How to draw ZENFIDDLE

Zenfiddle comes to us from Nevada tangler Lori Tryon and this is her first tangle pattern on the site.

Zenfiddle was created when Lori was drawing CZT Jane Eileen Malone’s tangle 8’s and she went off track.

As always happens in Zentangle® — and life if you so choose — Lori’s “mistake” turned into a new creative opportunity.

“The name came to me as I was trying to fiddle my way through the process of recreating 8’s and the end result does remind me of a fiddle.“

Lori introduces herself:

“I fell in love with Zentangle after attending a ‘Fun-Day Class’ at the local Art Club here in Elko, Nevada. I have been tangling non-stop since then. My fingers are numb from constantly holding a pen! But can’t seem to stop, I even dream of tangling!

The hardest thing about this pattern is getting the first set of curves in the right place, you can use the 8’s pattern of dots to start out.

After recreating this pattern so many times, I tend to skip that process and just head straight into the curves, leaving enough room between for the ‘S’s to go through.”

Although it may look complicated Zenfiddle is composed of two simple strokes: a curve ( and an S, with a little shading to pop out the raised texture.

Lori mentions that the hardest part of Zenfiddle is getting the first set of curves in place, however I discovered a really simple strategy for this. Tilt your head a little to your right and look at Step 2 (skip Step 1). You’ll see offset rows of pairs of curves, like open and close parentheses (      ). From there just remember “to leave enough room between for the S’s to go through“. Here’s my simple example of Zenfiddle above but I added a diamond “fill”, a variation from Lori’s original loop motif.

Lori illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Zenfiddle below and shows it in a lovely monotangle.

Image copyright the artist and used with permission, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. You may use this image for your personal non-commercial reference only. Republishing or redistributing pattern deconstructions in any form is prohibited under law without express permission of the copyright owner. For more information, click on the image for a discussion entitled “Artists for Respect” by several prominent artists.

Check out the tag lorit for more of Lori’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

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