Review of Das Grosse Zentangle®-Buch (translated the Great Zentangle® Book) #Zentangle #Zendoodle #ZentangleInspiredArt

Beate Winkler, CZT® has a new book that has just been published in Europe-- Das Grosse Zentangle®-Buch (The Large Zentangle Book). Currently it's only available in German, and will probably be difficult to get in the States or Canada.  Many CZTs and other tangle from both countries have work included in the book, so hopefully it will be translated and sold in an English version sooner or later.

None of my art work is included, but one of my Zentangle pattern steps-out was, so of course, I wanted to review it for you. 

 I debated about the best way to do so.  I don't speak German,  I thought about asking for more information about chapter titles and so forth, but then I decided not to.  I decided to give you the experience of a non-native speaker and what I was able to understand from the book.  Since I'm guessing in some cases, I might be incorrect.  Please feel free to correct me in the comments, if you see something wrong, and I'll update as needed.

Look & Feel

Specs

144 pages

20.3 x 25.9 cm/7.9 x 10.1 inches

Glued Binding

Soft bound Cover

101 tangle step-outs

The paper is high quality and thick, so the book is fairly heavy.  This is a mixed blessing.  The book should withstand lots of use but the weight might make it uncomfortable to carry.  Because of the glued binding the book doesn't lie very flat, but I've found this to be the case with many of the Zentangle books.

There are many illustrations through-out, not just for the tangle step-outs.  While the examples are done by various people, the step-outs are done by the same person, so there is a cohesive look through-out. 

The tangles are broken out into three kinds.  I'm not able to tell what the groups are, but I suspect easy, moderate and difficult.  The tangles are presented A-Z within their respective groups.

I did have trouble figuring out a few chapters. In most cases, the illustrations were sufficient for me to get the gist if not all the details.  The information on materials to use and how to start tangling look very similar to those in other Zentangle books.  A complete beginner who didn't speak German might have trouble.  If they have another Zentangle book they can read, they would probably figure it out.

Many of the tangles included can be found in other books and on the internet.  I'm not sure if any of them were created just for this book.  A few looked unfamiliar to me, but I don't claim to know all the tangles that are out there!

Content

The book begins with what looks like a greeting from the author, and then to the meditative qualities of Zentangle.  There are sections explaining what Zentangle is, what materials to use, and a step by step showing how to begin. 

I'm not as sure about the next chapter, but I believe it explains how the tangles are grouped and how tangles might be combined. 

The step-outs follow, but there is quite a bit of content after those, as well.  I found it more difficult to know what some of these chapters were about. There is definitely a glossary, a gallery, a links page, a list of contributors, information about the author, and an alphabetized and illustrated index to all the step-outs.

While this wouldn't be the first book, I'd recommend for a non-German-speaking beginner, I think they would still be able to benefit from it.  The same for those who know quite a bit about tangling and are looking for more tangle patterns. For those who already have Zentangle books or have compiled step-outs, I'd compare the tangles listed to see if there is anything new to them.

Tangle Patterns included

Ahh	Fjura	Paradox
Angle Fish	Florz	Poke Leaf
Appearance	Flux	Potterbee
Aquafleur	Fracas	Printemps
Aura-Leah	Gallileo	Puffle
B-horn	Goldilocks	Purk
Birds on the Wire	Golven	Purrlyz
Blooming Butter	Gryst	Qoo
Brayd	Henna Drum	Quare
Bubble Bobble Bloop	Herzlbee	Quib
Bumpety Bump	Hollibaugh	Quipple
Bumpkenz	Huggins-W2	Rubenesque
Bunzo	Ing	Sanibelle
Cadent	Keleido	Sharalarelli
Casella	Keeko	Shattuck
Cat-kin	Kettelbee	Strircles
Ceebee	Knightsbridge	Sundoo
Chainlea	Ko’oke’o	Sweda
Checkers	Kuke	Trio
Chemystery	Laced	Tri-Po
Coil	Leaflet	Tripoli
Connessess	Logjam	Tropicana
Cool ‘Sista	Luv-A	Tulipe
Crescent Moon	Mak-rah-mee	Twenty-One
Cruffle	MI2 Versions 1 & 2	Unmogliches Drejeck
Crusade	Mooka	Verdigogh
Crux	Moving Day	Wheelz
Cubine	M’Spire	Widgets
Dessus-Dessous	Msst	Wiking
Ditto	Munchin	Winkbee
Dragonair	Nipa	Zander
Dutch Hourglass	Nzeppel	Zenplosion Folds
Ennies	Nzeppel Random	Zinger
Fescu	Octonet
Fiore	Onamato

Examples

This example uses Appearance,Cool 'Sista, Dragonair, Dutch Hourglass, Quare, Quib,  Tropicana, and Wiking.     

This example uses Appearance, Aquafleur, Birds On the Wire, Crusade, Golven, Strircles,Widgets, and Wiking.