Tangles & patterns

The patterns worth learning first

Every tangle is just a small set of strokes you repeat. Learn five or six and you can fill any tile you like. Here are the ones we hand to people on their first day.

Dense black ink line patterns on textured paper
Classic

Crescent Moon

A row of bumps, then arcs nested around each one. The first pattern most people draw, and the one that proves you can do this.

Craft materials arranged in an orderly grid pattern
Grid-based

Tipple & Knightsbridge

One is circles packed into a space, the other a simple checkerboard. Both teach you how repetition fills an area and how black weight balances a tile.

Fountain pen on an open notebook ready for drawing
Organic

Flux & Mooka

Flowing, leaf-like strokes that curl and branch. These are the ones people lose an hour to. Loose by design, so they are hard to get wrong.

A calm studio desk with paper and drawing materials
Linear

Hollibaugh

Bands that appear to pass over and under each other. The first time a flat pattern looks three-dimensional, and the moment a lot of people get hooked.

Blank tiles and paper waiting in a bright studio
Border

Static & Zinger

Quick edge patterns and little accents to drop between bigger tangles. The seasoning that makes a tile feel finished rather than crowded.

Scissors, rulers and tools for cutting paper tiles
Make your own

Deconstruct anything

Tile floors, fabric, brickwork. Once you start breaking patterns into a few repeated strokes, you find tangles everywhere you look.

How to actually learn a tangle

Reading about a pattern does almost nothing. Drawing it three times does almost everything. Take one from the list above, draw it small in a corner to get the rhythm, then give it a whole section of a tile.

Do not chase neatness on the first pass. Your tenth Flux will look nothing like your first, and that is the entire reward. If you are not sure where to start, our beginner's guide puts four of these together into a complete tile.

Keep your old tiles in a box. Flipping back through them after a few months is the quietest kind of proof that the practice is doing something.

Pick one and draw it

Grab a pen, cut a small square of paper, and fill it with a single pattern from this page. That is a complete first session.

See a tile come together