I don't sleep, I dream

This week's Diva Challenge was to use Daniel Lamothe's most beguiling tangle, Dreamcatcher.

I was telling someone just last week that one of the reasons I tangle is that it shifts my thinking in a direction that often inspires new thoughts, ideas and memories - many of which I can then pour into my writing.  And this week that happened in bucketfuls.

I was utterly lost in the drawing of these simple petal shapes that go round and round.  In filling them or not.  In sinking through them, past them, beyond them.  To when I lived in a flat with a dreamcatcher hanging in my window.  It was given to me by the sort of friends who give you presents in paper bags - panpipes, candles and a star-shaped tambourine.  It was given to me at a time when my dreams tasted of red wine, and I quite often went to bed once the sun had already risen.  Given by friends I thought would be together forever, but like the dreamcatcher and the panpipes - some things are only meant to be in your life for just as long as you need them.

But anyway - back to the art.  There's been a lot of experimenting with Distress Inks of late - and I played with them the watery way and found them vibrant but unpredictable and I'm a woman who likes control.  But by using a little smoothing tool I created some backgrounds I really love.  They look like old Polaroids (complete with the odd rip where I pulled the tape off too quickly! ) - the sort where the camera went off at the wrong moment and took a picture of the sky.  I've made quite a few backgrounds - as I got rather caught up in the seemingly endless ways to blend the subtly differing colours - but this is the first time I've tangled on them.

On the first tile I drew the basic outline of Dreamcatcher and then put an aura within each section and filled that with tiny curved lines.  Once I'd done this I shaded it there and then before adding anything else.  And I hit that wall - you know the one - where you don't want to add anything else for fear of ruining the thing you've made that you really like.  I fought with myself and then I surrendered.  I like it as it is and that's the way it will stay!

But... there was nothing to stop me drawing another tile.  This time three Dreamcatchers - each filled and embellished in different ways (with clear nods to Cubine and B'Dylan).  A bit of Beadline to balance it all out and I quite like this one too.  It's warmer and more welcoming - whereas the other looks like the sun setting on a difficult day.