seeking shade

This time last year I was writing about tangling through a UK heatwave.  And the same is happening at the moment, albeit thankfully on a smaller scale.  I'm lethargic and disinclined to work on tiny details or pieces that need a lot of blending, smoothing, tinkering.  I'm adapting my tangling to the mood of the weather.

I'm also learning to work with my materials, rather than against them.  I picked two tiles from the stash of lokta paper kindly sent to me by my tangle friend Yvette.  Last time I worked on two tissue thin pieces with grasses trapped within them.  This time I picked two of the thicker pieces, in this shade that reminds me of parched grass.  This paper is heavily textured, especially on one side, it calls to mind baked earth desperate for rainfall.

I knew the paper would challenge fine pen work, but I wasn't in the mood for that anyway- so grabbed my 02 and 03 black pens and set to work tangling loops and giant Tipple and then adding a few other tangles.  I added some small pops of brighter green, from a particularly juicy pen and watched the paper suck the ink into itself.

Going loopy - mostly unnamed ink roamings with added Pixioze

The view from down under - similar but with Inaura

A handful of white highlights and the merest suggestion of graphite shading and they were done.  I tangled them separately, but they were always destined to be a pair.

***

I found a small burst of additional inspiration, and tangled this piece on an ATC sized tile I'd coloured with a Faber-Castell Gelato, a set of which I received as a recent birthday present.

Melting moments - a simple spread of Esher
with added detail lines

The heat is set to break tomorrow, and I hope the week ahead brings some sea breezes because I'm keen to bring some summery teals and blues into the mix.