One Zentangle A Day: A 6-Week Course in Creative Drawing for Relaxation, Inspiration, and Fun (One A Day)

Really enjoying this book! It is clear and easy to follow. It shares great patterns and step by step instructions for the different designs. It also details shading techniques and focuses on finding individual style and making your own art for your own joy. Highly recommend.

Clear, easy to follow but be warned - this is addictive stuff! From the first day you can produce something worth looking at. You are gradually learning both a meditative technique and some real art skills. It's done gradually - ideas about perspective, tone, value and style are brought in gently. With Zentangle there are no mistakes. The weird pattern names seem a bit geeky at first, but after a while you realise they are there as a kind of shorthand and you do need them. I've attached what I did on day eight just to show how far I've come in a week. The kit recommended doesn't come cheap, though once you've bought everything it all lasts a good time. I'd recommend buying the real Zentangle tiles and using one each day - I am pasting my daily tile in a notebook as a record of my progress. It's also worth getting some cheaper ones for playing and using a sketchbook. If you are going to follow the book beginning to end you will also need black tiles, round tiles, inks, compass & protractor, several posh pens in black, white and colours and so on - it all adds up. However, you could have a lot of fun with just a fine pen, a soft pencil and a sketchbook, and maybe a white pen and a stump blender.

I have already bought this book 3 times and I end up giving it as presents. It's a great guide to learning Zentangle patterns even if you are not "arty". The patterns are graphically explained, there is not a lot of writing, but it is sufficient explanation and the images are clear and easy to follow. It takes no time to get going with your own variations, based on the patterns shown. Combinations are endless! Lots of inspiration in the images shown, you can use even the images that are part of the design of the book, on the side of pages etc. to inspire you. I soon found my self looking at patterns everywhere, door panels, ceiling rosettes, fabric prints, even the growth pattern of plants, and of course flowers. Old buildings are covered with interesting patterns that can be used to tangle. The V&A has hours of fun to offer in the patterns of their textile collections, as do most museums of art in London. You could say the Victorians invented tangleling... just look at any architecture from that era, and of course William Morris, his textiles are a great source o inspiration. A great book all around, I highly recomend it.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this book. As I am still thinking about it ten years after my initial purchase, I have given it an extra star, though I am still not sure I like the book. The biggest pro is that the book is organised very much into daily lessons, and you can more or less a follow these lessons if you want to. That is what I did, and it set me up well in the Zentangle method. I am still practicing years later. Another pro is that this is one of the few very comprehensive Zentangle books available. There are many short pamphlet type books that can give you good ideas or help you with some aspect. This one introduces pretty much every Zentangle concept I've come across. But that's more a criticism of the library of Zentangle books available, rather than exactly a pro for this book. There is a lot of space in the market for someone to write a similar book that doesn't have all the problems this book has. The only exception to this is Maria and Rick's own Primer book, which is amazing and I very much recommend, but they don't seem to have UK distributors for their products, and it's very expensive to buy here. Now on to the problems. If you treat the book as a course like it suggests, it is very confusing. Most days introduce three new Zentangle patterns, and you're expected to use them, and what you've used on previous days, to draw a Zentangle tile (or similar in a sketchbook). Instead some days introduce another major concept. But on a lot of days it isn't clear what that lesson is intending to teach, or there are loads of extra concepts introduced and exercises suggested that contradict making a tile that day. Much later in the book, it suggests that the facing page of each day's double paged spread is a suggestion to make a Zentangle Inspired Artwork(ZIA). But that isn't explained until far into the book. And even then it is never explored whether you're expected to make two drawings each day, or to keep the ideas for later, or whatever. And many facing pages definitely don't describe a drawing, sometimes it's a concept you can use on any tile, like shading advice, sometimes it's a huge printing project to make multiple pieces. Basically, in the end I would largely ignore this facing page in order to be able to move on, it's helpful going in to know there will be extra ideas and stuff on most facing pages you probably can't use that day. It's also worth mentioning that in several years of drawing after the book I've never gone back to do any of these suggested extra projects, even when I'm desperate for ideas. They just aren't inspiring and many are unclear or confusing. I can tell I'm waffling on, but I guess that is because it made me confused and frustrated day after day when working on the book, and some days I'd just be angry and resentful as I made my drawing. This is my biggest criticism. Yes, you can treat this book as a course of daily exercises. But the author themselves is not fully committed to that idea, so you do have to do some interpretation of your own to make it work. There are many other little problems. One being that unlike other Zentangle books, the artwork in the book often isn't good, so there is nothing to inspire you. Often you wonder why you'd use a certain tangle because it looks so awkward, but if you look online you can find it used beautifully. General editing issues, such as every day having a long list of equipment needed that you won't use. The course isn't the full six weeks, as the final section is mainly just suggested ideas it would be hard to accomplish in one day. A lot of things in the book are confusing or not explained fully. It is just poorly conceived and edited. Some are complex issues more advanced artists would know, such as dealing with cool and warm version of a given colour like red, which I didn't understand at all when I used the book. It is explained in a couple of paragraphs, well before you really need it or can use it. A lot of stuff about shading, composition, etc, is like this. Shoved into the course when it is far too early for someone new to art to understand it, and then hardly explained at all. Very expensive materials are suggested at the start of the book, but then some of that stuff isn't even used, and other materials are used but aren't fully explained. This book did get me into spending more than I'd intended, and to some extent I appreciate being introduced to luxury materials (I think treating yourself as much as you can budget for it part of Zentangle. It is intended to be a break that makes you feel good, and even expensive pens are quite affordable in the big scheme of hobby purchases), but it is a double edged sword, as it makes Zentangle feel a bit sleazy and like you're being advertised to and pushed to spend money the whole time. You can complete the whole book with just ordinary things like fineliners pens (Faber Castell PITT pens are great but not even needed), pencils, and any paper you've got. A few little extras like colours of some kind, tortillons or blending stumps, white coal pencils and white gel pens are nice to have. The book pushed me to buy a few things that turned out to be useless even when I went more deeply into Zentangle. This leaves me not knowing whether to recommend the book. It's got big problems, but is probably the only similarly comprehensive introduction to Zentangle. The Primer book is much better I would say, with a better ethos. The only thing this book has that's better is it sets you up with around 30 activities to do in order. If you don't have one of these books, you can learn these things online, or from a pile of smaller books. But it might be hard to get a clear idea of what the whole Zentangle method is. On the other hand, you probably don't need that as this is supposed to be about finding whichever bits you find fun to use yourself. The method overall is a bit commercial and pushy. But after years of reflection I forgive them for that, because they put out a lot of free content, and in some ways are quite generous with their ideas and skills. Maria's own artwork is amazing, and no other big figures in the field can come close to it.

Would recommend this book to anyone new to drawing and those trying to get back into drawing. I used to draw years ago and have used this to help get my confidence back. Its very well laid out and the concept of a zentangle a day means that I do a little drawing practice every day without too much pressure. Its very simple to understand and follow and very rewarding to use. Unlike some other drawing/ doodling books, it assumes no previous knowledge. I now practice on my commute to work and in front of the television. My 8 year old niece, who is not blessed with a great deal of patience was absorbed for a good two hours with a piece of paper and a 0.1 fine liner. I've promised her one for her birthday.

This is an amazing book. It doesn’t just give you patterns to copy, it makes you think about simple designs, in a way that makes each piece individual. I am no artist, but I have made zentangles which look amazing.

I heard of Zentangles from a friend in my art class. The book is very good. It explains the theory and then the step by step exercises lead you to produce amazing designs. It claims that you do not have to be good at drawing to do these and this is true. I am a practising amateur who loves drawing but these shapes can be executed by anyone. It leads to a spontaneity and freedom from drawing rules. the shapes don't have to be exact. Whatever you so can be incorporated into your design. I love the way that if you should leave more space than you intended, you just fill it in with something. I am only half way through but I already see how having learned the vocabulary of tangles you can modify and introduce elements of your own. Fascinating! I would recommend the book who thinks they are not artistic..

This book has good diagrams to explain how to make different zentangles which I found very useful.. However apart from that I didn't like the book - it is too dogmatic about the materials and processes you MUST use to make a 'proper' zentangle. The constant 'rules' didn't inspire me. An index to the different patterns or a summary chart would be a useful addition as the author keeps referring to them in subsequent chapters and I can't remember all the names - in the end I made my own index for the different tangles. My advice is to choose for yourself what you want to take from the book and then use it in your own way. Certainly experiment with different pens/papers etc - you dont need the ones she says. There is a lot of material to cover each day which may leave you feeling stressed or disappointed - quite the opposite to what zentangling is all about. Personally, I like the more inspirational approach of zen doodling books.

Livre en anglais - Très bien pour aborder le Zentangle

Muy bueno

So far it's been a good learning experience. I really like doing these. Not sure if I'm exactly getting into the mediation mode that the author is hoping I'd attain, but I do consider what designs I want to use where. Ms. Krahula is good at trying to explain some of the drawing concepts such as shading, light placement, depth etc. There's also the use of words such as tanglenhancer, tangleation that I find bothersome but may in fact be normal words within the tangle community. The book is filled with step by step drawings for the patterns you're to learn. In the later lessons she starts to show you other ways to do tangles by adding color and how to apply tangles in other areas of art, jewelry, fabric, ornaments etc. There's also various art work from other artists that are beautiful to look at and can help you get ideas for your own work. Overall, I think this is a pretty good introduction to zentangles. It doesn't overwhelm you with material to learn. She does have a list of supplies, which I took as more of a suggestion. I didn't want to spend the money for special tiles, pens, markers etc. without knowing this was something I'd like or not. So I've just been doing these in a mixed media sketchbook. I did buy the Sakura micron pens, but they weren't that expensive. (update: Dec 2016, the sakura pens didn't last as long as I'd hoped. I ended up replacing them with Faber Castell Pitt artist pens. The tips on these are larger, (longer?), so it seems that they should last longer. They are very smooth and I haven't had any bleed through. They come in similar sizes as the microns so these are a good substitute IMO.) I'd say give this a try it's fun to do. Not very time consuming, unless you want it to be. A nice outlet for creativity and for those of us who like to doddle

Das Buch hält, was es verspricht: in sechs Wochen lernt man nach und nach die Grundmuster der neuen Entspannungskunst Zentangle kennen. Leicht verwandt mit dem klassischen Formenzeichnen sind Zentangle zunächst in kleine Quadrate (im Buch werden 8x8 cm empfohlen) gemalte Muster, die "Schritt für Schritt"-Zeichenmethode führt dabei rasch zu Konzentration auf das Tun und damit zu geistiger Entspannung. Anders als bei Formenzeichnen haben die Muster also einen festen, kleinen Rahmen, was den Effekt hat, dass auch Zeichenanfänger nicht erst einmal wie geschockt vor einem großen weißen Blatt sitzen und Hemmungen überwinden müssen, ordentlich groß loszumalen. Die kleine Form erleichtert den Einstieg enorm. Jeden Tag lernt man zwei bis drei neue Muster kennen, zwischendurch wird das Erlernte vertieft, indem man z.B. Muster kombinieren oder Licht und Schatten einfügen soll. Auch bei völlig unbegabten Menschen (mancher kann einfach nicht frei zeichnen) entstehen so hübsche kleine Kunstwerke, man ist selbst verblüfft, mit welch simplen Mitteln man schöne Effekte erzielen kann. Am Ende gibt es noch interessante Erweiterungen wie selbsterstellte Mandalas, Buchstabenmuster und Malen auf schwarzem Papier. Man braucht dazu nicht die Menge an Materialien, die am Anfang des Buches dargestellt wird, eine Din-A 6 Kladde mit Blankoseiten, weiche Bleistifte und Buntstifte reichen völlig. Egal, ob am Abend nach der Arbeit (oder morgens im Zug auf dem Weg dahin), im Urlaub, am Wochenende oder sogar im Wartezimmer, hat man die Muster erstmal erlernt, kann man mit wenig Material und Aufwand jederzeit entspannend tätig werden.

Ottimo acquisto, arrivato nei tempi previsti, ben imballato, senza danni o segni di usura. Ben illustrato e con spiegazioni esaurienti.