'Wolf Trail' - new tangle pattern

‘Wolf Trail’ is a tangle that can be used in a variety of ways. It can be done simply or can be expanded to form an intricate pattern. I saw a glimmer of this tangle in a wallpaper pattern I saw on Pinterest and had to deconstruct it and share it with you.  When I showed it to my family my college age son said that he saw wolf’s teeth, and my husband saw a winding road. So ‘Wolf Trail’ was the name chosen.

There are several drawings here – click on any of them to enlarge the picture. 

1-     draw a line of evenly spaced dots

2-     draw C shapes that go from dot to dot – skip a dot between each shape and alternate the C shapes – one up, one down.

3-     Draw an aura over each C shape – start and end at the dots in between.

4-     Draw more auras over each C shape. Begin and end these auras so that they connect with the C shapes that go in the alternating direction.

5-     Add a V onto each C shape. You can call this an ice cream cone – or a wolf’s tooth. Do this for both the up and down facing Cs.

6-     Add large Vs that aura the little Vs. These V’s will form a line that goes through the dot between the little Cs.

7-     Aura these Vs again. These Vs will begin and end at the edges of the little Vs.

Tangleations

Fill in sections a la Knightsbridge, add small lines within the sections, add additional aura lines, use a thicker pen to emphasize certain lines.

Add tipple, play with shading, add bumps and/or tiny triangles, add thick and thin lines

This is a simplified version of ‘Wolf Trail’. Here, the Cs that face up and down, do not skip a dot in between them.

The simplified version of ‘Wolf Trail’ gives the opportunity to ‘hide’ one line behind the other. Instead of drawing through the shapes, ‘Draw behind’ and emphasize with shading. You can choose whether to have the zigzag or the curvy line in the front too.

The simplified version with the zigzag in front reminds me of Golven by Mariet Lustenhower - Her tangle is drawn with a different process that you may want to try out. Look at TanglePatterns.com for her tangle or go to her website here.

And if you want to get more intricate, add more lines by skipping more dots in the first step. I broke the curvy and zigzag out separately so that you could see this more clearly. It doesn't matter which order you do the curvy line or the zigzag line. Once you have the wolf tooth shape in you could go either way.

Keep adding dots between the Cs and it will become one of those patterns that really plays with your eyes. - Almost an optical illusion.

Finally – I thought you might want to see one of my practice sheets as I was working this out for the first time. I used some lined paper and turned it on its side. It made the practicing much easier.

If I have overlooked any tangle patterns that are similar please let me know so I can give them credit too.