How to draw BILBOTARRA

Hello again my tangling friends and welcome back for Monday’s easy and versatile tangle.

Bilbotarra is from Spanish tangler Itxaso Ruiz and it’s her first on the site. A little research tells me Itxaso is pronounced E-cha-so.

Bilbotarra is a grid-based tangle that can easily be explored on a wonky grid creating effect like this one Itxaso demonstrates in her colorful ZIA:

Itxaso writes,

I’ve been inspired for creating Bilbotarra from [the pavement] in the streets of Bilbao, my city.

It’s not very clear where it has been created, but they started to make it in Bilbao’s factory around 40s.

The pattern prevents water from accumulating when it rains (that’s very common in the north of Basque Country in Spain).

What an ingenious and beautiful solution to dealing with a slippery subject! In this ZIA, Itxaso includes the Zentangle®-originals Ambler, perfs/Tipple and a Crescent Moon-like fill with a lovely colorful gem as the focal point. BTW, you’ll find the link to a great tutorial by CZT Marie Browning on creating colorful gems in Tangle Refresher 149.

In her ZIA examples Itxaso shows us a range of ways to explore her tangle.

Just to be a little different from Itxaso’s examples, for my example of Bilbotarra I used a touch of graphite to replicate some of the inner auras she includes in Step 4 and in her monotangle below.

Itxaso illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Bilbotarra below and she features it in a simple shaded monotangle. It’s ripe for many more fill possibilities.

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Check out the tag itxasor for more of Itxaso’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

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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.
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