BOOK REVIEW: More Tangle Starts by Alice Hendon

More Tangle Starts is the seventh book in Alice Hendon’s Artangleology series, books designed to be planners, workbooks, tangle collections and juice to jump start your creativity.

Alice’s books are a delight to work in, so when she contacted me about reviewing her latest, I was saying ‘Yes!’ before she even finished her request.  She not only sent me a copy for the review, but asked if I wanted to host a giveaway. That was another ‘Yes!’, so if you are interested, check my blog for giveaway details.  The link is at the end of this review.

At 6 x 9 inches, this book is smaller in size than than the first Tangle Starts, but with more pages. Two hundred and seven pages, to be exact with one hundred beautiful backgrounds … actually, you could use this as a coffee table book. It’s gorgeous just as it is.  

But that would be a bit of a waste, because there are so many ways you can use this book as a starter or enhancement to your own work.  Even though it has ‘Tangle’ in the title, it’s great for drawing, art journaling, mixed media, painting, and collage, as well.  You could even use the pages for origami!

Specs

• Series: Artangleology (Book 7)
• Paperback: 207 pages
• Publisher: Independently published (February 23, 2020)
• Language: English
• ISBN-13: 979-8616188007
• ASIN: B0851M1SM7
• Size: 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
• Binding: Glued

Video Walkthrough

More Tangle Starts – Look and Feel

More Tangle Starts is a full-color book, a standard KDP self-published book through Amazon. It has a soft cover, and glued binding. There are five pages of introductory material and two pages at the back showing the paper used for the original art.

The introductory material includes:

• The Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Just What Can You Do With This Book?
• Author’s Bio
• Pen Test Page

Alice used several methods to create the pages – India Inks, water-based ink sprays, gelli-plates, stamps, stencils and more.  With this book, you have the advantage of expensive multi-media craft supplies without spending the money for them all, or spending the time to make hundreds of backgrounds!

The back of each page is blank, so you don’t have to worry about bleed-through.  I use a piece of deli paper behind the page I’m working on if I’m using something that really saturates. I’ll talk a little more about this in the performance section.

A couple of the pages are like coloring book pages and all you need to do is color them in.  But most of the backgrounds are abstract, and useful for drawing with pen, pencil or marker and painting. The pages are too slick for watercolor, but you can paint with clear gesso and then watercolor if you wish.  Acrylic works well (see Performance section) without any prep.

Nothing is perfect, and because of the number of pages, the book doesn’t lie totally flat. The glued binding is sturdy, but doesn’t allow for lots of glued or taped items.   I didn’t have any problem drawing or painting on the pages even where the slope was the worst.

I tore out the pages I used for this review, so I could get better scans.  Removing some pages would allow you to create a chunky book, and use some pages as ephemera for other pages. The pages won’t come loose accidentally, but if you want to remove one, simply fold the book all the way back at the page you want, then tear it slowly, keeping even pressure as you tear.

Performance

If you have the first This book was made with tangle enthusiasts in mind, but can be used for so much more.  The first thing I thought of was finding shapes.

On this page, I saw a girl in a straw hat, and a teacup.  I used a permanent marker to draw the outlines, and colored in with colored pencil.  The pages don’t have much tooth, so it isn’t possible to get deep or intense color with colored pencil, but I was definitely able to enhance the color that was there and create details to bring out my subject.

I used an alcohol marker to draw with, something that usually would bleed through almost 100%.  As you can see, I mostly got show-through.  Some areas are more slick than others because of the amount of ink, but those areas also have less show-and-bleed-through.

The second thing I thought of doing was negative painting.  I used Acryla Gouache (acrylic paint, in essence) leaving egg shapes that show the original page. No prep was done. I just painted directly on the paper.  I used two layers of gouache and when that dried, I used permanent marker to draw more egg shapes.

The paint was transparent enough that I could see some of the original pattern work and I traced the lines with the marker on this second layer of eggs.

I finished off with a white gel pen created tangle patterns between the eggs.

There was no show through or bleed through (the bits of color were drips from my brush). There was some dimpling where the first layer of egg-shapes were left.  The scan makes the dimpling look about twice as bad as it actually is.

I want to make sure you realize that Alice did the drawing on this page.  This is one of the coloring pages and I colored it in with marker and glitter marker.

There was some bleed-through on the back, mostly where I did the outlines.  I left it so you could see what it was like, but eventually, I’ll do some other kind of drawing using the color.

I like having the blank backs, because I will use them either to create other artwork, or to record information about the artwork on the front.

The pages are also good for silhouette drawings. I mentioned earlier that there is some texture difference where the ink is heaviest.  The pen does tend to skip a bit after a while.  I just scribbled on some rough paper and it cleared up. Because of this, you can get some variation of grays and detail if you want it.  Or just keep coloring until the color is even.

I mentioned earlier that there is some texture difference where the ink is heaviest. You can see how the ink is darker in those areas.  This means if there is enough contrast of light and dark in the underlying pattern, you’ll see the pattern in your drawing.

I’ve already shown you what permanent marker looks like on back, so I didn’t bother scanning the back of this page.

And the book was made with tangling in mind, so of course I had to do some tangling! I liked the way this page had sections of color and used them to create a pattern sampler.

On the back, I kept track of the patterns I used.

Overall

Alice Hendon’s More Tangle Starts was created with tangling in mind, but it’s good for drawing, painting, art journaling, chunky books, collage, creating ephemera, and you could even use the pages for origami. The pages were created with paints, inks, stencils, washi tape and more.  It’s almost like using someone else’s expensive craft supplies and letting them do all the work of creating your mixed media backgrounds.

There are 100 backgrounds in full-color and they are all beautiful.  In truth, you could just keep this as a coffee table book!

Details for entering the giveaway can be found at my blog, here.

Tools

• More Tangle Starts by Alice Hendon
• Zebra Zensations Technical Pen
• Zebra Zensations Mechanical Colored Pencils
• Zebra ClickArt Knock type water base pen, Standard 12 color set 
• Zebra Glitter Highlighter, Kirarich, Pack of 5
• Signo Uniball White gel pen
• Holbein Acryla Gouache Mixing Set of 5

Related Posts

• REVIEW: Alice Hendon’s Tangle Starts Planner, Into the Future
• REVIEW: Alice Hendon’s Artangleology Book Series
• Tangle Art: Getting Started With Alice Hendon
• Tangle All Around the World by Alice Hendon
• GUEST ARTIST: “The Zen of Artangleology” by Alice Hendon

Disclaimer: Alice Hendon sent me a copy of her book, ‘More Tangle Starts’ so I could review it, and offered one for a giveaway. I received no other considerations, though this post contains affiliate links which help support Doodlewash. As always, all opinions expressed are my own.

Sandra Strait

I’m a self-taught artist who dances about with all sorts of artistic mediums. My main loves are Watercolor, Zentangle and Ballpoint pen. The subjects of my work are many and varied and change at whim. I’m a little bit crazy, but doesn’t that come with being an artist? I post Reviews and Tutorials here on Doodlewash.

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