Thursday 22 September 2016

warts and all

After my last blog post, where I shared a page from my sketchbook, I received so many warm and enthusiastic comments.  I began to think that this might work as a regular feature on my blog - a place where I periodically share a recent page and show the tiles that emerged from it.  Inevitably it takes a few weeks from me starting a page (and dating it) to filling it and then only later the ideas and trials filter through to finish tiles.

And so, let me take you back to mid August, when I began this page -


You can see a little cluster of practice gems in the corner - these eventually made it onto the Zendala I shared in my last post.  Sometimes ideas from more than one page have to learn to work together!  I'm relatively new to gems and didn't get off to a great start when in haste I grabbed a chalk marker instead of a blender - hence the dull milky look to a few of them!


You can see my Drogon practice which went onto a tile for an Olympic themed It's a String Thing challenge.  A little burst of Jenna Black's Starcrossed got repeated several times on a very warm looking tile.  And that strange fusion of A-dalfa and Viaduct become the start of a tile that I will send to someone else on the Travelling Tangles Project (I've started to accumulate a little stack of pre-prepared tiles so I have some to hand any time I need to send one, or more).


And then things started to get really dark!  I had a tile that didn't work out - a while back I'd tried to prepare a background that vaguely resembled the Aurora Borealis - but it looked a mess.  So onto the pending pile it went.  But then I spotted it and thought I'd have a go using the very spikey 3V.  I darkened some sections, and filled others with Baton and an alternative version of Hypnotic that's been doing the rounds (and that featured on the sketchbook page before this one!).  It's a crazy tile but I like it for that!


Another beast that rose from the darkest depths is this Trelina (a tangle by Eni Oken) climbing through the A-dalfa frame.  The background was one of my first attempts at using distress inks.  I also did some coloured shading and also threw in some bubbles and white highlights.  And you have to take my word for the fact it looks much better in real life - the scanner doesn't like the deep colours.

There are a few other little scraps of this and that on the page that didn't make it onto a tile, but you never know, they might do soon...

6 comments:

  1. Thank you for this - it's this kind of info that's invaluable, you realise how the mind works & it doesn't all come together as a 'perfect tile' for some people, though I know that's not strictly 'Zentangle' it just goes to show how much enjoyment one can have using a sketchbook - a valuable lesson; & yes please! No time for tangling at present but hoping to get back to it in 2017 when the job learning curve has settled down.
    THANKS for a lovely post.

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    1. Thank you for your lovely comments Evelyn. I spend way more time in my sketchbook that on actual tiles. And it's always an adventure. I hope when you have the time you have lots of fun too!

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  2. What an inspiring post!!! I do love peeking into sketchbooks;-) I'm really enjoying seeing your process and thanks so much for sharing. I have a couple of misfit colored tiles that I may go back and see if I can give them new life. I absolutely love what you did with the blue tile and your Trelina is brilliant;-)

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    1. Glad you're still enjoying the confessions of a sketchbook! Oh, you must revisit those misfits! When I worked on the Trelina tile I thought of you - you are the master of those deep mixed colour tiles.

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  3. Your work always sets my imagination running :) Even your sketchbook is a work of art! The Adalfa and Viaduct has me seeing all sorts of great things, thank you for brightening my day.

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    1. Glad to inspire you Hilary. So far I've share two pages in a row but there's bound to be a real dud soon which won't be appearing here! The Adalfa/Viaduct looks a bit like a bow on a ribbon to me - but I've found I like using little bits of Viaduct rather than lots of it.

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