the straight and narrow

I end the week much as I began – struggling to cope with low light as I place multiple small straight lines onto a waiting piece of paper – and each time being amazed at the patterns they make.

On Monday I reached Day 21 of One Zentangle a Day, and was introduced to Rick's Paradox and B'tweed (which I'd played with on the Halloween It's a String Thing challenge).

Rick's Paradox put up quite a fight. I could see what I was meant to be aiming for - turning corners, turning my tile and walking always in a straight line. But somehow I kept getting lost in a maze of my own making. (As always, the reassurance of a quick Google and finding many others struggling with this particular tangle). Then suddenly two triangles filled with this pleated pattern came good and I could see a wave cresting towards me. A concertinaed map of old, folded into a fan by a queasy captain's wife. I could see the downward curve of a penguin's beak – eye closed, fast sleep in it's monochrome wilderness.

And then I fill in the middle with B'tweed and suddenly four penguins are fighting over the same patch of ice, each tugging a corner, fracturing the surface, desperate to get to the fish hidden beneath.

And Friday is filled with Fassett. One tile completed and submitted to the It's a StringThing #25 challenge – but time and ideas enough for a second. I add a splash of colour (Zig Clean Color brush pens) on the string line, a little bit of blue and grey to compliment the icy nature of the tangle. I fill and highlight the tangle into one of it's possibly endless variations, and I let the edges jag out a bit rather than squaring them off.