I have come up with my own tangling ideas and methods. I don’t think you need to limit yourself to any specific patterns, techniques, or materials. In fact, Sharpies are my pen of choice, but any waterproof markers will work just fine. While I adore professional art materials, I love the accessibility of using what’s on hand. That said, do try to avoid a super-cheap pen or marker that will run out halfway through your tangling.
As you work on different tangles, you will see how the shapes of the empty spaces will help you choose your style of doodling. Fly, little birdie!
Game 35 TAPE RESIST WATERCOLOR TANGLE
With this tangle, you will use tape and watercolor paints to create negative space into which you will draw. The results look like you have designed your own craft tape!
1 Using wide blue painter’s tape, rip pieces off the roll and place them on your page in an abstract design.
2 Watercolor over the page. In my example, I used a bright blue and a turquoise. I painted the colors on randomly, let them dry, and then painted a second layer in certain areas. Have fun playing with watercolor!
3 After your paint has dried, carefully peel up the tape and tangle your heart out in the white areas.
More Fun
Cut out your tangled tape areas, slap some glue on the back, and use them in a collage project, in a journal, or on your homework. Oops!
Game 36 CIRCLE TANGLES
Tangles are repetitive designs based on simple shapes, lines, and dots. Draw ones like mine to get started or just design your own. Tangle drawings are often created on a square paper tile, but as you are learning, here we do things our own way.
1 Trace around a small bowl or roll of tape (or both) to make overlapping circles across the whole page. Make a few or a lot of circles, depending on how much tangling you want to do.
2 Tangle the insides of the circles.
“Despite your nerdiness, dorkhead, you sure draw a mean tangle.”
“Uh, thanks (. . . I think).”
More Fun
Try this idea again, but you can only tangle inside the circles using different styles of circles and dots.
Game 37 DOUBLE CURSIVE TANGLES
Tangling inside words is the ultimate way to personalize your tangle. This would make a great gift for a friend!
1 Hold two thin markers together and write a word or your name in cursive or block letters. Using two different colors looks cool.
2 Tangle inside the shapes formed by the letters. You will be tangling fairly small designs and not a lot of them. Think of this as minimalistic, graphic design tangle art.
“I get lost in a sea of doodles. I can doodley-doo for hours.”
More Fun
Try this same technique with block letters and see how you can make the tangling inside look different.
Game 38 CHEVRON DESIGN TANGLE
The chevron is a very popular design element and lends itself to a more even pattern of tangling as opposed to loose tangling.
1 Using a ruler and pencil, draw a grid of squares onto your page. (Draw lightly—you’ll be erasing these later!)
2 Still using a ruler, draw the chevron pattern as shown. Each line starts at one corner of a box and ends at the corner diagonally across.
3 Erase your grid lines and tangle, tangle, tangle inside the chevrons.
Tip
I used the width of the ruler to draw out my grid, so I wouldn’t have to measure the size of the boxes. (That’s called avoiding using math. Don’t tell your math teacher.)
Game 39 REVERSE TANGLING
I love this project! There are so many cool ways to build on this idea, so try this way and see where your imagination takes you.
1 Cut a piece of black paper (I like black card stock) into a shape and trace it on one half of your page.
2 Flip it over horizontally and glue it down onto your page. You will have mirror images of the black and white shapes.
3 Tangle in the black area with a white gel pen and in the white area with a black pen. I used a Sakura Gelly Roll white ink gel pen and an Ultra Fine Sharpie.
Make It Silly
This is starting to look like a face to me, so you could definitely turn your creation into a funny face. I wonder what tangled glasses would look like?
Game 40 ABSTRACT ART OVALS TANGLE
Watercolor meets tangling in this pretty project you can frame and hang on your wall.
1 Pick three or four colors of watercolor paint that you love together and brush some overlapping ovals onto your page.
2 When they are dry, you can draw ovals over them, but don’t make them perfect—they look great if they are offset from the paint ovals a bit.
3 Tangle inside your drawn ovals.
More Fun
You can make this more colorful if you use colored pens to tangle over the watercolor, but you may want to test which pen colors look good over which paint colors on a scrap of paper as you work.
Game 41 RAINBOW TANGLE
I think every art project book needs a rainbow project, so here’s a fun way to tangle the rainbow.
1 Separate your page into six sections. Feel free to separate them any way you want; I happened to draw uneven stripes.
2 Tangle in each section with the rainbow colors in order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.
“If I had a pair of pajamas made out of this pattern, I’d never fall asleep.”
More Fun
Make your rainbow tangle in the shape of a rainbow!
Game 42 RANDOM TANGLE PAGE
I tend to be a little rigid when it comes to drawing since I really like things simple and geometric. To loosen up a little bit, I like to make tangle drawings tumbling across an entire space, with no constraints.
1 Start your tangle loosely, without making areas to tangle within.
2 Tangle out from there. Don’t worry about where one design starts and another one ends; you can do whatever you want! Whee!
“One curl leads to another and my drawing keeps growing and growing and growing and growing and growing and gr. . . okay, I’ll stop now.”
More Fun
Try either starting at a corner of your page or in the center and tangling out from there. Or draw a random design across your page and tangle around it.
Game 43 TANGLE QUILT
This tangle project brings a cozy, homey look to tangling. I don’t recommend trying to sleep under this tangle when you’re finished with it, though.
1 Separate your page into different sizes of rectangles and squares, adding in little drawn stitch marks here and there.
2 Tangle in each rectangle. I made mine extra colorful and filled in most of the white areas to make it look more like fabric.
“When I put my marker on the page, the designs start making themselves. Draw. Repeat. Repeat.”
Make It Silly
Some quilts are made with images sewn onto them to tell a story. Consider adding secret faces or recognizable objects here and there as part of your design.
Game 44 ICE POP STICK TANGLE
When you’re short on time or just want a quick tangle fix, this is the perfect tangle project.
1 Trace a jumbo ice pop stick many times, all over your page.
2 Tangle in it.
3 Eat an ice pop.
More Fun
Do this again without overlapping the ice pop sticks. Once you’ve tangled your designs, cut them out to use as bookmarks. Or use Mod Podge to glue them onto jumbo ice pop sticks and secure magnets to the backs of them.
Game 45 HAIR TANGLE
This is tangling taken to an all-new level of silliness.
1 Cut out a face from a magazine or photograph and glue it onto the page.
2 Make some wild “hair” shapes and tangle inside of them.
“If I paste this onto a piece of cardboard, this could be my Halloween costume.”
More Fun
Make some of these using the faces of some of your family members and give them as gifts
for birthdays or other holidays.
Game 46 COLLAGE ART TANGLE
Paper collage is such a fun, easy way to make a quick abstract art project. In this game, tangling adds yet another fabulous layer.
1 Using three or four colors of card stock, cut some random shapes and glue them onto your page.
2 Tangle on them or tangle around them—anything goes.
“Dear Me, I love you. Signed, Me, Myself, and I.”
More Fun
Cut out your creation and glue it to the front of a blank card. Send it to yourself in the mail with a nice note.
About the Author
Jeanette Nyberg writes about art projects, cool finds, and tales of her life on her blog Craftwhack. She graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design, after which she dove into the roles of professional artist and photo stylist. Jeanette has always been fascinated by kids’ natural creativity and strives to inspire a love of making in kids and adults.
Acknowledgments
So many thanks to Mary Ann Hall for appearing in my life out of the blue. Your vision for this project got my creativity going a thousand fold. Thank you to the Rockin’ Art Moms, my online tribe, creative conspirators, and BFFs. Lastly, thank you to my family, who showed the utmost patience and support as I went through every emotion known to man while working on this book. Love to you all.
Also Available
For Christian, whose creativity is inspiring.
© 2016 Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.
Text and illustrations © 2016 Jeanette Nyberg
First published in the United States of America in 2016 by
Quarry Books, an imprint of
Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.
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Suite 406-L
Beverly, Massachusetts 01915-6101
Telephone: (978) 282-9590
Fax: (978) 283-2742
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners. All images in this book have been reproduced with the knowledge and prior consent of the artists concerned, and no responsibility is accepted by producer, publisher, or printer for any infringement of copyright or otherwise, arising from the contents of this publication. Every effort has been made to ensure that credits accurately comply with information supplied. We apologize for any inaccuracies that may have occurred and will resolve inaccurate or missing information in a subsequent reprinting of the book.
Digital edition published in 2016
Digital edition: 978-1-63159-191-4
Softcover edition: 978-1-63159-126-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
Cover and Book Design: Laura McFadden
Cover Art: Jeanette Nyberg
Cartoon Illustrations: Shutterstock.com
Illustrations pages 56 and 57: Mike Wanke
Tangle Art and Drawing Games for Kids Page 3