Know When to Hold 'Em, Know When to Fold 'Em

Yes, I missed last week's challenge. And I was almost a week late with pressing publish on some lovely comments (I moderate all comments. Prevents spam), for which I apologise. Thank you, everyone, for your lovely comments. I do value them. Things happened and I wasn't online. I haven't been online very much at all lately, and last week I didn't even manage to keep up with the Diva or the other blogs I follow. I looked at a couple of Challenge responses and then events overtook me, and that was that. There's a bit more of an explanation, along with a drawing technique, on my art blog, if you are so inclined.

Things are a bit less ga-ga this week, so here I am again.

This week the Diva posed us an interesting challenge. If you are going to be absolutely pedantic a diptych does not have to be reflected, just a hinged painting on two panels, but I did actually go with the instructions, so reflected it is. Which was a lot of fun. I don't think it would have been anywhere near so interesting to do if the reflection aspect wasn't there. But do you know, I found it really difficult to fold that tile. Part of me felt like a vandal. It was like the first time I made a note in a textbook (which I owned, by the way. I have ever since treated reading textbooks as having a conversation). I may as well have been sacking Rome. Once done, however, it seems churlish to stop. Tile done. Not the greatest, but not bad for a first go.

This is it lying flat. Flux, Squid, Dex.

I was going to gatefold it rather than wingfold it, but I had this idea of mounting it on red card. Which wasn't really successful.

The same on red card. No, the image is not squashed, it really does look this distorted.
Weird, isn't it?

So instead I stuck it, folded the other way, to my book stand on my desk, using my kneadable rubber (so many uses). I'll do this exercise again, gatefolded I think, and also on separate tiles with a paper hinge.

And suddenly normalcy is returned. This bends the same amount as the one on red,
just in the opposite direction. Go figure.

I was going to post the tile with the Jetties string, but today's photos were taken very late as my daughter had borrowed my phone for the day and my camera is on the blink, so I rushed to get the challenge photos done and forgot the Jetties tile, and now the light is fading. Maybe next time. 

Instead, in keeping with the idea of a diptych, but extending it (because I really do not know when to leave well enough alone), here's a set of three tiles that I did a number of years ago. If I hadn't sold them (yay!), I would be joining them and mounting them differently. I think on wood with metal hinges, in a concertina set up. That could be really interesting.

Cipher (yes, it got given a name), Tripoli, Jetties, Rixty, Shattuck, Web, Squid,
Msst, Hollibaugh, Nipa, Paradox, Waves, Tipple, Ixorus,
and a great big stripey snake thing (what is that, exactly? Barberpole?)

And now my brain is full of Patrick Woodroffe and his beautiful diptychs and triptychs (no, seriously, follow that link. His work is stunning. A great loss), and I'm thinking of Zentangle wooden panels, amongst other things and wondering about the possibilities.

In the meantime this was much more fun than I thought it would be (after the folding trepidation), and as usual I have been absolutely blown away by everyone else's Challenge responses. This is such an inventive and gifted community. Thanks to Laura for spurring us on each week.