Writ Large

No archived challenges today because I kind of went nuts on this week's Diva Challenge.

At the beginning of 2015 I had a lesson with Lianne Woods, the lovely CZT in the Sydney area. If you are on the east coast of Australia, it is worth looking her up and booking a lesson. Anyway, she was getting us to blow up tangles and use them as strings. We got the basics down on several tiles, but I didn't finish them in the time we had, put them in my box and sort of forgot about them. Last week I found them and finished them, keeping as much as possible to the style of tangling I had used at the time. Each one had some patterning already done. The Bb string tile had been closest to completion, I like the addition of the sepia pen and am glad that wavy bar was drawn through the middle. Sometimes you don't know what to do with an area, but it comes to you later. Then this week's challenge came and I realised that some of the tiles fitted the challenge parameters - to use stripes as strings. (There was a Jetties, which could have qualified too, as the stripes in the balls were tangled in. I might share that one another time.)

Even without the challenge I would have shared a couple of these, as I really like the idea of using tangles as strings. Thank you, Lianne!

Hazen string, Squid, Paisel, Msst, Tripoli

Bb string, Zander, Crescent Moon, Finery, Opus, Coaster, Shattuck, Nipa

W2 string, Onamato, Hibred, Finery, Shattuck, Meer, Purk, Akoya,
can anyone tell me what that last one is? I don't seem to have it in my journal.

And then, because I felt I should do an actual tile specifically for Diva day, there's this. Three very broad stripes. I am interested in how my style of tangling has shifted in the last two years, although that could just be because I need my glasses script updated. I suspect that seeing double when the tile is closer than arms' length is not a good thing (she types wryly).

Meer, Pearlz, Flux, Crescent Moon, Mooka, Fescu (doing a Sand Swirl thing again),
Nipa (without the circles)

Gone Tangling

Another week has gone by. Another week of running around after kids and appointments and whatnot. I had a biopsy taken from my left arm last Thursday, so I haven't slept well since then as every time I roll onto that side at night I wake up. So much fun. But fortunately it's my left arm so it hasn't stopped me drawing. I have been able to work on several detailed illustrations and have been tangling in the evenings. Catching up on challenges, tangling for my own enjoyment, trying out new things and techniques from the very talented Zentangle community. There are some truly amazing artists out there. The internet does have its benefits - we get to share in a much wider artistic community.

The Diva Challenge for this week was to use Molygon. I have trouble with this one. A lot of my crescents end up looking like squashed bananas, so I really have to slow it down.

Diva Challenge 315, Pepper, Molygon, Xyp, Crescent Moon

This attempt at Molygon isn't too bad, although I am not sure about the Pepper in the top corner. As a single element it feels too large, and the subtle shading is too subtle for my camera. Oh well, live and learn. One must try these things. I do like the Crescent Moons in the bottom corner, even if they do have smiley faces. And some of them definitely aren't crescents. I haven't really got the swirly thing happening with the Molygons. It sort of starts and then peters out. Ah well, it is what it is.

Far more successful from my point of view was my attempt at challenge #298, using Orbs-la-Dee. Going for a contrast between tangles that are flat and others that can be given a bit of dimension. While not there yet, this is definitely on the right track.

Diva Challenge 298, Bunzo, Orbs-la-Dee, Squid, Flux, Fescu

I had originally put Bunzo in every third diamond on the outside and Nzeppel in the others, but it wasn't working. So Nzeppel got drawn over with more Bunzos. The white gel pen was needed to get rid of the lines that showed, so the Bunzos ended up with more grey than I had planned. But it worked. Serendipity is a splendid thing.

And finally, challenge #290, using Nzeppel and Flux. I love these two patterns, they are on my list of go-to patterns, or comfort tangling, or whatever you want to call it, so I suppose this also takes care of the "Mac&Cheese" challenges of the past as well. Two with one stone. Although this was not entirely comforting to do. Leaving white space is always a struggle for me. I have a strong urge to cover everything.

Diva Challenge 290, Nzeppel, Flux, Cirquital

My eldest child keeps urging me to colour tiles before I start. When I paint, I always paint on a coloured ground, so I can see her wisdom in this, and I suspect it will calm that desire to cover all the surface. I certainly don't get the same drive with the black or Renaissance tiles, so she may well be on to something. There's no shading on this (I only just noticed), but I don't know that it's needed. It seems okay the way it is.

Couch Potatoes

I can't believe I am actually posting on the same day the Diva Challenge was issued. It's been quite a disrupted week, with school holidays not ending till Wednesday and then both kids being off sick Friday and off again today. Which means I have been able to get some drawing done amidst all the boring things, like washing and cooking. They both seem to like snuggling on the lounge with me while I beetle away with the pens and pencils. Plenty of Goons or Goodies because, let's face it, laughter is the best medicine. Or at least good for taking the mind off things.

Scallamp is an interesting tangle. I overdid the decorations, something more plain may manifest tonight, with more chances to play with shading. We shall see.

Diva 314, Scallamps, Printemps

The week also gave me a chance to work on archived Challenges. I found the tile I actually did for #189, before I was brave enough to post anything. Yuma, which is now a regular part of the repertoire.

Diva 189, Yuma

I've had a lot of fun with others, but I think to finish up I'll go with Challenge #305, using Marasu and Molygon. I use Marasu a lot, but Molygon bamboozles me a little. It requires some concentration to keep track of where the next little crescent goes. So this was good practice.

Diva 305, Molygon, Marasu (spot the curve where the cat jumped on my lap. Sigh)

There are plenty more with that came from, but I'll save them for another time. 

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

The Four Corners of the Circle

I've been away for the weekend with my eldest. Went down to Canberra to see friends and family and the Treasures of Versailles Exhibition. We had a great time, but I was quite tired when we got home. Four hours plus of driving, with two near misses due to idiot drivers who weren't paying attention and clearly weren't expecting for someone to be doing to the speed limit. Still, home safe and sound, so yay for us.

Regardless of the tiredness, I couldn't help looking at the Diva Challenge last night. I figured it would be up, even though I hadn't got my email alert yet (time zones - one of the perils of living on a sort of spheroid planet). And when I saw it, oh, I was so excited. I nearly grabbed my pens and paper there and then. But instead I went to bed. And slept like a log. And spent all this morning running around doing the things that needed doing and itching to get drawing.

Laura has set a challenge that is right up my alley - a string with circles and squares.

See, here's the thing. I love sacred geometry. And the thing about sacred geometry, or classical geometry if you prefer, is that circles and squares are really important. And the presence of one implies the presence of the other.

I was reading recently "The Science of Discworld IV: Judgement Day" by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen¹. On p.52, writing about varying cosmologies, Stewart and Cohen point out that to "many [ancient central American] cultures the world was both square and round". Which when you think about it makes perfect sense. The Four Corners of the Earth, anyone? A circle is the basis from which a square is constructed and they share the same centre point (which is often considered the fifth point of the square). Prior to the invention of the set square the only way to reliably draw a square, with accurate right-angled corners, was to start with a circle. Frankly, it's still the best way to do it, as far as I am concerned. And you can do it with just a compass and straight edge. No fussing around.

A circle can easily lead to a square. A square has to have come from a circle. No wonder I couldn't wait to get started. Although of course, life gets in the way. So here I am at nearly three in the afternoon and I have only now found time to put pen to paper.

Diva Challenge #311, CircleSquare, Bunzo, Cyme, Knightsbridge, Marasu, Printemps, Wasser and a spiral
Megan Hitchens, black ink, brown ink, white ink, graphite, white chalk on tan paper. 2017

It's a little wonky as I did it free hand, but using a mandala tile really helped. I think the Knightbridge was a mistake, or needs something else happening in it. And I should have gone much more carefully with the spiral, but otherwise... well... it will do.

For squares and circles I much prefer this, which I did with a compass and straight edge, but it's not the formal challenge piece as it was done for INKtober last year.

Playing, Paradox, Knightsbridge, Hollibaugh, Meer, Tipple, other patterns that I should go look up their names
Megan Hitchens, blank ink on white paper, 2016

You can really see the difference a straight edge makes. Oh well.

Squares within circles, circles within squares, turtles all the way down.

No archived Diva Challenge today as I still have stacks to do.

1. Pratchett Terry, Cohen Jack, Stewart Ian, The Scicnce of the Discworld IV: Judgement Day, Ebury Publishing, 2014

It Was Bugging Me

Back again. Who'd have thunk? Two in two days. But I kind of got the Frunky bug.

Plus... Having posted, I went and looked at everyone else's Diva challenge responses for this week. Wow, there are some talented people out there. But... having looked at Katharina's whole post for Frunky, instead of just the step-outs, I realised that my little effort was very similar to something she had done. Maybe I half saw it when I visited her page in the first place and was subconsciously channelling. I don't know. But it did make me feel uncomfortable. So I went through the other Frunky tiles I had drawn (I said I'd got the bug) and decided to share another one that's a bit less similar.

On a Bijou tile, so signed with the little Tangle Bug instead of my usual monogram. I love these little tiles. There is no room for faffing around. Straight down to business and get it done. Although, having said this, I now have a 0.05 micron and am itching to miniaturise. Anyway...

Diva challenge #310, Frunky, Flux, Megan Hitchens, black ink and graphite, 2017.
Better? or too figurative now? Sigh.

And in keeping with trying to keep to a plan, I did another challenge from the Diva archive - #198, which, incidentally, is also challenge #1, right back at the beginning. Simplify. So, on a Bijou tile, because it is small, in a circle string, because that is, let's face it, one line, a single tangle, Nzeppel. Shading is simple too. Not thrilled, but not unhappy either.

Diva Challenge #1 and #198, Nzeppel, Megan Hitchens, black ink and graphite, 2017

No fussiness, no thinking, no fear, just done. Simple.

Back in the Saddle

Two and a third years. That's a loooooooooonnnnnnnggggggg time between posts. But that's the way life goes sometimes. All my blogs have been on hold, or only dealt with very sporadically. And as for tangling - hahahahaha. It has barely happened. But....

I'm trying to get back on board. I have still been drawing when I can, but not painting, and doing calligraphy when I can. And it is way past time I got back to tangling.

Do you know the funny thing about that? I was scared to start back up. Everything felt rusted shut. Over the last two and a bit years I have been maintaining my tangle manual (all the patterns I like, with the step outs), and checking out the Diva's challenge each week, and reading the Zentangle blogs and newsletters. And, of course, The Tangled Way (Lianne Woods - great teacher), Enthusiastic Artist (Margaret Bremner) and the incomparable Magratscraft (this is a must). I just haven't done more than read. Well, a tile here or there, but otherwise no (I might share them another time, I might not).

Other things have been drawn on Zentangle tiles in the meantime - the paper is so beautiful that it can't be ignored. Things that are quite detailed and need to be mapped out carefully, and corrected where necessary. And I've found out another reason why you don't rub out when tangling. One, it's not wrong. Two, the paper HATES rubbing out. It pills and shreds and generally reacts very badly. And then bleeds like no one's business. So never, never feel tempted to rub out what you've done. It's really not worth it. Turn a bug into a feature, as the computer people say, or turn it upside down, a la Mr Squiggle, or something. But Don't. Rub. Out.

Life is getting back on track, very slowly, and fingers, toes and eyes crossed that I have not just jinxed that. Some canvasses have been prepared (that's a story for one of my other blogs), some serious drawing undertaken, and actual research done too. So I felt I really, really should get back to tangling.

The fear was still there (I know that's silly, but there you are), but the Diva challenge made it easier. UMT challenge with a great pattern, Frunky, by Katharina Königsbauer-Kolb.

Diva challenge #310, Frunky, Megan Hitchens, white gel pen, white chalk, soapstone, 2017

For a black tile, this scanned remarkably well. The soapstone can be quite reflective, which makes images problematic. Not this time. I'm very happy with it. Frunky is a lovely pattern, and a great one for dusting off the cobwebs, or blasting off the rust.

Of course, then I got enthusiastic. Several half-finished tiles dating back to 2015 got finished (yay), and I thought "why not catch up on the missing challenges?" So I looked at the last one I did (#195) and then at the next one (#196 - the sort of Christmas/dolly one), which I have decided to sit on for a while. And then found in my box the tile I did for #197 way back when it was set, but never posted (nor shaded, I just realise. That could be why). That's handy. So here it is. Finally.

Diva challenge #197, Arukas, Paradox, Nzeppel, Bunzo, Flux, Megan Hitchens, black Sakura micron, brown Sakura micron, 2014

I had decided to use Arukas, the set tangle for the challenge, as the string and then fill the spaces with whatever took my fancy, including Arukas. It's a little busy, but I like the two ink colours. Bunzo worked well. The brown ink makes the graphite look steely grey.

Now to keep the momentum going and catch up on all the others in-between. But, the best laid plans of Mice and Megans. We'll see long this lasts.