Zentangles have taken the art community by storm. What I truly love about this art form is that it requires very simple tools to get started and draw intricate designs – a pen, paper, and a bunch of ideas. In this post, I will show how I drew the below Zentangle design using floral illustrations and zentangle patterns.
I chose to draw zentangle typography for the word HOPE because… well we all need a little bit of hope in current times.
Almost all my zentangle inspired designs are drawn freehand, except for the outer boundary. Sometimes I use a plate to draw a circle or the corners of a book to draw straight lines. If you have a compass that’s great, but you don’t really need one. I usually make up the design as I go with the flow, so don’t worry if you are unsure of what to draw. My suggestion would be not to overthink and just do it – Put a dot, draw a line, embellish it a bit. Draw tiny circles or wavy lines. Once you get started, you will realize how easy it is to come up with a design.
I take inspiration from Pinterest and Instagram. But please don’t fall into the rabbit hole of comparing your work to others. I know how easy it is to discard our work when we look at other artists. I have been there before, but it is important to understand that we all are work in progress. We all start somewhere and we will get better with time. This is not a competition. So smile, take a deep breath as you hold your pen to give life to your ideas.
How to draw Zentangle designs
To start this design, I drew the flowers first. Here’s a time-lapse video of how I drew the flower. I love how floral illustrations add some space to the design, else the end result can end up looking very crowded.
I used wavy lines and tiny circles to fill up the space between the flowers. You can even draw dots or dashes. They look just as good.
In this drawing, I have experimented with some tangle patterns that I hadn’t drawn before. Below I will share the tutorial I found on Pinterest to draw these zentangle designs.
I am not really great at drawing symmetrical patterns ð But still, I tried to keep this as symmetric as possible.
I drew this pattern towards the bottom right and modified it a bit later.
Frankly, just have fun with these patterns. If you miss a line or add an extra dot, it is ok. Make this art your own.
Sharing another time-lapse video I made on drawing zentangle designs.
And here’s the completed zentangle design.
What do you think? Share with me your best zentangle artwork and I will feature it on my blog.
Pin for later
Your patterns are all so intricate and gorgeous!
This is so fascinating and you are good at it !
Amazing as usual. You make it look so simple.
You make it sound so simple. And your patterns are always gorgeous. I love the messages you weave in too.
Am always in awe of zen tangling and how easy you make it seem!