x-did done good

Stage 1 - my pencil lines went diagonally
from bottom left to top right

I couldn't immediately see my way into this week's Diva Challenge.  I liked the look of Annette Carlo's X-Did but didn't want to just use it in stripes as that felt too close to like week's tile.  I sat with it for a couple of days, played about in my sketchbook and today decided to see what I could do.

Stage 2 - getting there

I've chosen to share a few work-in-progress images as I was pleasantly surprised to see how it came together in the later stages.  I knew I wanted to break out from the striped form, so I lightly pencilled in the parallel lines and then later erased them (cheating the pure Zentangle form, but sometimes I need a little help to get the results I want!).  I then drew in all the basic outlining of the tangle, offsetting the rows from each other, so large diamonds were above small etc.  That stage took focus to remember which lines were meant to be going where.  It's also hard to keep the lines parallel to each other.  It can look good when warped too, but I wanted to keep it quite even throughout.

That done I knew that I most liked the tangleation Annette drew where the sections appear sunken (Variation 1) on her step-out, and that was the one I wanted to use for my tile.  I then put in all the inner lines.  I failed to keep their depth equal throughout which would have been preferable.  I also darkened the middle diamonds.

Stage 3 - ta da!

It still didn't look that good but I hoped that shading would work its graphite magic.  Which it did, but something was still missing.  So I rounded the outer edges of each section, which seemed to work a treat - tying the whole together as well as smoothing out any wonky lines or untidy corners.

I'm quite happy with the result.  It looks slightly different each time I glance at it.  Sometimes it could be the pattern on a blanket.  At others a web of jewelled beads strung together.  And then I see a smooth surface with little dips just begging me to poke my fingers in.