Here’s our last pattern for 2010, lots more to come in 2011!
Tortuca is a one of the original, official Zentangle® patterns and it’s illustrated in Sandy Bartholomew’s book, AlphaTangle. Tortuca is one of my favorite patterns to draw (and to say) and it makes a great filler.
There aren’t any online visual instructions (yet) for drawing this tangle pattern, but Tortuca is an easy enough pattern to figure out.
Start by drawing a basic checkerboard grid. Then fill each square with a spiral, making them all go in the same direction. You can get interesting effects by filling in or shading the background around each spiral, and by varying their direction. Personally, I like it just the way it is. Quite similar to Tortuca is the official pattern Emingle – where the spirals are “squared”.
Perhaps one of the CZTs can explain how the name for this pattern came about?
Check out the tag zentangle for more official Zentangle® patterns on tanglepatterns.com.
Share your art
Show us your Zentangle® art featuring TORTUCA. Here’s how. In your comment, please mention whether your link is to a Zentangle®, or Zentangle®-inspired art.
I’m not a CZT but I do know that “tortuga” is Spanish for turtle. The pattern looks rather like a tortoise shell.
Perhaps someone misspelled tortuga?
I wish you a happy 2011
It’s really too small to see what it is but I’ll take your word on the turtle analogy.
From Wiktionary:
tortus
Latin
tortus m (feminine torta, neuter tortum); first/second declension
1. twisted
2. spun, whirled
3. bent, distorted
4. tormented, tortured