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.