How to draw EBBSTRACT

Hi there and Happy Friday!

Ebbstract is our first tangle for August and another fun deconstruction from Spanish CZT Tomàs Padrós. Ebbstract is his 38th tangle on the site, most recently we explored his Ariadna.

Tomàs shares how Ebbstract evolved and the origins of its name,

Ebbstract is a tangle that originates from a tangleation of Love Handles. At the end of the deconstruction of Love Handles on TanglePatterns you can guess the origin of this pattern. But Ebbstract is really different to Love Handles. It has its own personality.

The name combines the terms Ebb and Abstract. The pattern suggests undulations, retractions, and folds that open and close with a rhythmic and organic naturalness. It can recall both the tide, with its back and forth movement (hence the prefix Ebb), and a simple set of decorative ribbons, with no figurative intention (Abstract), as if it were a bas-relief on paper or fabric.

If by some chance you missed Tomàs’s Love Handles, be sure to check that one out – and the rest of his contributions too!

Tomàs illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Ebbstract below and gives these suggestions for tangling it:

Step 1: You can draw a vertical or horizontal line with soft curved inflections to one side or the other, like a smooth succession of waves.

Step 2: Repeat this line once or twice to one side, using aura lines that follow its shape at a constant distance. This creates a ribbon-like band with a fluid, rhythmic movement.

Step 3: Add a new line next to the first ribbon, but change the locations and directions of the curves slightly to create contrast.

Step 4: Draw this new line a few times as before, building a second band with a different visual rhythm.

Step 5: Continue repeating steps 3 and 4.

Step 6: Fill the spaces between two adjacent ribbons of alternating inflections, leaving a thin white space on either side. This enhances the contrast and creates the illusion of depth.

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. “Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.” ~ Franz Kafka

Below, in his second illustration Tomàs has fun with “a more organic, slightly crazy arrangement with a sort of fescu ending, as if it were an abstract plant.

Here I also take the opportunity to indicate two possible types of shading: In the final drawing of the deconstruction, all the shadows are shown on the same side of the inflections, specifically under each fold.

In the tile below, I show a shading that alternates the position of the shadows, above or below the inflections, depending on whether it is folded to the left or right. This creates a play of concave and convex sensations, adding visual complexity and dimensionality.”

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Check out the tag tomasp for more of Tomàs’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

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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." 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?
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