Happy Monday everyone!
Are you ready for a safari?!
Today we take a trip to South Africa with CZT Milde Weiss to explore her easy safari-inspired Loxo tangle.
Loxo is interesting for its inspiration, shown here, and also because a graphite-filled tortillion is used to add detail. Failing a grungy tortillion, a very light touch with a pencil followed up by smoothing with a tortillion will do the job. (My example is a combination of both.) Can you guess what this is?
Milde explains:
“We have been visiting the Kruger National Park for the past 3 weeks and had some wonderful game sightings.
The elephants always fascinate me and after taking a close-up picture of an elephant hide, the following tangle, Loxo, resulted.“
A quick Google search turns up the following:
“The Kruger National Park, in northeastern South Africa, is one of Africa’s largest game reserves. Its high density of wild animals includes the Big 5: lions, leopards, rhinos, elephants and buffalos. Hundreds of other mammals make their home here, as do diverse bird species such as vultures, eagles and storks. Mountains, bush plains and tropical forests are all part of the landscape.”
Kruger National Park is vast, little wonder Milde needed three weeks. Wikipedia says it “covers an area of 19,485 square kilometres (7,523 sq mi) and extends 360 kilometres (220 mi) from north to south and 65 kilometres (40 mi) from east to west. Areas of the park were first protected by the government of the South African Republic in 1898, and it became South Africa’s first national park in 1926.”
Milde also sent along this fabulous photo with the note “I just can’t resist the temptation to attach one of the pictures I snapped in the Kruger National Park – for your enjoyment!” I’m sure she won’t mind me sharing it with you too.
How magnificent !
And now for Loxo. Milde’s first Zentangle® tile includes the Zentangle-originals Pokeleaf and Pokeroot.
Of her second tile she writes, “In the sepia variation I alternated lines with solid parts and used a white Gellyroll 10 (I love that pen!) to add the curved lines.” This tile includes the Zentangle-original Gneiss and lots of radiating auras.
Milde illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Loxo below. “Start by drawing irregular vertical lines, which are then intersected by curved lines, alternating the upwards and downwards curves. Round the corners and shade.” The tangle enhancer called Rounding and the graphite curves finishing the sections off really make this tangle.
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, altered, reproduced or republished. They are for your personal offline reference only. Thank you for respecting these rights. Click the image for an article explaining what copyright means in plain English. “Always let your conscience be your guide.” ~ Jiminy Cricket
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Check out the tag milde_w for more of Milde’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.
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Tangle or Zentangle?
Often Zentangle newbies describe their drawings containing several patterns as "a tangle". Or conversely, refer to a tangle as "a Zentangle". Not so.
A tangle is one (1) single pattern. And there are guidelines about what qualifies as a tangle. For details visit ZENTANGLES > A PATTERN IS NOT ALWAYS A TANGLE on the top menu bar of any page.
A Zentangle is the finished art on a tile containing one or more tangles. A Zentangle containing just one tangle is called a monotangle.
And while we're on the subject of using this wonderful art form's terminology correctly, as for "Zentangling" or "Zentangled" the terms to use are tangling or tangled. 🙂
As described on zentangle.com, "In its verb form 'tangle' means to draw a tangle. You tangle a tangle, and in that process create Zentangle art."
Learn more by visiting the ZENTANGLES > ZENTANGLE TERMINOLOGY page on the top menu bar of any page.
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Related Links
- Looking for tangles by Artist or Type? For details visit the ABOUT > HOW TO FIND TANGLES BY ARTIST OR TYPE page on the top menu bar of any page on the site.
- What is a Zentangle? — if you are new to the Zentangle Method, start here for the fundamentals.
- Zentangle terminology — a glossary of terms used in this art form.
- How to use the site — an excellent free video tutorial showing how to use the site as well as pointing out lots of useful features you might have missed.
- Linda's List of Zentangle-Original Patterns — here is the complete list of original tangles (aka "official tangles") created and introduced by founders Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas, including those not published online. If you are new to the Zentangle Method I highly recommend learning a few of the published Zentangle classics first.
- "A Zentangle has no up or down and is not a picture of something, so you have no worries about whether you can draw a hand, or a duck. You always succeed in creating a Zentangle." Thus patterns that are drawings of a recognizable naturalistic or actual object, figure, or scene, are not tangles. A pattern is not always a tangle — here's what makes a tangle. TIP: tangles never start with pencil planning.
- Un motif n’est pas toujours un tangle — Qu’est-ce qu’un tangle ?
- Un diseño no es siempre un tangle — ¿Qué es un tangle?
- How to submit your pattern deconstruction to TanglePatterns
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October 22, 2018 | 
More like this: 
This is a fabulous post ! Milde’s tangle is so unique and I love the leopard…All cats are my babies !!! Love them all…
Your use of a tortillon as a “pen” is so innovative. I see many applications of this technique to other tangles as well.
Neat!!!! Love it!
Love the rustic, organic feel to this tangle. Definitely will be using this tangle. I visited Kruger National Park back in the 90’s and have many fond memories of the short safari I was on. Hope you had a wonderful time!
Love the organic flow to this and will definitely give it a try. Your examples are terrific. Must have been an exciting trip.
I find this tangle very appealing and most satisfying to use. I too, love the organic look to it, something different, thanks Milde.
Thanks for all the positive feedback, y’all. As the Kruger Park is far from where we live (1600km or 994 miles), we don’t go there very often. So this was a very special visit! I find that many of my tangle inspirations come from nature, and we are very fortunate to be within reach of seven of our smaller National Parks. Some of them even have big cats as well, Sharon!
I can feel the elephant hide inspiration! Thank you Milde for a unique and interesting new tangle!