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What is Zentangle?
Linda Farmer, Certified Zentangle Teacher

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How to draw SWOOSHI

Zentangle pattern: Swooshi. Image © Linda Farmer and TanglePatterns.com. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. You may use this image for your personal non-commercial reference only. The unauthorized pinning, reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.Swooshi is such a fun new tangle from CZT Lucy Farran who recently shared her Essence tangle with us.

As you’ll see from Lucy’s steps and her Zentangle® tile examples, Swooshi is a really versatile tangle whether drawn randomly or in “a more orderly arrangement” and offers lots of opportunity for fills, or not.

Lucy explains how Swooshi evolved:

Swooshi developed because I wanted to see what would happen if I replaced the ‘C’ lines of Molygon with ‘S’ lines.

It didn’t really fit together like Molygon does and it seemed different enough to warrant its own step out.

It fits together in many different random or more uniform ways and the finished tangle offers many fill options from simple 2D or 3D shading to being used as a reticulum for other tangles or fragments.

The name ‘Swooshi’ comes from the fact that one end of each shape looks a little like the Nike ‘swoosh’, hence, it is a bit ‘swooshi’.

For my example I used Lucy’s first tile with the radial version of Swooshi as a model and her second tile for the fill. I love those S curves, even if my brain/pen connection goes a little wonky at times!

Lucy illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Swooshi below. “The other tangles included in the examples are: on the tan tile, Fescu and Zinger, with a Crescent Moon/Bunzo fragment fill, and on the grey tile, Crescent Moon and Diva Dance, with a Shattuck fill.

How to draw the Zentangle pattern Swooshi, tangle and deconstruction by Lucy Farran. Image copyright the artist and used with permission, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Image copyright the artist and used with permission, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. These images are for your personal offline reference only. Please feel free to refer to the images to recreate this tangle in your personal Zentangles and ZIAs. However the artist and TanglePatterns.com reserve all rights to the images and they must not be publicly pinned, altered, 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. “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” ~ C.S. Lewis

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. Your comment helps motivate them to continue to share!

Check out the tag lucyf for more of Lucy’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

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Zentangle's Elemental Strokes

The elemental strokes of a tangle in ZentangleFor those who aren't familiar with Zentangle's elemental strokes for deconstructing a pattern to be drawn as a tangle,

Usually the number of elemental strokes needed are 3 or less. Often, you only need one or two.

By ‘elemental strokes’ we mean a dot, a straight(-ish) line, a curve (like a parenthesis), a reverse curve (like an ‘S’), and an orb or circle.“ ~ from the Zentangle blog

For an ingenious example of these elemental strokes used together as a tangle, be sure to check out CZT® Mina Hsiao’s Dicso. (Note: not disco!)

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Related Links

  1. 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.
  2. What is a Zentangle? — if you are new to the Zentangle Method, start here for the fundamentals.
  3. Zentangle terminology — a glossary of terms used in this art form.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. "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.
  7. How to submit your pattern deconstruction to TanglePatterns
  8. For lots of great FREE tutorials on TanglePatterns, click on the TUTORIALS link in the pink alphabetic menu bar below the tangle images at the top of any page.
  9. Strings! Have we got STRINGS! Click on the STRINGS link in the pink alphabetic menu bar below the tangle images at the top of any page for 250 different (free) Zentangle-starters. More than enough for any lifetime!
  10. Never miss a tangle! FREE eMAIL NEWSLETTER - visit the SUBSCRIBE page on the top menu bar of any page on the site and sign up to get notices delivered free to your inbox.

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6 comments to How to draw SWOOSHI

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