Have you ever repeatedly put something off time and time again only to discover that when you actually put it into practice, you really enjoyed it? That was me with my Inktober Tangles challenge, which I completed on YouTube for the first time ever.
What is Inktober?, you might be wondering. If you are, it’s a Zentangle spin-off of the generic Inktober Challenge, which was started in 2009, by Jake Parker. That challenge encourages people to complete an ink drawing for each day of October.
What is Inktober Tangles?
Certified Zentangle Teacher Stephanie Jennifer created her own take on the challenge from 2015, saying she adapted the idea to fit with Zentangle art by making each day’s prompts be a tangle. She called her list of tangles the Inktober Tangles challenge. You can read more about Stephanie’s idea behind the Inktober Tangles challenge here.
I have participated in Inktober Tangles before either in small squares created in a sketch book for individual tangles, as in the photo above, or as part of a bigger composition, where the tangles are blended together in one piece.
For ages, I had been wanting to create a YouTube channel where people can come to learn how to do a variety of different tangles.
There was just one problem. Fear. I kept getting too much in my own head, so although I kept talking about my YouTube channel, it only existed in my mind. Until the 1st of October, 2024.
Although I had posted one video to my YouTube account before the Inktober Tangles challenge started, I hadn’t told a single soul about it or promoted it in any way.
Launching my YouTube channel – at last!
The Inktober Tangles challenge was the perfect opportunity for me to finally stop talking and start doing.
I decided to have a short intro in my very first video so that the viewers could see me and who I was properly. Easy, right? Hmm. Not so much. As many people will know, it’s uncomfortable to see yourself on screen. I did it, though, and nothing bad happened. The sun kept rising every day and I actually had fun.
I planned to use my IPEVO document camera to record the process, but I was having issues figuring out how to keep the camera in focus throughout the whole video. It’s clearly totally possible but I still need to sit down and work out how. That’s a task for another day . . .
For the time being, I had the option of my good old iPhone and my mobile tripod. I think overall the videos have been successfully recorded, though I need to figure out the focus with that, too – sometimes when I’m moving my hand to a different angle, the camera is focusing on that rather than on my tile.
I felt so nervous about seeing whether or not people would want to follow me. It’s been a fairly solid start, though, to be honest.
Kind and supportive comments
At the time of writing, I’ve gained 58 subscribers and I’ve had several very kind and supportive comments from some people who have viewed my channel. You can see some of the examples of the supportive messages I received during the Inktober Tangles challenge.
“I just love this time together with you and your teaching. Your method is so easy to follow. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your talents with all of us. I am looking forward to seeing your followers grow over time. I am in Ontario Canada and feel like there are no miles between us when we Zen.”
“I love your channel!! Thank you for your wonderful versions on these tangles!!”
“Please keep recording. I love your work and sharing. You have a nice way to design your pages.”
Someone else contacted me by email saying that she’s been enjoying watching my Inktober Tangles videos every morning and that she’s joined my mailing list. I had invited my followers to share their own tangles with me, so she sent a few samples of her own lovely work.
She said: “It’s almost like we’re a peaceful alliance of artists, calmly drawing while the world is in chaos. I wish every one would just sit down, Zentangle together and forget about politics, borders, and things that don’t really matter.”
She’s based in the States and I’m in the UK but she says she’s keen to tangle with me so she’ll figure out the time zones and we’ll arrange a session together.
My experience with setting up my YouTube channel has been so positive that I’ve just been left wondering why I didn’t do it sooner. One of the things I love so much about Zentangle is the people it attracts and it feels like I’m properly starting to build my own little community now.
Tying the launch of my channel to a challenge such as the Inktober Tangles challenge meant that I didn’t have to be concerned about what tangle or technique to teach about.
In addition to that, the fact that I chose to teach each tangle individually – with just one or two exceptions – on Bijou tiles (two inches squared) made it easy to keep each tutorial short. A couple were almost 20 minutes long but the majority were less than half the length of that.
I was still getting used to editing my videos by the time that it came to be recording the Inktober Tangles tutorials for this challenge. As an Apple user it made sense for me to at least try the iMovie app. It’s pretty intuitive, to be honest, though ironically I have at times used YouTube to research how to start a YouTube channel!
I decided not to speed up any of the sections in my video. Everything is filmed in real time. The reason behind my thinking for that is that I don’t want Zentangle to feel hurried in any way. In future videos, I might just skip sections of tangling where I’m adding a lot of ink, for example, rather than speeding it up.
In terms of music, I haven’t used any in my Inktober Tangles challenge. However, I think in future videos, music will help to entertain the viewer. I’ll see how future videos pan out and what the majority of my viewers like as the viewers are the people who matter the most, aren’t they?
When it comes to speaking on camera and tangling on camera, it’s much more natural than I had ever anticipated. I actually think sometimes I relaxed so much tangling that I missed the fact that the camera was focusing on my hand rather than the tile, or my tile disappeared off screen all together.
I found filming and scheduling the videos to generally not be too time-consuming. That said, life gets in the way and although I aimed for each tutorial to be “live” at 11am each day, sometimes that just wasn’t possible. A child sick off school, other work commitments . . . It’s challenging to fit everything in. I did manage to have everything published on the actual day of the tangle if not being scheduled in advance.
Highlights and Challenges
Variety is the spice of life, as they say, and everyone has their favourite tangles. My personal favourite was Xs, by Tomàs Padrós, which was the tangle for day 12 of Inktober Tangles – it’s the one on the bottom right on the border of the photo above.
The tangles that Tomàs comes up with can sometimes look quite complicated but are actually quite simple when you break them down into their individual steps. I did a practice run of Xs before filming, and played with it more afterwards and this tangle is an example of why Zentangle is good for focus.
When I wasn’t paying enough attention, I was adding too many triangles, rather than skipping every other space. I like tangles that require a bit more concentration even if they are really actually pretty straightforward.
Nipa, by Zentangle HQ, was the video with the least views, whereas Veerap, by Debbie Raaen, was the most popular tangle on my channel.
It was interesting to see that the videos that performed particularly well on YouTube didn’t necessarily perform well on my other social-media platforms. I loved the tangle Tofube but don’t think I did it justice really. However, that was a particularly popular tangle on my YouTube channel and on my Facebook and Insta accounts.
Audience Engagement and Growth
One thing I noticed was that there was more engagement on the YouTube videos, not so much in terms of likes but of comments. People were really very kind about what I was posting on there. And it was really encouraging.
People commented that they liked my teaching style and that it was easy to follow along with me, so it’s definitely motivating me to keep recording tutorials for the channel.
What’s next?
At the end of the day, using the Inktober Tangles challenge to help launch my YouTube channel was great fun and I’m definitely going to be keeping this up. I won’t be posting daily, however.
You can expect a video once a week from me from now on.
I’d love to know. Are there any tangles or techniques you’d like to see? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll see what I can do!
I’d love it if you’d subscribe to my YouTube channel, if you like it, of course!, and if you’re interested in joining my mailing list, there’s a free ebook in it for you. Tangle Your Troubles Away will take you through an entire Zentangle tile from start to finish, including tips on how to approach the shading.
By joining my mailing list, you’ll keep up to date with any classes I have coming up and I’ll be starting a monthly challenge where I give you a tangle or tangles and a string and you go off and create your own tile based on those prompts.
If you’re interested in joining my mailing list, there’s a free ebook in it for you, too. Tangle your Troubles Away will take you through an entire Zentangle tile from start to finish, including tips on how to approach the shading.