too.
4. You can either fill in the inner “tooth” or the outer one (like in the deconstruction above) of Ann – or maybe you even come up with another variation?
5. For the Cubine-like “window” first draw the diagonal lines from two or three corners towards the center, then connect them by drawing a line that’s parallel to the shape it’s drawn in. Or maybe drawing the diagonal lines from all for corners is interesting, too? (is this a window/hole then, or a lifted area? You decide by shading it accordingly!) Or changing the corners from where the diagonal lines are drawn towards the center?
And here are a few tiles I tangled with Ann:
Some colour involved 🙂
Tangles used: Ann, Fengle
My first try on Margaret Bremner’s rope string.
Tangles used: Ann, ING, Paradox, Tipple, Tripoli, Zedbra
Ann as a border on a 3Z
Tangles used: Ann, ‘nzeppel
Ann as a border on a Zendala
Tangles used: Ann, Fife
A little black & white Bijou
Tangles used: Ann, Crescent Moon
Now, this is really exciting for me, I cannot wait to see what tanglers from all over the world will do with Ann! If you tried it and published a tile with Ann, I’d really love to see it! Please link to it in the comments or drop me a message on Twitter and I’ll come and pay a visit.
Happy tangling and hope to see you soon!
Yvonne
** As I said, I’m not aware of any pattern that is just like Ann and at this point I’m quite certain that it is unique. However, it’s impossible to know all patterns and tangles in the world. If you’ve already seen this pattern somewhere before, I’d appreciate it if you’d drop me a message with a link to it.
A Tangle of Lines 