mad dog days

It's been weeks since my last tangled confession.  Our overheated summer has continued. Every so often we get a day or two when the temperature dips, and hopes rise, only for the mercury to start creeping up again.  Our garden is parched - lawn browned to straw, the soil solid and cracked.  Curls of bark and more than the usual number of leaves tumble from our eucalyptus.

The bark was rough beneath my pen, the leaf almost waterproofed.  Mooka and Printemps will travel with these remnants as they go with the green waste for recycling.

I feel heavy and sluggish and dried out.  Even my ideas are starting to wither.  I've not tangled much.  I've finished some swap tiles sent to me by others, somehow that's felt easier, as if they've already broken the barrier of the blank page.  And the handful of tiles I've drawn on my own have taken a long time to emerge. I've added little bits over the course of weeks - not my usual way of working - but at least something to mark the period, to share with you.

Bursts of red against the blue - Ying, Hollibaugh and Printemps

It's a String Thing #252, which I didn't finish on time -
just the warm and wonderful Deeday.

I tried something new... inspired by a conversation with Michele Wynne about her hesitation to working on pre-strung Zendala tiles.  I wondered what would happen if I partially ignored the pre-strung lines, or used them in a non-symmetrical way.  I think the result is less pleasing than I had hoped, but it was interesting to do - something rather liberating about the feeling of breaking the 'rules'.  I'm sure I'll try it again sometime.

I tissue-dyed the tile before tangling with hexagonal Aquafleur, Elirob, Scrawls, Fassett and Printemps

Since starting to write this post we've had a welcome break in the weather.  Last Friday afternoon - a little thunder, a flash of lightning and then a most gentle rain.  We stood outside and let it fall on us, greeted like we've never seen it before.  On Sunday it poured all day, and in the early hours of Tuesday morning I woke to hear yet more rain overflowing from our neighbours gutters.  The lawn is starting its return to green. But this is respite, not cure - the forecast says the heat will return by the end of this week.