the patience of a leaf

Autumn strikes me as a season that won't be hurried.  In its own time it carries the natural world from the warmth of summer through to winter's cold.  Leaves steadily change colour, setting their own pace, deepening and darkening until they eventually drop.  Each leaf will only fall when it's ready - and I like to imagine it's that waiting that allows those leaves to paint themselves in such stunning colours. 

I like to time my time over the things I enjoy - and so it was with this two tile piece.  The tangling and shading took me a couple of hours.  Steady progress - adding ink, then stopping at look at my tile, then adding a little more.  The same with the shading and the highlights.  Pausing often to look and ponder my tile helps me to appreciate the process as well as tweaking my tangling here and there to make it look the best it can.  My tangling won't be rushed any more that the littlest leaf!

Rich and warming - Ginili, Yuma and a Pokeleaf variation.
Pigment ink, graphite, white pencil and Ivory Posca paint pen highlights.
Three shades of Brusho powders created the background - Sandstone, Terracotta and Burnt Sienna.

I've made Persian Mosaics for Winter, Spring and Summer as well as exploring them in the original colours schemes suggested by Marguerite Samama.  Every time I work on these connecting triangles they take me somewhere new and remind me that there is endless variety and pleasure (not to mention value for money) to be had from Marguerite's carefully crafted kits.

dipping autumn's inkwell

There is no unifying theme to the pieces I'm sharing today other than their warming autumnal tones and the fact that I've worked on them all within the last week.

Inktober is underway once again. Last year I only made it to Day 3 before getting hopelessly waylaid by the lovely Ginili. This year I'm doing better - and I've made it to Day 9 so far! I'll hopefully blog about the whole month once it's done, and share all my tiles and process then - but in the meantime a couple of images to show what I've been up to, especially to those of you who are not seeing my tiles every few days in the Facebook group.

A work in progress photo – real inks in real pens, slightly scary but fun too

Nine days, nine tangles, three tiles

I've also had fun exploring some new tangles recently. Sometimes the best way to get to know a tangle is to simply fill an entire tile with it. Drawing repetitively helps cement the shape in your mind and hand, as well as allowing you to see how it fits together.

Singapore tangler Debbie New recently shared the heart-warming story behind her newest tangle, Wingfrond. I held the connections and friendships that grow from this shared passion tightly in mind and heart as I drew her tangle over and over again. I decided to use a slightly larger piece of paper, to allow the tangle to dance as freely as it chose to, and I like extravagance of the result, but I am curious next time to try and pack Wingfrond more tightly to see how that looks.

Wonderful Wingfrond – pigment ink and graphite on a 12x12cm piece of Medioevalis paper.

Autumnal colour was added in places by blending two Clean Color Brush Pens.

UK based Lucy Farran had a new tangle published recently on Tangle Patterns. Apparently Swooshi came about by replacing the C strokes of Molygon with an S stroke instead. Lucy admits that the tangle doesn't fit together quite as neatly as Molygon but it has a lively look – somewhere between floral and fiery. As with Molygon the trick to drawing this is to relax a little and allow yourself to get into the rhythm of the strokes.

Sensational Swooshi – pigment ink, graphite, watercolour brush pens.

This tangle has vast potential for fills and quite by accident I found
that little blocks of darkness between each piece looked quite appealing.

Hanny Nura just started a new month of her Full Moon Mosaic. She invited us to work this time within a suggested string on a Renaissance tile, with one section coloured. She also introduced a new Zentangle official tangle, called Hollis, which was recently shared at the recent Asian zenAgain event. 

October Moon – featuring Hollis, Bunzo, Cresent Moon, Tipple, Mooka - on a tan Zendala, coloured with Terracotta Brusho, and shaded using black micron, white gel, white and red chalk, graphite

 

I rarely work on the official Renaissance tiles – their colour is wonderful, but I find the surface so delicate for my rather heavy-handed approach! However I worked slowly and carefully, building up my colour and smoothing my white and graphite shading without totally destroying the paper. Tentative and at times mildly terrifying, but mindful and satisfying too.

taming the leaf

I usually begin by telling you about how a tile started, before eventually revealing the finished piece - but this week I'm going to reverse that.

Here is a two tile Persian Mosaic (I've blogged about these at length before) - my summer version of Marguerite's Samama's tangled triangular adventures.

Summer Mosaic - tangled with the hypnotic Doodah, rounded Paradox and a rough version of Decoo

These rich greens and golds didn't start off looking quite so good!  I started with two square tiles that I'd coloured using a new Brusho powder that claimed to be Leaf Green, but which turned out to be little different to their Lime Green.  These two tiles were far too zingy for my mid-summer mood so I set about calming them down a bit.

After pencilling in the unique string, using the template that comes with the Persian Mosaic kit, I tangled with my Olive Green Copic fineliner.  When it came to shading I used a Teal Blue Irojiten to shade along with graphite.  I added only a small pop of white chalk as I wanted this tile to calm down, not wake up. 

Work in progress - I started to shade a section of the first 3Z before I'd finished tangling 
because I wanted to check that what I was trying for might work before committing myself!

As a final finishing touch I used some gold watercolour to add a few dots and some little rings, made my dipping a pen cap into the paint and stamping it on the tile. 

Playing with the light - two tiles at rest of the arm of our garden bench.

I then cut the triangles free from the square tiles and placed the two together to make a whole. 

Sometimes days, like tiles, don't start how we'd like them to, but with a little patience and perseverance, some might end up better than we feared.

morning comes and morning goes with no regret

Great-great grandmother Selina -
not looking keen on being tangled!

Zentangle HQ recently released the latest Project Pack and the accompanying series of videos.  The theme this time is to tangle frames and borders around various keepsakes and treasures.  I have a fair few precious things tucked in safe places, and plenty of wonderful old photos of my family both near and distant, with copies of some going back to the 1800's.  But I just didn't feel the desire to connect those things with my tangling.  Which isn't to say I didn't like the techniques introduced in the videos!  I loved tangling along with the gang, in my sketchbook, and I knew that sooner or later I would find a way to use those frames in a way that made sense to me.  I often work that way - noting down an idea, to return to it sometime later, when it's mulched down and fermented into something a little different from how it started.  Sometimes that takes months, sometimes years, and sometimes it happens much sooner.

Over the long Easter weekend I found myself tangling those frames onto some tiles that I'd pre-coloured using Moss Green Brusho powder.  I've had these powders a few years but have struggled to develop proper affection for them.  They are either too pale or too intense.  But this one, this one worked just how I wanted it to.  And when it works it's wonderful - because you get to see little blooms of all the different colours that work together to make Moss Green.  Part science, part magic, pure wonder.

'Empty rooms that echo as I climb the stairs
And empty clothes that drape and fall on empty chairs'
Don McLean

In one of those little blots of pigment there is a very deep purple, and so I found the need to reach for my rarely used purple pen.  My black ink, graphite and hints of white chalk all took turns to bring these frames to the tile.  Each empty of any image - which feels just perfect to me.  I'm a person who finds charm in derelict places, abandoned spaces.  Hospitals and homes long vacated and left for nature to reclaim.  I see these frames hanging on damp and mossy walls.  Perhaps the frames once held photos, fading images of friends and lovers who've since moved on, departing on a spring breeze.

POSTSCRIPT - In this old post from 2016 I tried to use Brusho powders with less success, and I also attempted something involving empty frames.  It seems I'm contendedly regurgitating the same ideas, but at least they are improving a little each time!

all the difference

Good things come to those who wait.  The new tangle I'm about to share with you appeared as a mere inkling a couple of months ago.  I've given it time to grow, to develop, to change and truly show itself to me.  But now I think it's ready to see the light and to maybe hop from my page to yours.

It arose while planning how to fill a couple of leaf shapes on some stunning eco-dyed tiles that a Travelling Tangler in my swap group sent to me.  This is not one of those tiles, but looks similar - and seems a good place to start as autumn begins to comb her fingers through our days. 

Looking leafy - filled with other tangles and wrapped and surrounded by dark auras.
On pastel paper with white highlights.

The tangle is based on a series of Y shapes each fitting into the next and growing smaller as they go.  You may see Y shapes, you may see forked branches or paths, or turned upside down perhaps even wishbones.  I call it Divi because of the nature of it constantly dividing itself.  If the forks of Divi were in Robert Frost's road in the woods there'd be plenty of choices ahead of you!

The step out is really quite simple.  Divi is very forgiving of wobbles and inconsistencies.  Your Y shapes can be curvy, or straight, or really wavy, or looping upwards or downwards or any which way. I've also shown how it can be drawn along a band (which you could pencil in first).

In this next example I've mirrored the starting Y shape, and filled the spaces between branches with Shattuck.  I've then put more thick auras down both sides, and then a few Fescu.  The bands looked a bit too stark so I added some black dots to break them up.

Looking like wings and beaks and feathers and all that flies in the night.
Black tile, while Gelly Roll, white charcoal.

If you draw Divi along a band it can then be embellished in multiple ways.  Tangled like this it has similarities to Chainlea, but is different enough too I think?

Looking beautiful in shades of blue.  Endless potential for variation. 
I even weaved Fescu through the holes in one of them!

I can be drawn without much additional ornamentation - and take on another look entirely.  This version nods to Ruutz and also to Wind Farm - but again, it differs significantly too.

Looking tumbled - each Divi section jumps off from the one before. 
I darkened some of the lines and added touches of Tearce. 
On a Brusho coloured tile - pigment ink and graphite.

Lastly it can transform into something far more geometric.  You can also fill the bands of Divi itself rather than the spaces between.

Looking shiny and new.  Divi with corners instead of curves. And filled with Clob.

Sometimes I think that the measure of a good tangle isn't just how it looks on the tile, but how it makes you feel when you tangle with it - and I know I'm biased but I'm really enjoying the diminishing divisions of Divi and I hope you do too.  I'd love to hear how you get on with it and to see your creations.

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

in the shadow of the sun

It's getting hot here in the UK, and while blue skies and sunshine hold a certain appeal I find myself growing sluggish.  I have limited focus and energy, but at the same time I find many ideas flitting through my mind.  I have inklings - to start some kind of larger project, maybe just for myself, maybe including others - maybe both.  The idea keeps shifting and evolving.  Who knows if it will see the light of day, but if it does it won't be today.  For today I'll share a few recent tiles I've completed in those rare moments where inspiration and execution met.    

I drew this black tile a couple of weeks ago.  I'm determined to keep working on black tiles, as I love the look, but need to fully embrace the differences from tangling on white.  I used to think black tile work was quicker than white.  But now I know that's not the case.  I need to work just as slowly, and carefully consider the tile at each stage, turning and working out where more is needed, so as to build up something pleasing.  On this one I used Mooka in a Paradox kind of way and then filled it with Printemps.

This next tile was my contribution to Adele Bruno's recent challenge (#248), where she invited us to work with the lovely Drupe.  I started with every intention of sending it to her, but it took me too long.  Here she shares the tiles she did receive - and what a wonderful bunch they are!  I tangled on a tile I'd made a long time ago when I first got my Distress Inks - complete with a strange stain!  I tangled in dark red and popped an extra bump into each Drupe section - which made the shading extra fun.  My tangling completely ignored the string, but I popped it back in afterwards!  The finish tiles reminds me of laying under parasols on sunny days, or perhaps the big top tent at the circus.

 

 

I recently bought myself a whole box of 3Z tiles to play with and I started this week by grabbing one and tangling this.  I had no plan and just used whatever tangles came to mind and fit the space - Mooka, Nik, Arukas and Hollibaugh all appear in small amounts.  I love the way these tiles encourage a 3 sided symmetry, and I'm excited to see where playing with them will take me.

And lastly this tile, which I tangled yesterday.  I grabbed a tile from my stash that I had coloured with Brusho powder - I'm experimenting to find ways to tame these powders so that they show what they're made of without being so overpowering that the tangling has to fight to compete.  It was an increasingly hot day and my tangling seems to reflect that - 2 bands of Sling-Slang, and a middle section using the Lisbon fragment - which was all the rage last summer and is demonstrated to admirable effect by Margaret Bremner.  It was slow work, but absolutely what I needed.

hello darkness, my old friend

Sometimes I wonder if the tangles I chose to use and the colours I select on any given day bear relation to what's on my mind, or what's going on in the world.  Maybe not, but I can't rule it out.  As the UK election pounds toward its conclusion my sense of hope tinged with doom casts a shadow over everything I do.  And so I find myself making heavy use of black in recent tiles.  None more so than on these two.

I selected a couple of tiles from my Leftovers pile. A striped green one that I did very early on in my dabblings with colour - I've often been drawn to the colours but found the strong stripes off putting.  But breaking them up with some dark curls showcasing a variation of Papermint that Sandy Hunter recently shared on Facebook really did the trick.  I was tempted to leave the centre section empty and then changed my mind and popped in another Sandy tangle - a nameless one I admired on one of her blog posts.      

 

I feel a sense of hope when I look at this tile - it's like I'm peering through vines and ferns in a magical forest and the green of livingness is so vivid I feel I could taste it, and there just ahead is a sparkling curtain of water droplets, perhaps a waterfall, perhaps just a tree shaking off the recent rain.

Things took a darker turn with the second tile.  This crazed background I made a while ago while testing out my Brusho powders.  They have a certain charm but are hard to tame - perhaps better to let them do their thing and then work with them rather than against.  I saw crushed berries and bruises before I began, but perhaps the influence of the Dracula television series we are currently watching seeped in because this is what happened when I added three sections of 2V (recently shared on Tanglepatterns).

2V is a great tangle, striking for it's ability to look great even without shading.  But it's one that, for me at least, needs a lot of concentration not to make a mistake on.  The section on the left went very well, with only a tiny error, but when I started on the one on the right it all started to fall apart, when I made a few wrong connections and divided a couple of my sections into too small a triangles!  It looks like it's collapsing, unable to hold itself with the elegance of the section on the left.  But I think we all have days when we feel like that!  

There's an undeniable darkness to this tile - I imagine myself in a desecrated church, staring up at the stained glass windows and wondering how much longer they will hold themselves together.  I also picture bloody pennants hung from the ramparts of victor's castles.  And while it's felt tooth and nail at times lately, thankfully we don't decide our leaders on the battlefield these days!

just enough

Sometimes our days don't hold enough of what we need.  Not enough time, energy, comfort, hope.

But sometimes we have to make the most of whatever we've got.  This week I had just enough to make this heart.  Paper, pen, pencil and a little patience.

 

Hamadox heart, with Diva Dance tassels - on a Brusho coloured tile

And I will give this heart to my loved one and me.  I will place it in a little frame and stand it on a shelf – where we can see it, and where it can see us. 

When there's not enough of what we need there is always love.

weird and wonderful

I started this sketchbook page over a month ago - but I think it has spawned enough results now for me to share it and them with you. 

My responses to a couple of challenges took shape on this page - as well as a bit of playing about with Rainking for a tile to go in the Square One Magic Bag (I'll keep that one a secret so the group gets the thrill of the reveal when that is the chosen tangle).  I also used a variation of CC to start a tile for the Travelling Tangles Project that has now winged its way to Australia. 

Credenzo (for Square One) / Rain, Hibred and Raindotty (for IAST #161) / C.C.

And then things started to get a bit crazy.  Crusade is a really tricky tangle.  Very unforgiving of even the slightest wobble.  It takes a lot of concentration to get the lines in the right places - but it does look great.  And I feel quite similar about the colour red.  It's stunning - but so temperamental - so hard to manage with elegance.  So why oh why did I decide to grab the pot of red when experimenting with my new Brusho powders (I'm in try-new-things-for-backgrounds mode at the moment, can you tell?!)?  I was also reading a novel called His Bloody Project - the title of which must have been worming away in my subconscious while I drew this tile.

Her Bloody Project - Crusade - line work / detail / shading

Lastly, I wanted to try something with Cheers, and I wanted it to be a Renaissance style tile.  But that wasn't quite how it turned out - something wasn't working and to make it work better I grabbed some green pencils and got to this. 

Which makes me think of a dusty gallery hung with framed portraits, of long-dead relatives, all of whom drowned.  Although the images have all since vacated their frames, leaving only the bubbled green waters of their doom.  Or something like that!