weird and wonderful

I started this sketchbook page over a month ago - but I think it has spawned enough results now for me to share it and them with you. 

My responses to a couple of challenges took shape on this page - as well as a bit of playing about with Rainking for a tile to go in the Square One Magic Bag (I'll keep that one a secret so the group gets the thrill of the reveal when that is the chosen tangle).  I also used a variation of CC to start a tile for the Travelling Tangles Project that has now winged its way to Australia. 

Credenzo (for Square One) / Rain, Hibred and Raindotty (for IAST #161) / C.C.

And then things started to get a bit crazy.  Crusade is a really tricky tangle.  Very unforgiving of even the slightest wobble.  It takes a lot of concentration to get the lines in the right places - but it does look great.  And I feel quite similar about the colour red.  It's stunning - but so temperamental - so hard to manage with elegance.  So why oh why did I decide to grab the pot of red when experimenting with my new Brusho powders (I'm in try-new-things-for-backgrounds mode at the moment, can you tell?!)?  I was also reading a novel called His Bloody Project - the title of which must have been worming away in my subconscious while I drew this tile.

Her Bloody Project - Crusade - line work / detail / shading

Lastly, I wanted to try something with Cheers, and I wanted it to be a Renaissance style tile.  But that wasn't quite how it turned out - something wasn't working and to make it work better I grabbed some green pencils and got to this. 

Which makes me think of a dusty gallery hung with framed portraits, of long-dead relatives, all of whom drowned.  Although the images have all since vacated their frames, leaving only the bubbled green waters of their doom.  Or something like that!