on the trail

When I first read about Bijou the snail in the Zentangle newsletter at the weekend I thought Rick and Maria had gone a bit mad.  Then I thought about it a bit more and cynically assumed it was a marketing ploy to shift more products.  And then I thought about it a bit more and realised it was quite fun.  And funny too - he makes me laugh and smile - he encourages playfulness.  And then I thought it was quite clever, and profound and very much in keeping with the whole Zentangle ethos.  And all this before I'd even tried a Bijou sized tile!

No surprise that this week's Diva Challenge encourages us to try our hand at these scaled-down tiles.  Always thrifty and keen to make precious materials go further I was thrilled to find that I could cut 5 2 by 2 inch squares from the remains left from cutting two round tiles from a sheet of A4 watercolour paper.  And a good job I did because the Diva was right when she said we wouldn't stop at doing just one...

[click to enlarge]
Tangles used - Nzeppel, Purk, Bales, Fescu, Pepper and Tipple

I did three.  Each with two official tangles on it.  And I loved the process.  To begin with I thought there wouldn't be enough space to fit anything worthwhile onto the tile - but then as I did it I really felt the 'less is more' - the sense of choice of tangle, delicacy, care and patience.  And these finished tiles feel even more precious because of their diminished scale.  In my other pen-work I write - and in part I write poetry, and mostly I write haiku - one of the smallest sorts of poems you can find.  Distilling everyday wonders into limited syllables that pack as big a punch as the greatest epic.  And Bijou's tiles feel a lot like that.

In just a few days of reading and thinking and tangling my way around this Bijou thing I've come on quite a little journey - without ever leaving the table!  And by the looks of it Bijou passed through too - look at that trail running through the tiles!

[click to enlarge]
Bijou - coming to a tile near you, fairly soon!