How to draw your first Zentangle tile

What you need

Less than you think. A fine black pen, a small piece of heavy paper, and a pencil. If you want to do it properly later, official tiles are 3.5 inches square on lovely paper, but a cut-up cereal box works for your first try.

• A black fineliner, 0.5mm or finer
• A paper square, roughly the size of a coaster
• A soft pencil for the string and shading
• Twenty quiet minutes and somewhere to sit

Draw your first tile, step by step

1. Put a dot in each corner

Four light pencil dots, a little in from the edges. Join them with a loose line to make a border. It does not need to be straight. A slightly wobbly border already looks handmade in the best way.

2. Draw a string

With the pencil, draw one light, lazy line across the tile. A curve, a zigzag, a loose Z. This is your string, and it divides the tile into a few sections. You will not erase it, but it will vanish under the ink.

3. Fill one section with one pattern

Switch to the pen. Pick a single section and one tangle from our patterns page. Draw it stroke by stroke, slowly, until that section is full. Resist the urge to plan ahead. Just watch the next stroke.

4. Move to the next section

Choose a different pattern for the next section. The contrast between two tangles sitting side by side is what makes a tile interesting. Keep going until every section is filled.

5. Shade, then sign it

Take the pencil and add soft shadow where shapes overlap or meet the border. Smudge it gently with a fingertip. Add your initials in a corner. You are done.

Your first tile will look like a first tile. Keep it. That is the one you will be glad you saved.

The mistakes that make people quit

• Going too big. A full sheet of paper is intimidating and never gets finished. Small tiles get done, and done feels good.
• Trying to be neat. This is a practice, not a performance. Wobble is character. Chasing perfection is the fastest way to stop enjoying it.
• Using a pencil you can erase. The no-eraser rule sounds scary and is the whole point. It frees you from fixing and lets you just draw.
• Drawing fast. Speed is the enemy of the calm you came for. Slow the pen down and the rest follows.

What comes next

Do it again tomorrow. Five or ten minutes is plenty. Once a few tangles feel automatic, browse our tangle library for new ones, and read a little more about why we made Zeew if you are curious who is on the other end of this.