step into my parlour

It's been almost 5 months since my last confession - since I last showed you my inner workings, the jottings and explorations that fill my sketchbook.

As I browse online any new tangles I spot, or old tangles I'm reminded of, get doodled about with on the torn off papers from my page-a-day desk calendar.  Roughly once a week I have a session where any of those tangles that I like I play with further in my sketchbook.  I might copy the tangle faithfully and then try variations.  I might see how two tangles work together.

My sketchbook then becomes the resource for any tiles or pieces I'm working on.  Often I use recent pages for inspiration, but sometimes I go back, pull out an old sketchbook and rediscover treasures I've long forgotten.  For my recent Relaxagon Paradox tiles I dusted off a page of Paradox variations from 2015! 

Points of interest -
There are tangles here that I've used a lot - Sitiko, Saatin and Blind Membranart
And those that have only had one outing so far - Line Dance and  S-Vine
And those that haven't yet made it to a tile but will when the time is right - the (missed named by me) Oritigol

Points of interest -
A trio of Padrós tangles on this page - often challenging, always rewarding - Tissoooh, All Stars and Taiga
Revisiting Dreamdex - which I struggled with on first meeting but am warming to now
Checkmate and Salo - both proving that simple tangles can be just as charming as complex ones

Points of interest -
New discoveries - Matuvu and Windmill - both of which I love
Spotting harmonious tangle pairings - Seespan and Squirk
Playing with the Ogee shape with nothing else in mind (bottom left)

Points of interest -
The aptly autumnal Gelijoy and Ada which was the star of a recent IAST show
Kaas and RunCC - two wonderful grid type tangles
Skyview which takes much concentration and Violetka which doesn't

Working in my sketchbook is an invaluable part of my Zentangle practice - if you'd never tried it I'd encourage you to give it a go - you might be pleasantly surprised with where it leads you.  And even if you don't fancy that, hopefully there are plenty of tangles here to take your fancy - I wish I could link to them all but that would eat up too much tangle time!

uneasy explorations

This week my tangling path led me back to the wonderful world of Relaxagons. I shared my first post about them in May, my next in June.  I've been hankering to get back to them for a while, and it was a pleasure to be working within their unique shape, with the careful guidance of Marguerite Samama's instructions.

Warming up - highlighted and shaded and with added Mooka on an orange tile
and with added dots and mini gems on a tan tile

However, the next idea Marguerite invited us to play with proved a real challenge for me!  She wanted us to focus on the tangle Paradox - a great choice as it's a lively geometric tangle which can dance neatly with a six-sided tile. But I have an very uneasy relationship with this tangle. 

Soft colours under Ginili, Divi and Cruffle against a background of fan-style Paradox

Early on in my tangling life I found it a real struggle to learn, as you can see from one of my earliest Paradox tiles.  Since then I'm able to tangle it without too much trouble, and I use a little pop of it every now and then, or use the Paradox principle for other tangles.  But I don't particularly like the tangle.  Despite those curves that appear it's so unforgivingly straight-lined, it's hard to get it to play nicely with other tangles, and it makes me feel utterly incapable when the time comes to shade it!

Something more minimal - three ribbons of Paradox in my early autumn colours

But I'm not one to dodge a challenge - so I persevered and managed to tangle a handful of tiles, some of which I almost quite like, and in a few places I even started to soften a little towards this cold-hearted tangle!

My favourite piece - Paradox in two sided shapes,
with 'Nzeppel and Fescu

Paradox will never be a tangle I use often, or one which gives me great satisfaction to use, but that doesn't matter, as there are so many more to chose from, I can't expect myself to love them all. 

If you'd like to buy the Relaxagons kit it's available from Marguerite's Etsy store.  She also sells her Relaxagon tiles in different colours and paper types.

falling into autumn

Last week me and mine took a week's holiday at home. Many gentle hours spent reading and snoozing and nibbling and cross-wording and resting and loving. And of course a little tangling too. I knew I wanted the opportunity to tangle, but that I also wanted to largely disconnect from the outside world. I didn't want to be going online looking for tangles - so what perfect timing that the new book by Alice Hendon arrived just in time. 

I began our holiday armed with the book, a handful of pens and pencils, and three postcards I pre-coloured
with Inktense bands that carry my late summer colours through to my autumn palette.

Those of you who know my tangle shopping habits know that I rarely buy much without careful consideration. I own only five tangle books, and this is my sixth.  But as soon as I heard about it I knew this would be on my shopping list. Tangle All Around the World (UK link to buy) is the latest in a series of books by the ever inspiring Alice. This one is a bumper compendium of tangles, tangles and more tangles. Alice put a shout out to tanglers in her Facebook group asking for contributions - and I was lucky enough to have eight of my tangles included in the book! In total the book contains 453 tangles from 50 people, spread fairly liberally through this wide world. There's also plenty of Alice's own tangles in here too - and many of them are mighty fine! You can find more details about the book, as well as sample pages on this post by Alice.

Late summer colours tangled with -
Paddle Pedal (Alice Hendon) - page 93
Plicated (Sandra Strait) - page 45
Echo Two (Sherri  Lee) - page 25

I'm impressed by the book. It feels like a quality product, well-sized and robust. The tangles are packed in with no space going to waste, but the step-outs are clear to see and easy to follow. Alice has divided the tangles into sections grouped by tangle type - and while I initially thought there were chapters I was less likely to visit I was soon proved wrong.  For instance Steampunk tangling has a section - and that's not something I'm partial to, but of course all tangles are ripe for reinterpretation - and something that started as a very mechanical looking disc, turned into a fragile autumn flower (see Oscillator on my final postcard). If I had to find one criticism - and I believe all balanced reviews should try for one (!) - it's that some of the tangles were a little similar to others, either others in the book, or others published elsewhere.

Summer slides into autumn - tangled with -
Flora Flower (Smita Toke) - page 84
Instacon (Alice Hendon) - page 32

For me the biggest plus point of Tangle All Around the World (US link to buy) is the ability to work offline, away from any screens or devices. Mostly I'm able to pull tangles from memory if I want to work unplugged, but sometimes you want to try new tangles without trawling for them through a screen, and this book is perfect for that.  I discovered plenty of tangles I'd never seen before, and worked with some new-to-me tanglers, and I know the book will be a resource I visit again and again.

Autumn's arrival - tangled with
Patchett (Donald Wilka) - page 43
Tierso (Donald Wilka) - page 57
Oscillate (Alice Hendon) - page 171

When tangling my postcards I mostly stuck to using one tangle in each coloured section, but crossed the lines at times to better tie the sections together. I was pleased with the line work, but my shading went a little awry as these postcards had a challenging surface, both bumpy and slippery, and they resisted smooth use of coloured pencil or graphite. Had I not been on holiday I might have tested more thoroughly before I began, or chosen to shade differently, but this was about relaxed no stress tangling. So while the finished postcards may look a little rough and ready, they gave me great pleasure to work on - a little bit added here and there over the course of a lazy week, a week that took us from bright bone-warming sunshine to crisp blanket-craving autumnal nights.

I ended our holiday a bit more rested and ready to resume normal life, 

and with a panorama of global tangling to show for it too!