concentrically yours

Sometimes an idea catches hold of me and won't let me go - and that's what happened recently. Hanny Nura shares monthly prompts, and for the September Full Moon Mosaic she invited us to draw concentric rings on a round tile, colour each a different colour, tangle the bands and border with gold. People share their results and a wonderful collaboration arises – each person bringing their own interpretation to the theme.  I shared the following tile in the Full Moon Mosaic Facebook group.

My contribution to the September Mosaic -
for the outer ring I used Eni Oken's version of my Divi tangle.
And moving inwards - Kaboom, Pixiose and Gelijoy.

However, I didn't feel like I finished with the idea. So I prepared four more backgrounds with variations on the idea of concentric rings. I coloured these using just three Ecoline markers - although with greater and lesser intensity, and more blending on some pieces than others.

Broken rings - filled with a rough Ratoon, with Bunzo between -
black beads and shading almost managed to hide the gaps between my rings!

Zem Button style shading brought this simple piece to life -
rings of Marasu and Doodah with a Printemps middle.

On these last two tiles I found myself drifting away from using 'proper' tangles. Instead I was just drawing lines in repetitive ways, but that repetition in itself is very close to the notion of tangling. When I first started my Zentangle journey this would happen sometimes, but as I've got more used to the practice it happens less - and perhaps that's a sad thing to have lost? Following the pen with no destination in mind is sometimes just what you need to do.

I started by drawing an ogee shape mandala flower - filling each section in the same way.
Without intention shapes that resemble familiar tangles start to appear -
relatives of Antidots, Fescu and Msst hide in this glowing bloom.

On this postcard I placed my colour in segments rather than rings - in a faintly
pencilled grid I tangled leaf shapes with tiny Tipple to cover those wobbly edges!

After recent rains gave way to sun the temperature has suddenly plummeted. Autumn can no longer be denied, summer slammed the door on her way out. Not many leaves have fallen yet in our garden, but they're getting ready – their colours are changing, and any day now they'll start to let go. We have evergreens to tide us through the colourless winter months, ivy and laurel - but the green on these tiles will be the last I use this year.