A Certain Magnetism

I missed last week's challenge as I was away. As in right away. I went to my brother's farm outside Murrumbateman (a little town about 40 minutes from Canberra), and was without internet. Or news. Which was lovely. The television is satellite only, and bounced from Alice Springs, right in the centre of Australia, so it was kind of weird that I knew when their next rodeo was on, or where to get framing done in Alice, but knew nothing of what was happening in the rest of the world. Which given the way that week was seems to have been something of a boon. Ignorance really is bliss.

One of the cows dropped a calf. She is unbelievably cute. We dined on one of the steers (Space Ghost - he won awards on hoof and hook and was incredibly delicious), and there were fresh farm eggs. Plus I went in to Canberra a few times to catch up with friends and have beautiful meals with them. And I got painting done. As in real honest-to-god painting, in oils on canvas. And tangled in the evenings while watching television with my brother and sister-in-law and nephew. A very good week.

The kids stayed home with their dad and everyone managed without Mum for the week, so I am thinking I can really do this again sometime.

I was looking forward to seeing this week's Challenge, but when it came up it left me rather bamboozled. Something inspired by the Earth? Or something on a recycled support? Really, I was unsure. But Laura the lovely Diva was kind enough to clarify. Inspired by the Earth. Gotcha. Still, it took a couple of days for me to work it all out in my head. Lots of reading and research, which was fun. I know a fair bit more now about the Gaia Hypothesis than I did. And weather patterns. And the shapes of the Earth's tectonic plates. But nothing was really singing. I didn't want to just do leafy, organic patterns because I tend to do those most of the time anyway. And then I remembered the Earth's electromagnetic field, which protects us from the worst of the solar winds and stops our atmosphere from being stripped away. So the weekly challenge turned out like this:

Diva Challenge 313, Meer, Flux, Beelight, Tagh, Fescu, Noom, Bunzo, Tipple, Skoodle

Imagine you are the Sun, looking straight at our Earth, but able to see into it, in cross section. There are the inner core, outer core and mantle. The crust, so fragile and thin, is just a line, the biosphere and atmosphere are rendered in Fescu, with the ionosphere as the white halo. And then the magnetic field loops out in bows. Behind the Earth the solar winds push the field out in a great stream so that it looks like Earth has a tail, or long hair, but the Sun can't see that. If I were doing this challenge again I would fill every space between the loops with Meer, but it's still okay as it is. Not perfect, but okay.

Our planet is really quite fragile. That field goes and we and everything else are just toast. We should be grateful for our Earth and take much better care of it. It could all be gone so easily. The politicians and their corporate masters won't bother, so it's up to us to speak up every day and call them to account.

In keeping with the plan to catch up on all those Challenges I missed (well, most of them, but anyway...), here's one I did while on the farm. Challenge 304, using Waybop. Quite a fun little tangle that. I've been using it a lot. Funny how some tangles you just take to, while others take a while to catch on. I've certainly caught on to this one. I did Waybops that were more standard, but I really like the way this particular one turned out.

Diva Challenge 304, Waybop, Betweed, Msst

I also had a go at some of the Renaissance tiles, both square and round. They make me a little wary, so it's good to practice something that pushes me out of my comfort zone. Good old Bunzo again. Maggots in carapaces. I have jokingly called this Bunzodala.

Bunzo, Tripoli, Flux, Pearlz

Uramaki

Another week, another Diva Challenge, this time set by Sandy Hunter. If it's a grid pattern, make it free form. If it's free form, make it a grid pattern. And use our favourites. Basically we are turning our favourite patterns inside out.

I am an over-sharer. Sit with me long enough and you'll hear more about my life than you could possibly want, and especially more about my children. I have three blogs, for crying out loud. Three.

This is only the sixth post on this blog, but already I've shared that I have favourite patterns. Squid, for instance. Flux and Nzeppel have been mentioned, Xyp too. Five posts and you know four of my favourite patterns. Like I said, over-sharer. And here it comes to bite me on the bum because I cannot lie about which patterns I have to work with.

Last week's challenge was supposed to put us out of our comfort zones, but I loved it, revelled in it, had so much fun. This week, however, this week the comfort zone was definitely somewhere on the horizon. I could see it, but there was no way I could reach it. My lovely, comfortable, familiar patterns were about to become unrecognisable, out of control.

It wasn't that bad. But it wasn't "bulk fun" either (favourite phrase of an old school friend).

Drupe, Squid, Tortuca, Nzeppel, Beelight, Well, Mucha, Seton

There was nowhere to put Xyp, Flux I had seen on some other responses to this challenge so I left it for fear of subconsciously copying. I went with what was left of my best favourites, and then others that I often turn to, and a new favourite, Seton. Some of this I would do again, other parts - no.

Beelight is quite nice, although I wouldn't call it freeform. Take the grid out of Nzeppel and you just end up with crazy paving, or at least I do, so that's a big no. And Well just becomes a series of little flowers (boring). Tortuca? I could draw spirals until the cows came home, read for a while and then tucked themselves in and turned the lights out. Mucha in a big grid is quite fetching.

Seton without a grid was so much fun. I'm going to be doing Seton without a grid A LOT from now on. They look like Dorset buttons or fly wheels or something. So many possibilities.

 And oh look, there's Squid. Again. Because I always seem to do Squid. But that was the point of the exercise.

I can do a freeform Squid
I can do it in a grid
I can do it here or there
I can do it anywhere
I do so love to draw a Squid
I do so love it, and so I did

- with apologies to Dr Seuss