October might be over, but I am still buzzing with inspiration from the Inktober Tangles 2025 challenge.
If you’ve been following along on my YouTube channel, you’ll know that each day in October I shared a brand-new video walking you through each of the daily tangles. From Festune to IDoZ, we explored a wide mix of patterns.
What is Inktober Tangles?
Inktober Tangles is the Zentangle® community’s take on the global Inktober drawing challenge. Instead of general drawing prompts, tanglers all over the world tangle their way through a list of official and non-official tangles – one for each day of the month. These tiles are pulled together by Stephanie Jennifer, a CZT living in Singapore.
The idea isn’t to create perfect artwork; it’s to slow yourself down for a while, escape the chaos of your day and enjoy some peace and quiet for a few minutes.
Why stop at October?
If you found yourself looking forward to your tangling time each day, that’s a sign your mind and body benefited from it. Zentangle helps you to slow down, regulate your breathing and shift your focus into the present moment.
If you’re wanting to keep the momentum going now that the challenge is over, here are a few ideas:
- Choose a favourite tangle from the list and explore its variations for a week.
- Create themed tiles – maybe a mini-series based on your mood, the weather or a colour you’re drawn to.
- Revisit my YouTube tutorials. Each video is there to guide you step by step, even if you’re brand new to Zentangle.
- Invite a friend to tangle with you – in person or virtually. Sharing the calm can make it even more meaningful.
Highlights from this year’s series
This year’s Inktober Tangles playlist was one of my favourites yet. Some of the standout tangles included:
Seedwayz – not only is the tangle a great pattern, it also reminded me of being at the Zenjo Retreat in Glasgow, which took place in September.
Lilife – I loved the initial grid of the wavy lines and had a lot of fun tangling that one – it was fun to get into the rhythm of that one.
B-Fly and Butria – I love butterflies – even have a tattoo of one on my hip, so these butterfly-like tangles were a very welcome addition to the list for me.
Mrth – I took the opportunity during Inktober Tangles to draw this tangle in a different grid from usual. I enjoyed doing it in a different way and it’s inspired me to try something different with some of my other favourite tangles.
Letterish – Starting with a grid sort of similar to the beginning of ‘Nzeppel, this one is filled in with random shapes that look sort of like letters – hence the name.
Whether you finished all 31 tangles or managed just a few, there’s no “right” way to take part. Remember, the challenge is there for inspiration only. There is no race to get things completed. Far from it. In fact, if there are tangles on the list that you don’t fancy, don’t feel like you have to tangle them.
The challenge is simply to provide you with inspiration, not pressure.
Ready to keep tangling?
If you’d like to keep the momentum going, I’ve created a free ebook called The Art of Calm. It takes you step-by-step through your first full Zentangle tile – from gathering your supplies to adding those final touches.
You can download it here and use it anytime you need a bit of calm in your life.