Barcelona tangler Tomàs Padrós is back today with a new tangle he’s called Meshmerize following on the recent success of his Membranart tangle.
And if you notice me switching accents around in his name, Tomàs sends his emails with one version (Tomás) and his illustrations have another (Tomàs). So the editor in me asked him which was correct. He replied,
The two accents are valid. Tomás is Spanish and Tomàs is Catalan. I usually write it in the second way (à) but it is not a vital question for me. 🙂
So there we have it, Tomas is \ and Padros is /.
Tomàs explains Meshmerize is a tangle that “arose playing with Huggins and changing the links between the dots.
The name came to me right away. I think it is appropriate since it forms a mesh with a certain hypnotic effect.
I find amusing its quilting arrangement and the game of links and overlaps.
This is a cool tangle to play with composed of just a dot grid, a curve stroke and a straight stroke. Meshmerize looks interesting regardless of which way around you turn it. The rounding added in Step 5 makes all the difference to the final effect. The shading Tomàs added in his tiles really emphasizes the woven effect compared to the “flat”, shading-free version of my example.
A note on how I start my dot grids in case it helps you. I usually put the first dots in the outer corners of the section where I want the dot grid to go. In the case of my tangle examples that’s in the outer 4 corners. Then I eyeball where the middle is on all sides and add those. From there it’s easy to distribute the rest of the dots evenly using the others as a guide. That’s my take on it. If you have another way of going about this, love you to share in the comments!
Tomàs illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Meshmerize below and demonstrates it in a meshmerizing monotangle 😉
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In this lovely Zentangle® tile, Tomàs combines Meshmerize with the Zentangle-original Shattuck in curved and straight line versions.
In this alternate way of tangling Meshemerize Tomàs uses an offset dot grid. And for a third version he asks, “What happens if I make a ‘mistake’ in Step 2?” (compare the 3rd column of curves in Step 2 with the one in the lower left where he’s marked “Oops”). Answer: “No problem!” If you “accidentally” repeated the first column, then follow it by repeating the second column and so on.
As you enjoy any of the tangles on the site, please 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 tomasp for more of Tomàs’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.
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November 3, 2017 | 
More like this: 
Oh, WOW!, this is absolutely AWESOME!! The curves/joinings make me think of the way “Cadence” is drawn, so that’s helpful, but WOW, what a great optical illusion results in the end! I’m a huge fan of optical illusions, and have enjoyed creating my own over the last six decades (+) of my life, so this tangle is now at the top of my ‘must draw’ list :-D!
Great! Thank you very much. I also like tangles that play with optical illusions. I hope to show one more soon.
Linda, your method to determine the dots on the grid is perfect, the best that I know of. It is a great advice that I will follow. Thank you very much.
Wow, I love the possibilities! You have obviously done a lot of work with this tangle. Thank you.
Thanks to you. It’s a pleasure to feel that what you do is interesting, like and can be useful to someone
I love this whole family of patterns. It’s one that looks complex but once you figure it out it’s so much fun. I actually like the sister pattern to this but can’t remember the name. I look forward to more patterns by Tomàs .
I do not know what you mean when talking about the sister patter but thank you very much for your encouragement words, Linda.
If you click on the “dot grid” link in the post or in the publication date bar (or use the TANGLES BY TYPE dropdown menu in the left sidebar), a list of all the tangles that start with a dot grid are presented. One of the earliest of this type, and probably the most similar to Meshmerize, is 8’s by CZT Jane Eileen Malone. Hope that helps! (And of course there’s Cadent and Huggins, and to a degree W2, all Zentangle-originals.)
This is a FASCINATING tangle!! I’ve just drawn your 3 versions and love them all. Well done. 🙂
Very grateful and infected with your enthusiasm. I’m glad you like to draw the three versions.
Very original found, I like this wonderful new tangle very much, congrats Tomàs!
Being original is not easy, so thanks for the compliment.
What a fabulous tangle, Tòmas, well worth the effort to figure out the consequences of drawing the brackets different ways round, but it is wonderful that it looks good even if you make ‘mistakes’!
I discovered the possibility of taking advantage of the error because I committed it (hahaha). Thank you very much Anna
Sooooo cool! I’ve seen several tiles with this tangle on Mosaic app, and was hoping to find the step-outs! Thank you, Tomàs and Linda! And thank you for the tip on making a dot grid, Linda. Very helpful!
I’m glad. Thank you very much!!!
I discovered the possibility of taking advantage of the error because I committed it (hahaha). Thank you very much Anna
This one challenged me, I’ll need to practice to nail it! I love the energy in this Tangle, so it is very much worth mastering. Thank you Tomàs!
Thanks to you for your enthusiasm. Enjoy it!!!
Thanks Tomas. This will take some playing with to master, but will be fun.
When you catch the trick it’s easy (I think). Have fun!!!
I love your take on Huggins, Tomàs. Can’t wait to see more from you after this and membranart. Where can we see more of your art?
. Thank you Janie. All my design are in Instagram @tomas_padros
What a fun tangle, Tomàs. Thanks so much for sharing it with us, and Linda, I love your way of setting up a dot grid. It’s so much easier than my previous method of eyeballing the position of each dot and coming up with some seriously wonky grids.
Thank you very much. Linda has good advices!!!
Tomas your Meshmerize is wonderful! I am so excited to draw this. Thank you so much for sharing. I love Meshmerize 2 as well!
Thank you, Linda, for all of your work. Nancy
Thank you very much, Nancy. Enjoy it!
Tomas I made the comment above when I first saw your Meshmerize. I loved it immediately. Now that I have drawn it I love it even more! It is so satisfying. The shading is great. To think this beautiful pattern started with a bunch of dots–amazing. Thank you again. Nancy
Thanks to you for your enthusiasm. That gives encouragement.
Hello,
Tomas is an absolutely aMAZing Tangler !!! I was pleased to get “trapped” in his web of such fun “brain teasers”…I have copies of his tangles that I am taking with me to CZT31, along with my other special tangle step outs…Thanks to Linda, Tomas and all the fantastic contributors on the site…:):) (New laptop..Can’t figure out where my missing Emojis are hiding !)