kiss the graphite goodbye

I didn't fancy doing a full globular grid, as suggested by the Diva for this week's challenge.  So I just worked with the central cross-section part.

The only tangle I'd chosen before hand was Wallbucket by Sandra Strait (which I spotted on a recent via to Ina Sonnenmoser's new tangle resource site Pattern-Collections.com).  I wanted this for the middle section and I think it looks great. 

And then I just let my pen do whatever it wanted.  The arched sections took Betweed very well.  Some non-specific arches provided a base for a few Flux and then I did a Verve-type border. 

I've got into a habit lately of taken before and after images between finishing the line work and shading.  I almost always prefer the shaded version, but today I didn't.  It looked a bit messy.  But perhaps because I'd coloured some sections with a grey watercolour brush pen before I started the detail work there was enough contrast to not need additional shading quite so vitally. 

Anyway, there it is. 

layer upon layer

I stacked my papers with all the bottom left corners together.

I'm not sure I really 'got' this week's Diva Challenge - which was to create a stack of tiles.  I really like using border type tangles, but I felt like I struggled to pull the separate tiles together - beyond the actual sticking of them.  In hindsight I'd have done more of the sort of thing I did with the bead string.  I think also I found it almost unbearable to think of all that blank un-drawn-on paper hidden beneath!

But anyway - no mistakes, no regrets.  Here's sharing what I came up with.  Just four layers, with three from some coloured papers.  Sinchun on the Bijou tile, with blackened background and white ink beads.  A variation of Zenith on the beige paper.  On the green is Ponio (by Damy).  And lurking there in the dark grey W2.  Some white pencil and shading to liven things up a bit and there you have it. 

you've been framed

For this week's Diva Challenge we were invited to draw a monotangle using Shattuck.  I've loved Shattuck ever since I first encountered it.  It feels natural to draw and the shading seems to fall into place instinctively and brings it to life.  It's a tangle I often play with, finding tangleations often - in fact one appeared in my Diva tile last week!

I quickly covered a page in my sketchbook with more variations, some extreme, some slight tweaks.  Which got me thinking about the whole monotangle thing - and wondering how far you should alter a tangle without it no longer really being the tangle you started from...

But for my tile I used two variations - one which simply adds weight to the Shattuck detail lines, but which I find really pleasing to the eye.  And the other which started as curved lines within the triangular spaces (I often worked with the curved Shattuck version, but decided to play it straight this time) but in the end looks more like large Antidots or part of Cockels N Mussels (or actually it's quite clearly Bunzo - as my first eagle-eye commenters pointed out! Thank you!).  A few perfs and I'm done. 

getting in a flip-flap

Yesterday I drew this tile - in the process trying two things I'd been meaning to have a go with for a while.  The first is the tangle - Flip-Flap which has been popping up all over the place lately.  It looks so complicated, but once you get into it falls into place and becomes quite rhythmic and calming to draw.  And of course open to endless embellishment.

The second was the technique of blacking out some areas of a tile and then using white pen over them.  I did it on some of the Flip-Flap 'fans' and then added simpler but complimentary details.  I opted for some very light brush pen shading and some tiny pops of bright blue.  It was a different kind of tangling.  A fair bit of thinking ahead and waiting patiently for pens to dry, but I really like the look of the final tile! And it's good to try something different sometimes.

sign of the times

I wasn't particularly inspired by this week's Diva Challenge - but I'd been sorting out my pens earlier today and spotted a couple of green pens I rarely use as they are a bit bolder than my preferred shades.  So I thought maybe a bit of green will do.

And it did.  I only used one green pen in the end (Zig Clean Color brush pen - 040 Green).  And a couple of newish tangles I've been playing with - D'rua which is almost a bit shamrocky, Y-chain which looks a bit snakey (like those St Patrick drove out of Ireland!) with a single band of a Shattuck/Zonked fusion. 

I looks a bit like a road sign.  Perhaps a sign telling me that I'm heading to the Emerald Isle even if I didn't intend to!

from fertile ground

The note I attached with the tile I sent to Adele in response to her latest It's a String Thing challenge touched on my dissatisfaction with what I'd drawn.  I know that Zentangle is all about the process more than the results - but sometimes you can enjoy the tangling but still be left with a sense that something could have gone better.  And that was what I felt, in heaps, last week.  I just couldn't get the 3 tangles to work together, even though I like each in isolation.  I told her I'd like to revisit them again to see what might happen...

... and today I did just that.  And like Beanstalk Jack's magic seeds, that his mother threw out thinking they were pointless, something wonderful happened.  From my seeds of disappointment, this image appeared.  Tamisolo rising like twists of beanstalk from the frame of Sati (my latest tangle to feature on Tangle Patterns).  This was what I was looking for last week, but it just wasn't there.  But a few days later, in my sketchbook, allowing it to stretch beyond the bounds of a tile, without a string, there it was.  If I'm lucky, then perhaps soon Fission will start to sprout for me too!

Added the next day - and here it is!

onwards and upwards

This week's Diva Challenge is another one of those that invites us to remember where we came from.  To take a tile from the past and recreate it.

And so to 2nd July 2013 - I'd been teaching myself to tangle from a book.  This was Day 5, tile 5.  I had a handful of tangles at my disposal, a basic pen, pencil and some tiles cut from thin white card stock.  But I could see something I liked in the way these strange shapes started to rise up from the paper as I drew.

Things I would have thought then -

• that Printemps is harder to draw than you'd expect
• that I didn't really 'get' Isochor
• that I didn't really believe in all the 'talk' about certain pens, tiles etc
• that shading seemed a bit like putting a load of graphite over something that looked neat until you did
• that I couldn't imagine this Zentangle holding my attention for more than a few weeks

Then and now - the evolution of a tile
[click to enlarge] 

Fast forward to now.  The same tangles, a similar string.  And a world of difference.  And the differences mainly come about from confidence, commitment and community.

What I know now -

• that Printemps is still a challenge, and Isochor is a odd one!
• that better materials do help - not least because they make you value yourself and your art
• that shading makes the ink lines come to life
• that nearly three years later I tangle almost every week, and can't imagine ever stopping