You might already be familiar with Zentangle, a fun, relaxing way of drawing structures from various pre-established or spontaneous created patterns. The keyword here is to relax without the pressure of creating something perfect or the fear of making mistakes. In fact the Zentangle community encourages not ever using an eraser, but building upon your possible mistakes, resulting into new, unexpected, creative patterns.
Zentangling requires no technical preparation or experience, nor special expensive tools. In fact all you need is a drawing pad and a couple of pens that you can easily fit in your pockets.
Here are a few Zentangle drawings I did without much preparation. Given the insanity of life, I had to work on them a little at a time, 5 min here, 10 min there:
One of the books that helped me (and still helps) come up with pattern ideas is The Joy Of Zentangle. It was written by a couple of Certified Zentangle Teachers (CZT), each contributing with various patterns, with step-by-step drawing instructions.
I thought that some of these patterns might come in handy as Photoshop custom shapes to add flair to your photography, graphic design, motion graphics, you name it. Heck, you can even design T-shirt print too!
Here’s the first volume of FREE Zendoodle Custom Shape Pack for Photoshop
And here are some examples of what you can do with these shapes in different layer modes in your photography:
And a quick tutorial on how to install and use the FREE Zendoodle Custom Shape Pack for Photoshop Vol 01 :
Zentangle pattern credits:Sandy Steen Bartholomew, CZT (claire, ripple, sabi, wabi, tuffit)
Suzanne McNeill, CZT (teardrop, dandelion seeds, cubism, holes)
Marie Browning, CZT (germie)
