How to draw ZIGZATREE

Season’s Greetings all!

It’s never too late for a few Zentangle®-inspired Christmas cards, gift tags and notes and today we explore an easy and festive tangle that’s simply perfect for this purpose.

Zigzatree is from Taiwan CZT Shell Chang and is presented along with several pretty ZIA tiles by Shell’s teacher, CZT Lin Chiu.

Lin writes,

The pattern of Zigzatree was tangled by my student Shell Chang in this 2015 ZIA Christmas artwork:

Shell Chang said that when she first thought about it, she accidentally discovered that positive and negative zigzag Christmas trees can be combined, which is the same as Zentangle’s non-directionality. This is very interesting!

I think of this Christmas tree pattern every December, so this year I tangled pattern steps for this pattern, and extended many different Zigzatree variations, hoping to make the application of this pattern more diversified.

I discussed with Shell Chang about this pattern’s name “Zigzag+Tree = Zigzatree” We named the pattern “Zigzatree”, because this pattern is a combination of zigzag elements as a positive and negative Christmas tree!

Lin illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Shell Chang’s Zigzatree below and shows some simple, creative ways to vary this sweet festive tangle.

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. (Small side note: if you look at the legalese in Pinterest, you are legally responsible for obtaining permission to post every photo that gets ‘Pinned’. Giving credit or sharing the source link doesn’t count.) Thank you for respecting these rights. “We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.” ~ Albus Dumbledore

Here are some more of Lin’s gorgeous explorations of Zigzatree together with mostly Zentangle-original tangles, the first is on a Renaissance Tan tile:

A ZIA message with love on a Renaissance Tan Zendala tile:

A pretty-in-pink ZIA on a white Zentangle tile:

And lastly, sweetly tied up in a pretty bow on a Zendala:

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 thanks helps motivate them to continue to share! And please share a link to your favorite tangles on social media. Thanks!

Check out the tag shellc for more of Shell’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

Better late than never?

I realize it’s a bit late in the season but I just decided to add a new tag – christmas – so we can find all the tangles and related tutorials in this category. If you find any I missed, feel free to send me a heads up so I can remedy the situation 🙂

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.
   • 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?
7. How to submit your pattern deconstruction to TanglePatterns
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