In the beginning.
When I first learned about Zentangle, there were about 100 “official” tangles. There are 164 now, and a few are added every year. To learn the tangles and practice them, I used to draw monotangles in my sketchbook. This one, of BB, is from before I started putting dates on them, so the most recent it could possibly be is early 2010. I’m posting it today, even though this is actually really old, because it was brought to my attention that there was no example of BB on my website!
Back then, I rarely shaded anything. I was afraid that I would mess up the drawing. This tile has a teeny, tiny bit of shading, but it’s almost invisible. Now, I’m pretty fearless, and I don’t consider a tile finished unless it’s shaded!
Another thing that I find interesting is that I’ve pretty much always drawn an inked frame on my tile, then the string inside of it. After that, I tangled, using the string as shapes to fill, or, in this case, as lines to follow. I guess old habits die hard!