How to draw TREFOIL

Happy Monday, y’all! It’s another beautiful week in the neighborhood …

And today Ohio tangler Judy Okawa shares her lovely Trefoil tangle with us. This is Judy’s fourth tangle on the site.

One of the definitions of a Trefoil, we learn, is:

“an ornamental design of three rounded lobes like a clover leaf, used typically in architectural tracery.” ~ Oxford Dictionary

Trefoil – the three merging circles design common in Gothic architecture symbolizes the holy trinity.

In architecture,

“A foil is an architectural device based on a symmetrical rendering of leaf shapes, defined by overlapping circles that produce a series of cusps to make a lobe. Typically, the number of cusps can be three (trefoil), four (quatrefoil) or five (cinquefoil), or can be any number (multifoil).

Foil motifs may be used as part of the heads and tracery of window lights, complete windows themselves, the underside of arches, in heraldry, within panelling, and as part of any decorative or ornament device. Foil types are commonly found in Gothic and Islamic architecture.” ~ Wikipedia

Judy writes,

Since I’ve gotten interested in Zentangle I’ve been having fun browsing at the used book store for books that show designs from other cultures and other times – The pattern idea I’m sending along this time is based on a Gothic design from one of those books – It could be used as a border, or rows could be combined (as in the example) to fill a larger space – (By the way, I find it helps to “turn the tile” when drawing this….)

Judy illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Trefoil below and in her monotangle she shows her tangle as a simple back-to-back example which I also used for my example.

Image copyright the artist and used with permission, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please feel free to refer to the steps images to recreate this tangle in your personal Zentangles and ZIAs, or to link back to this page. However the artist and TanglePatterns.com reserve all rights to these images and they must not be publicly pinned, reproduced or republished. Thank you for respecting these rights. For more information, click on the image for a discussion entitled “Artists for Respect” by several prominent artists.

As you enjoy any of the tangles on the site, please do leave a comment of thanks and encouragement to show the artists you appreciate them for sharing their creativity to inspire yours.

Check out the tag judyo for more of Judy’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

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