Cadent as a String Hybrid

Last night I sat down to draw with the firm intention of trying some of the prompts by Marguerite Samama’s excellent Valentangle 2020 event (find more information here).

I started by exploring the first prompt, drawing Marguerite’s new tangle V&A (right side picture below). Then, as perused the wonderful document she prepared (packed with pictures), the tangle Sun (Hanna Shan) caught my eye instead (left side picture), and I played with that a little.

Then something happened: as I experimented with Sun, a flurry of spirals started to grow on the corner of the paper, completely unexpected and without any planning.

I figured the momentum was too good to lose and continued to work in the same style on a half-baked tile with Elegan (Tangle Dreams) I had started a few days ago. Suddenly, Zentangle’s Project Pack #7 asked to be play along and Cadent as a string infiltrated itself in the center, and OH MY GOD, this is what happened:

I was so engrossed into the drawing before I knew it, 3 hours had gone by. This morning I completed the picture by adding shading with copic markers and graphite pencil.

I SIMPLY love it when these kinds of inspirational collisions occur, I experienced such wonderful Zen flow. What I like about this is that it produced something completely new and unexpected, no where remotely similar to the various events that inspired it (Valentangle, Sun, Cadent as a String and Elegan).

I also love the tiny tiny detail — it was not as difficult to create as you might imagine, just time consuming. If you love this type of excruciatingly tiny tangling and would like to learn more about how to draw and shade this technique, email me to vote for a lesson!