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.

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.

the rise and fall

Last week I said that I'd been making lots of backgrounds.  I said some had turned out very bright, others rather pale.  This week I decided to work on a couple of the pale ones.  I had no particular plans as to what to do on them, but some plans found me, and they turned out to be a rather good fit.

As well as creating a technicolour wonderland of inspiration on her blog, Alice Hendon runs the Tangle All Around Facebook group, which provides weekly prompts and a place to share our works.  At various times I've joined in with some of Alice's previous ventures, such as stacked tangling, and a summer of sketchbook tangling.  But these days I mostly lurk or pass through just to see what's happening.  I did that this week and saw that one of the weekly tangles to try was Sassanian by Neil Burley.  As soon as I saw it I thought it would look great on one of my pale tiles.

A touch of Art Nouveau - Sassanian with Msst

The tiles were coloured using blended Distress Inks in a couple of colours - I forget which (must remember to write these things down!).  I then applied an additional helix of colour through a stencil - this almost disappears once the tile is tangled but you can see bits here and there.  I tangled in black ink and with a Wine coloured Copic Multiliner. I put a few extra details in but didn't want to detract from the shapes the tangle forms - that wonderful sense of looking through the mist and rain to the soft spring days just ahead of us.

I dawdled a bit about what to do with the matching tile.  Then I noticed Hanny Nura's Full Moon Mosaic and knew that would be perfect.  Hanny devises Moon based prompts that she introduces on her Instagram account every month.  I'm not on Instagram - but that doesn't stop me looking and admiring her work and the responses of those who join her.  This month she gave us a string, asked us to use Irka by Alena Light, and only botanical tangles.

Pale moon rising - with A-Dalfa, Irka and Flux, Fescu

I found myself unconsciously choosing tangles that mirrored that teardrop shape that Irka begins with.  I used a strange variation of an auraed Flux in the central V, with feathery Fescu poking through.  And while I'm not sure my A-Dalfa border is strictly botanical, I couldn't resist it. The resulting tile looks like it honours the sun as much as the moon, and could be an autumnal scene as much as one from spring.  But at the end of the day, those are the just names and words we apply to things that existed long before the words did.  The important thing is to focus on how they look, how they feel and the fact that they keep going, age after age after age!

celestial happenings

The year is running away with me.  The list of things I need to do, let alone want to do, is longer than will fit into the days that are left.  I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling this way.

I don't want to totally sacrifice the things that calm and refresh me, things like Zentangle.  This is just the time when I need them most, to charge me up to keep going.  But what I can sacrifice is any unnecessary pressure that attaches itself to my tangling.  I can particularly dispense with worries about deadlines.  I've made a habit of being fashionably late for Zentangle challenges all year, so why worry now!

There were a couple of challenges that caught my eye last month - but which I only finished today.  One was Adele Bruno's It's a String Thing #269.  She introduced an idea she learned at ZenAgain from Maria Thomas.  That of starting at one corner of your tile with a tangle drawn large and then the same tangle smaller from the other corner and letting them meet in the middle.  Adele suggested we try this with Soluna.   It was a great choice and the time I spent on this tile was so relaxing, steadily drawing one orb after another, embellishing some more than others, not worrying about any orbs that had an odd shape, as the later crescent auras and shading would smooth out any inconsistencies.  I love the depth in the finished tile and I know it's an idea I'll visit again.

IAST #269 - Soluna over a very old tile coloured with watercolour pen

I also couldn't resist joining in with the most recent of Hanny Nura's wonderful Full Moon Mosaics.  These are based on Instagram and there will be a new one starting quite soon.  She dreams up the most delightful ideass and runs each one to time in with the phases of the moon.  The last one involved a circle of Marguerite Samama's Madama in the middle, and A-dalfa around the edges and a tangle of your choice in between.  I chose Nik and used lots of dark auras and repeating lines to pull it all together.

Tangled on tan paper, with touches of Wine coloured ink

Like many others in our community I'm currently joining in with the Zentangle Twelve Days project.  I'm enjoying watching the videos, sucking up the enthusiasm of the team, and being reminded of some great older tangles that had been gathering dust.  I'm not working on a Project Pack spinner though -  I don't get on with large ares of paper.  Instead I've decided to do the Twelve Days as one of my Zigzangles.  It doesn't divide neatly into 12 sections, or more, so I'm cramming the tangles in how and where I can!  I've left some spaces in the centre of each panel, I don't know really why, but I'm hoping that something will crop up on later days for me to go back and add to the spaces.  Or not! 

I don't usually share unfinished pieces, and I won't shade until the end because I'll only get covered in graphite on future days, so I'm feeling a bit exposed with only my naked line work for you to see!