How to draw MOGO

Hi there my tangling friends!

Today’s Mogo tangle is another in CZT Angie Gittles’s southwest pottery-inspired deconstructions. Be sure to check out the rest of her series as well all of her fun tangles on the site.

Angie introduces Mogo and explains the background for this tangle’s name:

Earlier this year, I started playing with patterns inspired by pottery of the Southwest, and in May, I had deconstructed Hokam … the first of many that I have sketched in my practice journals.

Mogo was first inspired by a piece of Mogollon (Moh-ge-YOHN) pottery from the ancient Mogollon culture.

Then, I noticed basically the same “reticula” pattern was found on many different types of southwest pottery, such as Hopi, Navajo, Mata Ortiz, and Acoma, to name a few.

It has either a curved or straight back-stroked top (or bottom in some cases), and I didn’t see the need to present it as two different patterns.

It’s used a little differently on each type of pottery. Some leave it plain, and some fill it with other patterns. It’s so simple yet has so many possibilities.

I really appreciate learning about the fascinating history of the original prehistoric inhabitants of the southwest through Angie’s series of tangles and I hope you’re taking time to check them out through the links I’ve included too.

I took Angie at her word for my example of Mogo and once I had the basic reticulum drawn “filled it with anything”, choosing our traditional Zentangle® auras and orbs. As Maria says, when you don’t know what to do next, aura!

Angie illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing Mogo below and she includes several ways different southwest Native American tribes interpret this motif, including “in the round” versions.

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

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Check out the tag angieg for more of Angie’s tangles on TanglePatterns.com.

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I look forward to seeing what you've created.

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Related Links

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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. What Makes a Zentangle tangle? 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, and tangles never start with pencil planning.
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7. How to submit your pattern deconstruction to TanglePatterns
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