Step-out of the month for February 2024: nexta

For the month of February we have the pleasure of exploring the tangle "Nexta," submitted by Dari Stolzoff. Nexta came about in January 2015, shortly after Dari finished the Zentangle Teacher training seminar in the US. She was showing her daughter what she had been up to, and her daughter suggested this tangle! Dari created the step-out.

Nexta is a versatile texture tangle that has some structural similarity with the Zentangle pattern Keeko. Dari writes: "I like it because it’s a simple curved line repeated in a rotating fashion. It can be embellished with purfs, shading and line weight to great effect."

I could not agree more! In her step-out and example tiles below, Dari demonstrates some of the variation that is possible with Nexta. I think it's particularly noteworthy to observe how effective just a bit of weighting, rounding and shading can be.

And that is not all - Nexta also makes a fantastic fragment. Dari demonstrates its fragment potential below, also showing how it can appear on different colored backgrounds:

Nexta was the step-out of the month for February 2024. If you would like to receive the step-out of the month before it is published in our blog, you can sign up here:

Please feel welcome to share your artwork using nexta at any time on our Step-out of the Month Facebook page, where you can also see many other beautiful examples of artwork using this tangle. When you post on Instagram, Facebook or the Mosaic app please use these hashtags so we and others can find your work: #nexta, #conzentric, #sootm #stepoutofthemonth.