going with the flow

Releases of official tangles are rare but always welcome – much like sunny days in a British winter!  This morning dawned crisp with frost and with Aquafleur twisting gently in my inbox.

After a bit of practice in my sketchbook I decided to give it a go on a tile.  And while I was at it trial a new paper.  Ever since I start this Zentangle thing I’ve been trying to get combinations of pen, pencil and paper that work best together.  Obviously that job has in part been done for us by the official team – their suggested pens and tiles produce superb results and are a pleasure to use.  But personally I’d like to be able to source papers closer to home – avoiding worldwide shipping of heavy materials if possible.  And I think I’m getting there! 

I managed to buy a selection pack of watercolour papers and spent an age matching these for weight, surface finish, and colour against a sample of an official tile that I was lucky to get my hands on (thank you Adele!).  I’ve got a few back-ups from the selection to try – which might produce different and interesting results – but today I used a tile torn from a sheet of Saunders Waterford (hot pressed, 300gsm).  It’s a slightly darker shade than the official tile but behaves well.

Aquafleur behaves well too.  The first few attempts had me struggling a bit with the last bit where it tucks in on itself, but I think half of the reward of tangling is having to work at it a bit.  It reminds me of a grown up Pepper.  And as with many tangles has a taste of the sea about it.  It’s like a slightly sinister seaweed wrapping itself around one of the chalky flat stones we find on our local beaches.  I kept it simply this time but can see it has plenty of potential for play.

I also used Twenty-one on my tile – which was a recent addition to Tanglepatterns.  It looks a lot like the arum lily we have growing outside the front door.  Or we would if it wasn’t the middle of winter!