something spiky

It's been a very long time since I posted here, and just as long since I shared a new tangle. Despite appearances I haven't fallen away from Zentangle, I still love it as much as ever, although life doesn't allow me to spend quite as many hours with tile and pen these days. Any tangle time and energy I have I use to make art, rather than writing about making art.

Over the years I've gathered lots of scraps of paper with ideas for potential tangles. Some I revisit, play with and put aside as something isn't quite working. Sometimes I return to them and discover what was missing. Last year a tangle originally conceived at the end of 2018 fully came to life – and that tangle was Blap.

I submitted Blap to Conzentric's Step-Out of the Month and they shared it with the world last November. You can sign up to their monthly mailing here – you will receive an exclusive new tangle on the first of every month. You can also see the list of previously featured tangles here.

As I said in the text accompanying my step-out –

"Blap began as a simple ribbon tangle... recently I noticed how Blap's potential could be extended if I considered one section and used it almost like a fragment. From there it's easy to adapt it to a grid tangle, or a circular design.

Drawn entirely using C curves it clearly shares DNA with tangles like Zenith, Goldhan and Double Double and no doubt others.

My top tip is to always draw the inset curved V shape first, as it's far easier to fit the next parallel V inside than it is to draw it outside!"

Each month Conzentric invites tanglers to share their explorations of the monthly tangle in a dedicated Facebook group. It's always an honour and a thrill to see people using a tangle you created, and it inspired me to work further with Blap.

Blap can take on a new look if you make the V shapes U's instead.  An orb to aim for might help.
My blue bijou with 4 Blap fragments was duplicated in collage software.

Recently I gave Blap a couple more outings, with some satisfying results. The first takes on a more ornate style - with detail lines, Beadlines, Mooka, and other bits and bobs.

Tangled in black on an ATC coloured with Eau de Nil ink by Diamine.

The second shows another way to use Blap in a circular design, but with a less spiky appearance than the one featured on the step-out image. The difference on this tan pastel tile is down to the orientation of the Blap fragment.

Before and after shading - proving once again how much it adds to your work!
There were different ways I could have shaded this,
but I opted for block shading to create a puffy appearance. 

 
I like a tangle with plenty of potential for variation and I certainly think Blap has that. I'm looking forward to seeing what more it has in store for me – and I'd love to see what you do with it too.

the wisdom of snails

I can't say that this year has seen me thriving, but I have been striving to keep up with the things that matter the most, and that in turn offer me the most solace.

When I finished the mammoth Zen-untangled project which kept me busy for the first six months of the year I lost my tangling way a little. I drew bits and bobs but struggled to find proper engagement. When Inktober was first mentioned I couldn't believe it was already that late in the year. I planned to spend time choosing a theme and preparing the required tiles and materials... and then October got closer and closer and I felt less and less ready or able to join in.

At which point I remembered one of the key principles that Zentangle teaches us - the elegance of limits. Our lives feel limited in all sorts of negative ways this year, but tangle limits were my saviour this October.  I chose to work small on tan Bijou tiles.  Just two square inches a day for each tangle. I limited my other tools too - working just in black ink, graphite for shading, and occasional white highlights.

In no particular order - one half of the tiles I tangled for Inktober 2020.
I worked from the list curated by Stephanie Jennifer.

When I started I felt rusty, out of practice and unsure. But day by day I felt my tangle muscles loosening up, both the lines and the inspiration coming more easily. Once again I am warmed to discover that Zentangle is a patient, loyal and undemanding friend who is always there for me despite occasional periods of neglect.

Limited tools allowed a simple way to create a cohesive collection.
Some tangles took me in very simple directions, others more complex.

Who knows where the next weeks and months will lead us. Who knows how much or little I will tangle, but for now I have 31 new additions to the small path of tiles that mark my way, steadily but shakily through this most bumpy year.

a whole lotta love

For the past two weeks my tangling has been wholly heart-shaped as I've been joining in with Margurite Samama's ValenTangle – now in its fifth year. I took part for the first time last year in an effort to overcome my aversion to heart-based tangles. It worked – as I can now see them as just another geometric shape, ripe and ready for tangling.

ValenTangle 2020 - pencil and paper and ink and love

Last year I worked in blue, this year I decided to warm things up, but just a little. I'm still enjoying working on grey tiles, so as well as grey papers I coloured some of my own tiles using a simple watercolour technique. Take a grey water-based marker (I used Tombow on these), scribble it on to a plastic sheet, spritz with water and plonk your tile onto it. A little trial and error to find the right amount of water, but when you do it works a treat, and the tiles almost look like marble.

As well as black ink and graphite I chose a Signo metallic gel pen in bronze and a
Derwent Metallic pencil in Copper. I have no idea why I didn't buy a matching
bronze pencil – but there you go, and I think the mismatch actually works quite well!

I shared my tiles each day in the dedicated Facebook group, but for those of you who weren't there, or would like to see all my tiles in one place, let me lead you by the hand through a fortnight of love.

Day 1 - playing with V & A, a new border tangle by Marguerite

Day 2 - Trinity variation with hearty versions of Beadline and Sandswirl

Day 3 - Exploring Minstrels (a variation of Demi)

Day 4 - exploring Marguerite's DoubleHeartZ fragment

Day 5 - having fun with Starsky, hidden in a Phroz-type
framework! With added Tipple, hearts and black ribbons.

Day 6 - Marguerite offered a mosaic-friendly string
and invited us to explore it on Bijou tiles. 

Day 7 - the suggested tangle was Jackstripes - which I used as a
frameworkto fill with lots of organic tangles.

Day 8 - one idea for today was to adapt existing tangles in a hearty
way - I chose to do that with my Divi tangle and Marguerite's Madama

Day 9 - playing with the tangles of Tomàs Padrós in a hearty way.
I used BlindMembranart, B-Leaf and Fortuna.

Day 10 - tangle the 4 corners of your tile and enjoy the space.
Trenthwith hearts joined by Melting Mooka.

Day 11 - organic tangles and the contrast between a dark pen and a light.
Marasu frames and then lots of pale grey botanical tangles.

Day 12 - tangle a Khala knot (I used a pencil, I admit it!) and then
glorify with hearts.  Arukas hearts made another appearance!

Day 13 - revisit the ValenTangle string but on in a larger space. 
This is 4 inches and mostly filled with a Bunzo variation and Heartline.

Day 14 - Marguerite asked us to decorate an envelope and write
a note to ourselves to put inside.
A hearty Zenith, Cubine and embellishments on my black envelope.

I've mentioned before that committing to a tangling event that invites daily pieces (not insists of course, but it was hard to resist such good prompts!) takes time, energy and commitment. It's not something I do often, but sometimes it's worth that extra push. I like to see a cohesive collection at the end of the journey. I like the days where I'm in my comfort zone - Days 1 and 10. The days I struggle with are quickly left behind - Day 3! And I especially like the days that take me by surprise, when I initially feel uninspired by the prompt or tangle, but then find the process and my result one of the most satisfying - Days 5, 6, 7 and 8.

It's been a journey taking in bends and dips and corners, a steady stroll about the perimetre of a heart. Now we've reached the end I feel gently warmed and not just by the copper and bronze.

monochrome rainbows

Shading is one of the aspects I enjoy the most when I work on a tile - but last week I barely shaded at all, and I realised that often, particularly at the height of summer, I tend to forego my pencil and work with ink alone.

I decided to continue to leave my pencil to one side, and this week I worked on some Notan style tiles. In brief Notan is a Japanese artistic technique that uses only black and white to create striking and varied images or patterns. It's a style that lends itself to Zentangle. There are a handful of tangles that Linda at Tangle Patterns groups together under the tag of Notan - including a few Zentangle originals, of which we're all familiar, and probably use quite often in our work.

Whilst Notan tangles look great in black on white tiles, they also delight on more colourful backgrounds. I prepared my backgrounds by blending three shades of Distress Inks (Crushed Olive, Peacock Feathers, Dusty Concord) on a piece of Strathmore Bristol Smooth. I then cut this into two 4x4 and 4 2x2 tiles to fill a page in my binder.

I set to tangling, choosing a handful of my favourite Notan tangles. Filling in large amounts of black ink can feel time-consuming, but I find it quite relaxing. If it seems daunting to you then try working small as I did on these four Bijou size tiles. I used a 01 pen to draw the initial tangle and then filled using an 02.

 

Tangles used -
on the Bijou (top to bottom) - Dyzzee, Knightsbridge, Strircles, Flontrast
on the two large tiles (top) - Chloë & Ozzie (bottom) - Blaw

It's worth taking a little care as you move from section to section. It's easy to think that it such an easy tangle that it doesn't need much focus - sometimes a wicked sprite seems to whisper in your ear telling you to jump ahead and fill in a section, and suddenly you've messed up. Or you slip and your pen crosses from an area of black into white. No disaster, just a chance to add a little flourish or change of direction. There is no need for these tangles to be considered stark or boring, in my examples I've added little tweaks - frames, or perfs, lines or bulges.

While I played with other Notan tangles I started to devise one of my own - loosely based on the structure of Bales. It's my pleasure to introduce you to Blaw - named after a contraction of the phrase 'black and white'.

Just a few steps to build the basic frame, and then fill as you desire.

It's easy to underestimate Notan style tangles, to think they can be nothing more than their bold black and white selves. But there's subtlety to them if you choose to look for it - as can be seen here.

Detail lines, rounding, and auras, or a a combination of these -
all add interest and variety to a Notan tangle

And that's without the power of shading which of course could be included too! Margaret Bremner takes the Notan concept even further and twists it in all sorts of interesting directions.

I look forward to seeing what you do with Blaw - please let me know if you use it, and if you like it.

As always, if this tangle appears to be too similar to any others in name or style, please let me know.

no sign of the three bears

This week I've found myself in a Goldilocks mood.  Nothing is quite right.  I've been preparing lots of backgrounds for the spring tangling ahead of me.  Inevitably this has meant using colours outside of my comfortable range - lots of yellow, pink and bright green.  I've been using different techniques to get the colour onto the tiles - a bit of hefty hack, some masking fluid, some stencilling.  Some of the tiles came out too pale, some horrifically bright.  Explosion in an 80's legwarmer warehouse bright!  I also worked on some dubious coloured paper and found it too smooth when using my pen, too rough when shading.  Whatever I tried I felt dissatisfied.

And then I heard myself advising a fellow tangler to work with what they'd got, learn to know and cherish their limitations and let go of the things that they found too difficult.  Time to apply the same to myself!  So later in the week, once dry, I cut up my newly coloured tiles - and they started to not look quite so bad.  You'll be seeing them here over the coming weeks!  And I continued working on the dubious paper.

This week's tangling was largely a matter of fortune and misfortune and the blurred line between the two.  I recently discovered that the usual album I store my finished tiles in has been discontinued.

My album of choice - I've filled two of these since I start tangling -

that's 576 tiles!

After endless research I discovered some sleeves that hold 3.5 inch tiles and have some ready to go into a large ring binder.  Seeing as I would be building my own album I thought it would be a good oppurtunity to source some sleeves to store my Zendala tiles - currently I just keep them in the tin.  I'm usually very precise when it comes to measurements, but I was so thrilled when I thought I'd found the perfect sleeves that I forgot to double check the size of the Zendala tile. When the sleeves arrived the tiles wouldn't fit! The openings are 4x4 inches and the Zendala a little larger. I then successfully bought some sleeves meant storing CDs which are perfect for my Zendala.

A happy home for my Zendala tiles -

these are the first three I ever tangled!

But I didn't want to waste the other sleeves as I loved the fact that they held two 4x4 spaces and four 2x2 spaces.

What fun, to have different sizes on the same page!

[Pocket pages made by Simple Stories]

 
Around the same time I was clearing out some old paper scraps from when my only creative outlet was occasional card making. I found a virtually unused pack of textured card stock in a wild array of colours. One side was far too textured to tangle on, but the reverse look viable. I cut tiles to size in my current spring colours.

UK tangler Lucy Farran has created her own prompts for the month of March. Called Botani-tangles, she's focusing on broadening her use of organic tangles.  Her list is well chosen, with familiar and unfamiliar tangles, and a good variety of types of tangle, all still within the organic theme.

March prompts chosen by Lucy Farran - aka The Lucky Tangler

I set to work tangling on the two larger tiles, and then the little row of Bijou's down the side.

Not so mellow yellow - Hollyhock,

Sanibelle and new favourite Loblolly

 
The pen moved quickly across the paper, meaning I felt less control than I usually have. On the plus side the black stayed really intense. Shading was also challenging as the paper is both smooth but with a residual texture from the other side.

In the pink - with Icantoo, Eddyper (which never comes

out as I want it to) and the dark and desirable Dayzee-Mae

All in all it was a different experience than my usual familiar papers. But there's a lot to like about it. As a whole page spread it feels like a sampler of organic tangles. I've always toyed with the idea of building my own tangle directory, but always find the thought quite tedious. But I can imagine having pages like this where I would browse the way tangles interact with each other. A great way to choose tangles I might have forgotten, but also more pleasurable to tangle in the first place.  I've used most of the tangles for the first 15 days of Lucy's prompts, but not necessarily in the order she suggested.  But that's the beauty of tangling - we can do whatever we fancy with it, and if we get lucky we might even find a bowl of porridge that suits out tastes!

say hello, wave goodbye

Last week I said goodbye to the winter instalment of my seasonal Inklings project. When I started this I knew it would be challenging - while I have very few concerns with managing the colours of winter and autumn, spring and summer are not my natural palettes. To me spring is the time when colours return - tentatively, just a touch here and there, pale suggestions of colour slowly intensifying as the months creep by.  Tender greens and warmer blues, but especially yellows and pinks - my least comfortable colours. But what's the point in challenging yourself if you only stick with what is comfortable?!

The following three tiles allowed me to dip my toe into spring. Each has one foot still in winter, but a burst of colour breaking through.

My fellow tanglers inspire me each and every day, in small, large and sometimes unexpected ways. My first tile is testament to that. Among her many delights, Anica has recently been sharing some tiles where she mounts a Bijou of one colour in the middle of another coloured regular sized tile. She then tangles, seamlessly blending the two together. I wanted to give this a try. Elsewhere, in a conversation with Alice, mistress of colour, we were talking about whether yellow tissue paper is more reluctant to give up its colour, when used in the tissue dying technique. I did a couple of tests on scraps of watercolour paper and found by luck more than skill that it worked! A two inch square tinted yellow and pink just begged to be used in an an Anica style tile.  It's actually mounted on a white tile which I then mostly coloured grey, the same grey I used on my winter tiles. I don't think my integration of the two parts is even close to seamless, but the process was great fun and one I'll revisit.

A window onto spring -

Nik in the corners, and Krokus in the middle

Back in January I broke the rules when joining in with Annette's first invitation to enjoy a Zendala Moment.  A few weeks ago she shared a second installment and this time I transferred the string faithfully to a Zentangle original round tile.  As soon as I saw those squares with their petal shapes I knew I wanted them be cut through to show what lies beneath. Again a tile started to come together that showed the cusp where one season slides into the next. Seeing as I'd already started with yellow and pink I continued, with coloured pencil on my ribbons.  The thing I love most about tangling Zendalas is that glorious repetition, moving from one section to the next, little adjustments to one part repeated in the others.  This piece started very pale, wispy almost - I liked its delicacy but it began to feel uncharacteristic of my style.  I went back and darkened some of the auras, and suddenly I could recognise myself again.

Pretty in pink and yellow -

mostly just Baton, with a few Fescu

My last tile began in the dark depths of December. I was playing around with F2F (short for Fringe 2 Fringe) - a tangle unleashed from the brilliant mind and hand of Tomàs Padrós.  I had an idea of using F2F to form a kind of snowflake.  I confess that I started out with quite a few pencil lines to divide my space evenly.  And then I sort of stopped, put the barely started tile to one side and mostly forgot about it. Occasionally I picked it up and wondered whether to start it again. And then this week I did. I completed the middle section which now looks more like a papery spinner than a snowflake. I added some pink and yellow watercolour in the corners, and once dry added a little Printemps. It's a strange tile, but I've always liked strange things!

Ready for takeoff -

F2F and Printemps

Last week I said I was a little wary about reconnecting with colour, but having spent the week dabbling with my two most feared colours I feel a little braver about the weeks and months ahead.

autumnal interweavings

My last post was word heavy, and I really appreciate all of you who took the time to wade through my extended musings as I led my Zigzangles out into the daylight for the first time.

This time I'll be brief and share a few tiles I've drawn in the last week.  Firstly this tan tile that inadvertently combined the two most recent Diva Challenges.

Diva #371 & #372 - Onion Drops & Dewd

Then a tile I didn't finish in time for Adele Bruno's challenge for last week.  The first time I tried to read Orwell's 1984 I couldn't connect with it.  I tried it again a handful of years later and it all made sense.  Sometimes it's just a case of the right book at the wrong time.  It's not a situation limited to books either - and I think Adele's Iza tangle has the 1984 effect on me.  I first played with it years ago - and liked how it looked, but this time I really connected, I felt the tangle as I drew it.  And I think that shows in the finished tile. 

IAST #264 - Iza and Heartswell - ink and graphite
on vintage printmaking paper that's as old as me!

And lastly a few Bijou.  I'm still keeping my pledge to make a Bijou for every It's a String Thing challenge I fail to make a full size tile for.  I noticed I'd missed one right at the start of the year, so that's why the first one uses an 18 as its string - we'll be doing a 19 before we know it!

IAST #224 / #259 / #262 - Bijou pastel paper tiles - ink, graphite, white pencil and pen

opportunities lost and found

I've only sent a handful of tiles to dear Adele in time for her weekly It's a String Thing challenges.  A few I've finished but too late for the deadline and I've posted them here instead.  But the rest I've still managed to enjoy thanks to sticking to my year long pledge to make at least a Bijou if I don't have time for a full tile.  Although admittedly some of these were completed some time after the challenge!

These are real tests of economy and invention, how to fit the string, or occasionally only part of the thing onto a tiny tile.  How to bring in two or three tangles and make them play nicely.  How to get shading and highlight and sometimes colour harmoniously working in a two by two inch space.  Challenging,  but really rewarding too!

 

On quite a few of these tiles my tangling deviated quite some way from how the tangle is 'meant' to look - my D'rua insisting on becoming Antidots, and my Baraquillos is totally wrong but looks just as tasty!  But how much of life really turns out like it's meant to? At least in Zentangle you can still guarantee a happy ending!

A few of these were done on pastel paper - I find it works nicely for the limited space, allowing for simple highlights and shading to really stand out.  It was drawn a while ago but IAST #253 features a broken version of Printemps that I've drawn a few times.  It's a simple but incredibly versatile tangle as shown by Margaret Bremner in her hot-off-the-press post - Printemps, And Then Some.

And as always there were a couple of pleasant surprises.  I had a couple of tiles that I'd done some watercolour blobs onto and then discarded onto the pile.  I picked one for challenge #245 which was donut / doughnut themed!  It had a jammy look to it that I thought might work.  I didn't really like the string, or the tangle selection - and yet I really like the finished tile!  Isn't that strange!  And the same happened with challenge #255 - I played with Konk but didn't like it a great deal, but once I tangled it over some colour bursts I love it.  And some tweaking and shading made me see the appeal of Flog too!

I'm sure I'll miss a few more IAST challenges before the year is out, but there's always a ready supply of  tiny tiles in my little tin! 

Footnote
I've had a bit of a tidy up here, a new header banner, which I aim to change seasonally.  But most importantly I've tidied up all the different buttons to my tangles on my sidebar.  Instead they are all group together clickable via the single Ragged Ray's Tangles button.  Thanks to Susie Ng for her invaluable technical help!

coming around again

I've carried the idea for my Diva Challenge tile all week.  I knew I wanted to take a simple tangle and aura it in different ways.  Which is what I did with Flux on this unstrung Zendala tile.  I knew I wanted to colour the sections between.  And all that went much as hoped -  but then it came to the shading, the part I often enjoy the most - and then I got stuck.  I find shading auras tricky.  And shading Flux can either be very time-consuming (if you shade each leaf) or a bit basic if you just run a line down the middle.  I went with the latter approach, but wonder if it's lacking something?

But sometimes the most important thing Zentangle gives me is learning to live with imperfections.  Inadequacies.  Of time, ability, energy.  It reminds me that even with short supply of any or all of those you can still make something and hold it in your hand at the end of a week and say 'I made this'!

Flux - aura - repeat! 

I haven't always had time, ability or energy to draw a tile for Adele's weekly It's a String Thing Challenge recently - but I've managed to catch up on those I've missed on the limited space of a Bijou tile.  I've played with different colours and shading techniques - some I like more than others.

Top row - IAST #232, #233 and #236 
Bottom Row - IAST #240, #241 and 242

Do you find your art seems to come in ebbs and flows? I have patches where I'm really feeling it, in tune with the materials, brimming with ideas and loving the results.  And then I hit a patch where nothing seems to come good.  And looking back you think that the work you were doing months or years ago looks better than what you're producing now?  But then another day you can see the progress you are making, the skill and confidence that is steadily growing.  Do you feel that and think it's just you - it's not - it's me too!

good enough to eat

Over the long weekend I worked on one thing, and one thing only - Zenbuttons!

These are the creation of Marguerite Samama of Happy Tangling.  They seem to be popping up in various Zentangle places I frequent and so I wanted to give them a go while they were hot!

Done well they have an amazing dimension and shine and seem to pop right off the tile.  See some mesmerising examples by Laurel Storey.  She won't burden you with words like me, just tonnes of great pictures!

I wanted to do them justice, so I bought Marguerite's instructions. (Edit - Marguerite has now generously made her instructions available free for all on Tangle Patterns - have fun!)  I usually wing it when new techniques appear, and often I manage to get to the desired result through trial and error.  But I wanted the foolproof method.  And it worked first time!

My first four Zenbuttons were done by sticking pretty close to the instructions.   I used fragments inside the reticula and shaded as suggested.  I drew them onto tan paper, but I did them Bijou sized - for some reason I like to start small when practicing something new.

My first four buttons - in black in with added brown,
wine, purple and olive ink

They look great to me.  In fact the hardest thing is getting a photo or scan do them justice, they look even more dimensional to the naked eye.

I then tried things a different way, using coloured pastel paper.  And on some of the Zenbuttons I used a single tangle round the entire band as opposed to fragments.  I think the blue ones work well, but the orange less so - and the orange one with Printemps the least - something just doesn't pop!  I've got an instinctual feel that some tangles / fragments work better than others, but it's early days.

Mixed success - but the blue ones I like.  Top right looks almost metallic -
bottom left has extra colour laid down first and in the shading

But imagine the possibilities - this is just the start.  I want to try them on different tonal papers, in different colours, I want to try them larger.  I wonder how I might combine them with other tangling.

If the world is my oyster, it won't contain a pearl but a button!

all the small things

Sometimes I run out of time and energy to do all the things I want to do - don't we all.  Sometimes I don't get to tangle a full tile for Adele's wonderful It's a String Thing challenge.  But this year I stumbled on an idea, a little stepping stone to bridge the gaps between the chances to fill a full tile and send it to her.  And those stones take the form of Bijou tiles.

IAST #225 and #227

I've done it four times now, and as well as feeling like I'm not missing out on the fun, I'm realising just how charming a Bijou can be.  It's opening my eyes to the fact that when I commit to working with a certain sort of tile I get to know it better, it's quirks and endearments.  And I'm regularly stunned at just how much I can fit onto one of these little treasures when I put my mind to it!

IAST #229 and #230

Who knows if it's a habit that will stick - but for now it's working!

circus of horrors

For this week's It's A String Thing challenge, Adele invites us to use the beautifully loopy String 055 - and just one official tangle - Striping.  And also the Tangle enhancer known as Sparkle!  Sounds simple enough.  Which it is.  But it's also as complex as you want it to be.

For a start Striping is essentially just multiple parallel lines, with every other filled in black.  But it only really works, truly comes alive (at least to me), if the lines travel in different directions in each adjacent string section.  These junctions allow for great shading, and suddenly a stripey patch starts to bulge and curve to the eye. 

It takes patience and lots of ink to fill those bands.  Usually I practice for any challenge in my sketchbook, trying out tangles, ideas etc.  But this week I thought, why not make a little Bijou sized tile to see how it might look?  So I did.  The first with straight forward Striping.  And then I did another with fine line stripes - but that essentially turns it into Isochor right?

Time to make the full sized tile.  I drew the string, then coloured part of it using Inktense and water.  Once dry I started placing my Striping.  I used a few fills, which perhaps lessen the impact of the straight black and white, but ramp up the fun too?  I also introduce a bit of Sparkle - first by just leaving a dash of white on the curved parts, and later adding a bit more with the white Inktense pencil (I don't feel this technique worked that well - it just looks grubby!).  Sparkle is always hit and miss for me - sometimes it makes a band look like light bouncing off an old LP, at other times like a little creature has been scratching at my tile.  But that's part of the joy of Zentangle - it has a life of its own, and you never know quite what you'll end up with each time!

We watched Stephen King's IT on DVD this week.  I'd read it as a teenager but wanted to see if it was as scary as I recalled.  It wasn't.  Although Pennywise the clown was still deliciously insane.  And I think him and his blood-filled balloons influenced this tile.  That and the thought of those red and white stripped barber-shop poles.  I love the gruesome history behind a simple striped pattern.

on the trail

When I first read about Bijou the snail in the Zentangle newsletter at the weekend I thought Rick and Maria had gone a bit mad.  Then I thought about it a bit more and cynically assumed it was a marketing ploy to shift more products.  And then I thought about it a bit more and realised it was quite fun.  And funny too - he makes me laugh and smile - he encourages playfulness.  And then I thought it was quite clever, and profound and very much in keeping with the whole Zentangle ethos.  And all this before I'd even tried a Bijou sized tile!

No surprise that this week's Diva Challenge encourages us to try our hand at these scaled-down tiles.  Always thrifty and keen to make precious materials go further I was thrilled to find that I could cut 5 2 by 2 inch squares from the remains left from cutting two round tiles from a sheet of A4 watercolour paper.  And a good job I did because the Diva was right when she said we wouldn't stop at doing just one...

[click to enlarge]
Tangles used - Nzeppel, Purk, Bales, Fescu, Pepper and Tipple

I did three.  Each with two official tangles on it.  And I loved the process.  To begin with I thought there wouldn't be enough space to fit anything worthwhile onto the tile - but then as I did it I really felt the 'less is more' - the sense of choice of tangle, delicacy, care and patience.  And these finished tiles feel even more precious because of their diminished scale.  In my other pen-work I write - and in part I write poetry, and mostly I write haiku - one of the smallest sorts of poems you can find.  Distilling everyday wonders into limited syllables that pack as big a punch as the greatest epic.  And Bijou's tiles feel a lot like that.

In just a few days of reading and thinking and tangling my way around this Bijou thing I've come on quite a little journey - without ever leaving the table!  And by the looks of it Bijou passed through too - look at that trail running through the tiles!

[click to enlarge]
Bijou - coming to a tile near you, fairly soon!