How to draw CHOO CHOO LEAVES

Hello again my dear tangling friends 🙂

Off we go together with another exciting year of delightful tangle inspiration! Not only is this the 14th year of TanglePatterns bringing you that tangle inspiration, 2024 also marks 20 years of the gift of Zentangle®! A very special year indeed.

We begin our 2024 Zentangle journey exploring Spanish CZT Tomàs Padrós’s delightful Zentangle pattern, Choo Choo Leaves.

Tomàs introduces his tangle and explains the reason for its name:

This is an organic tangle. It seems to be formed by the simplified form of a leaf, but the important thing about this tangle is that these leaves are not autonomous units. They lack a stem and their contours allow the successive fit of that main motif.

The tangle only exists when these pieces are fitted into sinuous curves that can branch out. This is what clearly differentiates it from other “leaf” tangles like Nadine Roller’s delicious Gelijoy.

Each basic motif is just like a train car. Hence the name Choo Choo Leaves. So this tangle works by fitting together modular pieces.

Always, it is the structure that interests me, not the decoration, which I leave to each person’s taste.

Tomàs illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Choo Choo Leaves below together with his tips for tangling it and three sweet monotangle Bijou tiles.

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. Click the image for an article explaining what copyright means in plain English. “Always let your conscience be your guide.” ~ Jiminy Cricket

In this illustration, Tomàs shares some ideas for embellishing Choo Choo Leaves and includes a beautiful colorful Zentangle-inspired tile (ZIA) featuring his 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. Click the image for an article explaining what copyright means in plain English. “Always let your conscience be your guide.” ~ Jiminy Cricket

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 tomasp for more of Tomàs’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

Notice about the TanglePatterns.com TANGLE GUIDE, 2024 Edition

If you’re new to the site, please visit the BOOK REVIEWS > TANGLEPATTERNS.COM TANGLE GUIDE page on the top menu bar on the page for a complete description of this annual publication. Quoting from that page:

Each year around the second week of January I publish my updated, interactive TANGLE GUIDE eBook integrating all the previous year’s new tangles and adding a new feature or two.

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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.
   • 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
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!
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11. If you have questions about the TanglePatterns.com TANGLE GUIDE, visit the BOOK REVIEWS tab on the top menu bar of any page on the site for COMPLETE details!

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