Busy, busy, busy

II've had a busy 24 hours as we had guests staying. I had to tidy all my drawing gear away, which means it all had to be put out again today. I have managed to do tiles for three challenges, but taking photos and putting them online takes a little longer. I managed to sneak a little time whilst everyone was in bed.

I did this tile for Tackle It Tuesday. F made an easy if rather inelegant string. I used Frondus, Fracas, Finery, Florez, Flux and Tipple thrown in for good measure ;-)

Next came It's a String Thing #103. It seemed obvious which areas of the string to put Meer into, but I shall be interested to see what other takes everybody else has. I did two areas of Mr E, but the bit curled around the Meer curl turned out looking more like the Worm tangle pattern. As for the string, I preferred it upside down :-)

Finally I did Diane and Carolein's weekly Triple alphabet challenge. For SPV I chose Pendrils, pepper, Vega and Swarm. There seems to be a server error on their site at the moment so I can't add the link here. I managed to find the page via a circuitous route to add my entry but the link won't go directly there, however as soon as it is sorted I will edit the post to include it.

Terrainiums

Do you remember those large glass carboy Terrainiums which were so popular in the 70's, or maybe it was the 80's? I lose track of time, the years just flow by. Anyway, as soon as organic tangle patterns were mentioned in the Diva's Challenge this week a terrainium popped into my head and wouldn't move so I got out my green pen to see what I could do.

I chose floos and an upside down wist to plant in the tipple earth and surrounded it with Florz.

Made for Joey

As you know Joey's Challenge this week is a Monotangle of Hollibaugh. There is always such a lot you can do with Hollibaugh, so much you can mix it up with. However when it comes to a Monotangle there is only itself, so I wondered if it was possible to put Hollibaugh within Hollibaugh and so my tile was born. I also wanted curvy Hollibaugh in it so I wrapped some around, but I think it could have been a bit more wrapped around itself as well as the straight Hollibaugh.

My week 8 - Cats

Let me introduce you to my cat, Jasmine. She is such a funny, timid, indoor cat. She hates going outside, it is far too dirty for her delicate pink paws. She has very good manners, she never jumps up to walk on the furniture. She spends her time between the windowsills and the sofa where she sits between us and sleeps.

She has a routine, eating her food in the kitchen when we have breakfast, after having a shower. Yes, you heard, she has a shower. She comes up and joins us in the bathroom at shower time, waits until we have finished, then gets in herself and looks at us as much to say "My turn now". She does this every morning:-

My entry for SuzyMosh's Tangle Me Three Challenge is a ZIA of my cat. Her body is the original Widget, her tail and ears are the second version and the square widgets on her head is the third.

My tiles this week for both of SuzyMosh's challenges just seemed to emerge without a lot of research which was very relaxing. Even when looking for a tangle that was New To Me beginning with L. They instantly appeared before me and were so easy to learn. I chose Arc Flower from J J LaBarbera's tangle patterns and from then on the garden theme just seemed to evolve. Lazy Eights, Lily Pads, and Lichen, all are new to me.

Tackling Tuesday on Friday

It is Friday already and I have only just finished the Tackle It Tuesday Challenge. The string this week is E so I used a single Eez to form the string E. I then used Eez to outline the string. The tangle patterns I used were Ennies, Eddies, Estrel, Encke and Euca.

Prehistoric Tangling

Adele Bruno, in the 'It's a String Thing' Challenge chose some very interesting tangle patterns to try this week. I hadn't come across Sez before and I was immediately struck with it's likeness to the tri-spiral found in prehistoric art.

Near to where I live here in Ireland is the Newgrange Passage Tomb, which is a world heritage site. It was built around 3200BC and it is mind boggling how such a massive construction was built to such a high standard in those days. I have been inside it and the corbelled roof is still bone dry after all these years - no leaks! Anyway you can read all about it, if you wish, by clicking on the link above, but the reason I mention it is the Neolithic art which both surrounds it and can be found inside it.

I hadn't come across Rick's Sez tangle pattern before, and as soon as I saw it I immediately thought of the famous tri-spirals found on the Newgrange Entrance Stone (here second photo down) and inside here (11th picture down). That entrance stone is massive, it is almost taller than me. Looking at the indoor photos I could see other tangle patterns, did you spot Static? Also was that the beginnings of Magda's Graancirkel half way down? Did you notice any others?

Before I started my tile for the challenge I decided to draw  a bijou tri-spiral tile in honour of the pre-historic people who made the art-work. I then proceeded to fill in this week's string and then turned it on it's side because then it looked roughly the shape of the entrance stone.

U-N-I

U-N-I, is this Unicorn, University or UNI the Hip Hop duo? No, this is Diane and Carolien's Weekly Challenge.

I chose Unme, Navajo, Noodlez Nzeppel and Inderella.

G for Girdy

Joey's Weekly Monotangle Challenge this week is Girdy. It is strangle tangle, and I am not sure how I would use it in a tile, but as a Monotangle it is fun to do,

New D tangle patterns.

I have had great fun researching tangle patterns beginning with D that I have not used before for SuzyMosh's That's New to Me Challenge. As I entered two challenges last week which involved D tangles it was quite a job to find an unused one I could draw. In the end I found four, Durn, Dansk, Ditto and Diamond Drop. For the Sandy Hunter Artist Focus I used Veezley.

I loved drawing Dansk, but it didn't exactly come out looking as I expected, maybe because I made the tails rather straight.

Two for the Price of One.

Kristinne, our woman in Romania, is off on her holidays next week - the Black Sea. It all sounds very exotic to me. I used to get very itchy in that last week before a holiday too, work seemed so much more of an effort than the rest of the time, except maybe the week after you get back.

It is lovely now that I am retired, especially as I moved to live beside the sea, and only have to walk down to the end of the street to go for a paddle. Of course there is a vast difference in temperature between the Black Sea and the Irish Sea lol.

Kristinne is asking for 3 - 5 tangle patterns beginning with E for this week's challenge. I used Eez, Ennies, Eye-Wa, Emingle and Ecoism. I really fell in love with Eez. Having recently discovered the rather fun repeat pattern stacks I first made a tile with stacked boxes which contained the tangles, however they felt very constrained and asked to be released so I made a second, more conventional tile, using the same tangles.

Pens, pens and more pens.

My order of Sakura Gelly Roll Pens, which I was able to obtain from Amazon.co.uk, has arrived today. They look gorgeous and I was really excited to try them. I collected my tiles and other bits and pieces and settled down at my desk. I started to draw, but nothing happened. I tried again, pressing a little harder and still nothing. I scribbled around on spare paper with no result. I tried a different colour pen, nope nothing :-(

Okay, okay, which one of you jokers whispered "Shh, don't tell her there is a tiny cap on the nib. It'll be funny to watch!"

Honestly, how was I supposed to know? The little nib cap inside is transparent and so tiny I only saw it at the very end when I peered at the nib. I was getting upset because I thought I was going to have to send them back and the postage would have been more than the pens are worth. With Amazon.co.uk postage is free from them to Ireland, on orders over 25 pounds sterling. (Yes I know pens don't cost that much, but you have to buy other things as well to make your order up to the free postage amount don't you *wink, wink*). That is why I was able to order them, but postage on returns is not free.

Anyway fortunately I discovered the problem. Those of you not involved in the conspiracy, and yet to try Gelly Roll Pens won't know what I am talking about, so here is a photo of the tiny tiny cap - yes, that white dot in front of the pen - I mean really!

You may remember last week I asked you how pens should be stored. Thank you to those of you who replied. The advice is to store them horizontally and so, in true Blue Peter fashion, I made this horizontal pen rack from a washing machine detergent container. It doesn't have a lid which would be perfect, but it is not intended to be moved around much so it fits the bill. I am a bit OCD and it means I can keep them all in size order and lay my hand straight on the one I want.

OK, on to the Diva's Challenge which is why we are here. The subject is Circus, but to me the Tropicana pattern just looked like one of those weather houses that have a man or a woman pop out according to the weather of the day. I caught sight on The Diva's Blog of the wonderful examples given and unfortunately I found it hard to think how else to use the tangle patterns without copying, so I simplified them instead:-

My Week 7. A convoluted path to Bijou.

When you start reading blogs you can take some very convoluted journeys if you start clicking on links, and it is amazing what you can learn. Last week I started out on SuzyMosh's Tangle Me Three page to see what you had made of the challenge. I came across Lynn Harvey's post about developing her style, which was very informative. It also had links to places which had instructed her, and so I clicked through on those that interested me (which actually was all of them). One link was to Cheryl Angiel's Rainbow Elephant blog, and a post she had made some time ago about repeat pattern stacks, something which Lynn had used to great effect in her tile. I expect some of you old hands have come across them before, but I am new here and I have never seen them. I thought they were such fun and read as much as I could about how to construct them. I tried drawing one or two, then I thought "A stack of Bijou tiles would be fun" and so for this week's Tangle Me Three Entry I have launched out, for the first time, into a larger sized ZIA of Bijous.

I would have liked to put a few extra funny bits amongst the stack, but I thought they might be interpreted as another tangle and then it wouldn't have fitted the bill for the Tangle Me Three Monotangle rules, so I stuck with just the bijou tiles. The bottom two Bijous are the original Boomarang tangle patterns. The second variation I put in the middle two and top Bijous. I just turned one line upside down and swapped boomerangs with the colouring in. For the third variation, which I put in Bijous 5 & 6, I blocked in the background rather than the boomerangs. So there you have it, a stack of Bijous:-

Watercolour washes

It is a lovely hot sunny day here, so I have settled down with a nice cool lemonade drink ready to draw my tile for this week's It's A String Thing Challenge. As both the tangle patterns chosen this week by Adele were made in honour of two husbands it seemed to me a little love was in the air, so I thought I would paint a pink wash as the background to my tile.

I collected my watercolours and a glass of water to rinse my paintbrush and sat down to paint. I was using Derwent Watercolour Pencils then stroking across with the wet brush. I finished my wash and as I was thirsty I took a long cool sip of ......"Oh Yuck - I've just drunk my paint water" *splutter, splutter* !!!

I hope there is nothing poisonous in those pigments and that I will live to enter the challenge next week lol

XGK, Challenge #15

XGK are the letters this week in Diane and Carolein's Challenge. I used three tangles that I hadn't drawn before. XYP (pronounced ZIP) was used along the central border, Kosy in the bottom section and Gra-vee above. I had great fun with Kosy, but really enjoyed Gra-vee the most. I shall definitely be using those two again.

Drupeing All Over The Place.

Drupe seems to be my go to tangle pattern this week. I have used it a lot just recently and it just seemed right for the string in the Tackle It Tuesday Challenge. This week the string is D and the centre was just begging to be filled with Drupe. I used Dragonair down the spine of the D and positive and negative Droplets for the rest. I hadn't used Droplets before and rather enjoyed it.

How to store pens?

After my pen ran out the other day I started to wonder how I should be storing them. In the past with ordinary felt tips (markers to Americans ;-) and roller ball pens, I have always stored them tip down as I think keeping the ink in contact with the nib stops them drying up. In fact the felt tips I use in another hobby have lasted me over twenty years.

Obviously the pigment ink liners that I am using for tangling are not going to need to be stored that long as at this rate I will use them up quickly. However I want to buy a few together and store them for a short length of time.  I notice the manufacturers pack pens tip upwards or horizontally I wondered if there was a correct way to store them? I do make sure the lid is clicked on as soon as I have finished using it. How do you store yours? I would be grateful for advice.

In the meantime I have used my other pens to make two tiles. The first is for Kristinne's Challenge to use three to five tangles beginning with the letter of the week. This week it is D for which I chose DL Nebula, Dooleedo and Drupe. 

I am keeping everything simple, open and airy for both challenges because over on another channel The Diva's Guest Blogger is asking for simplicity and space. This was harder to do than I thought. I chose airy tangles:- Seeing Stars, Festune, Ahh and Mel-Mel with a zinger tucked between them, but I really had to control myself to stop. The plan was to leave the space in the middle, but first I wanted to border the corner tangles with breadlines and then I wanted to put cyme in the centre however I resisted and as instructed I left the space alone. Oops, I seem to have overlooked the sentence that said two to three tangles maximum !

Kristinne's D challenge :-

The Diva's Guest Blogger Challenge:-

Blog Links

I have been really enjoying following the links to everyone's challenge entries. Some people only post photos of their tile, which is fine, but I would say the majority do write at least a word or two, either about their thoughts on the challenge or about their lives. I love reading what has been written and the comments afterwards, and it has become a part of the challenge experience for me. However I suddenly realized that those links go directly to the specific challenge entry - as they absolutely should - but I am missing out on some posts in-between that I couldn't see, which are not connected to any challenge and sometimes are not even about Zentangle! Now I have got into the habit of clicking on the Blog Header before I leave, which takes you to the page where you can see all the posts and then I can make sure I am not missing out - just call me Nosey lol.

I have finished my tile for Joey's Monotangle Challenge. This week it is F - Florez. This is quite a bold dark tangle pattern. I had planned to fill each of the 'petals' with Florez but I decided it was going to be too dark for my taste and I preferred it with just one filled 'petal'. Next I sat and looked at it, turning it from side to side and decided that it looked best with the filled portion on the right, so here it is.

I've Binned My Pen !

This is the start of my sixth week since I discovered and started blogging about tangling. Already my 0.5 Pen has run out and I had to throw it into the bin! I tend to use this size for blocking in larger areas in order to save the thinner pens so I must get out and buy a new one as soon as I can.

Just before it ran out I managed to use it to block in the dark areas of my entry for SuzyMosh's Tangle Me Three Challenge. The original Ixorus pattern is down in the bottom corner for my first tangle. In the top corner I swapped the dark and aura areas around for my second tangle.  For my third main tangle in the centre I replaced the curves with straight lines including rounding off the main bars. I have to say it is not one of my favourite tiles, I feel it is lacking something, but I can't think what else to add so I called it finished.

P.s. I looked and looked at it because I really didn't like it. Then I thought "Well it can't do any harm to add the original Ixorus tangle in the two corner spaces. If I don't like it at least I have the original one posted." So I went ahead, filled in the space, turned the tile upside down and voila! A bit better at least, so you will find the second photo of the now properly completed tile at the bottom of the post.

See you, hopefully with a new pen, in the next challenge :-)

My Week 6

I have come across yet another challenge, this one is once a month. To be honest I have seen it before, but it was all in German and I couldn't puzzle it out. Now Anya has set it up so that it is in both German and English so I was able to work out what is happening. This is the link to English version of this month's challenge. There is a rather pretty link badge for the German Muster Mixer Challenge (Pattern Mixer Challenge), but unfortunately I can't see a grab box for the html otherwise I would add it to the others on the right hand side of this blog.

This is Pattern Mixer Challenge #8 for which we have to combine Vano and Florez. I believe this is called a tangleation. I love mixing tangle patterns together or even altering existing tangles. I do wonder sometimes how to know the difference between a tangle pattern variation and a new tangle. Some tangle patterns look more alike than others which are called variations.

In the meantime here is my Pattern Mixer #8 Challenge Entry:-

Messing About

I was just messing around trying out Helen Williams 'Seeing Stars', then I added in a bit of Lara Williams 'Linq' and ended up with more stars as I was enjoying drawing them. I was really pleased with the result, then I realised that it fitted the bill for the diva's challenge and I liked it better than my Diva entry. Oh well.

Bright Owl is back with her Zendala Dare. She has been hosting this for 101 challenges now but I only found it in time for the 100th challenge. As this is Challenge 101 I feel at least I am starting at the beginning of her second 100 :-) I have used Festune, Narwal and then bits and pieces.

Find me a pen, I need to Zen

Over on another blog we were just talking about how we hated grocery shopping and I agreed adding that I have got to go this morning. We usually do our big shop in the local chain supermarket (Lidl to those of you who know it). Lidl is the sort of place that is laid out the same wherever you are. In fact our local Lidl here in Ireland is laid out the same as the Lidl we used when we lived in England. Last week we were in a neighbouring town so we went to their Lidl, which was laid out totally differently and it felt very claustophobic and we hated it. We said we would never go there again.

This week we have returned to our usual Lidl only to find, *shock, horror*, they have changed the layout and guess what - Yes they have made it like the claustophobic one. Shopping this week was a nightmare, we couldn't find several things we wanted ( I suppose we will get used to that as we find where things are) but it is very depressing as you go round because there are high deep freezes all around the walls. It is so silly because the very latest surveys done by the major supermarkets show that contrary to what was believed, people actually spend less if they change things.

So I needed to calm down, sorry about the rant. Pass me a pen because of course Zentangle® is just the thing to put me into a better mood.

I did Dianne and Carolein's Triple Alphabet Challenge #14 LQD. I used Linq, Locor, Quib and Dyon with a background of Lacey and decided to colour it in for extended playtime :-)

It's a String Thing Zentennial

There is a great whoopla going on over at Tickled to Tango this week. It's A String Thing Challenge has been going on for a hundred weeks! Just think of all that work hosting it. Sometimes a string from another artist is used but already in the few weeks since I discovered Zentangle® Adele has invented a couple of the strings herself. (I hope you don't mind me calling you Adele, I haven't known of you for long :-) Not only strings, she has cleverly invented tangle patterns too.

That is the case for this week. The string is in a shape of 100 and the tangle pattern we have to use is Adele's 100 and it seems to have infinite variations - possibly 100 variations ! You can find her step-out below the string here 

You might think that is achievement enough, but no, Adele has gone on to produce a wonderful frame for Zentangle tiles. The tile is attached to the Matt black frame with a tiny magnet, making it easy to swap your tiles when you wish to display another one. I can't wait until they are in her shop, I just hope the shipping to Ireland (which is the post office and nothing to do with Adele) isn't prohibitive.

I would love to have drawn an artistic tile full of confetti thrown into the air and bubbles from the champagne, but I have not yet achieved that sort of standard so here is my more humble tile, which does at least have ribbons.

Happy Zentennial Adele, and long may you continue:-

More C's

It seems to be the week of the C. Cheryl over on Tackle it Tuesday is giving us a C as the string for this week's challenge along with any tangle pattern beginning with C. Fortunately there are quite a few tangle patterns beginning with C so plenty to choose from. I decided on Conesses, Catkin, Cornerz and Cruffle.

This was drawn on white card, but I think I have got the settings wrong when editing it because it has come out blue/grey looking on the computer. I will go back to putting them on the little easel next time,

How do you C the world?

"How do you C the world?" asks Kristinne in her weekly challenge. Well, looking at the results of my tile it would seem darkly, but with music to lighten the mood.

I have used four out of the five allowed tangles beginning with C. I wanted to use my Zentangle® Starter Kit again today so I decided to use all the official tangles beginning with C which appear in the accompanying booklet. The only one I didn't like much was Cobwebs, so I replaced that with Chrissie Framton's Cayla instead. The other tangles I used were centipede, charts and Didier Gervy's chocobox.

It is really cold and windy here in Ireland, more like winter than summer. You can send some of your unwanted heat over here Kristinne :-)

Entwined in Entwine

Well Joey has me well and truly tied up in knots with this one! Her Monotangle challenge this week is to use Entwine. I really thought it was going to get the better of me, I tried and tried. It is a long step-out which does produce the results in the end but I couldn't get it to flow. The next question is what to do with it? A border is the obvious answer, but with a Monotangle a border around what? I couldn't think of any other way and tried to do a border but couldn't mitre the corners or get it to look finished nicely at the ends.

I discovered I was automatically drawing Entwine in four steps which I found a little better than the seven in Molasses step out, so I thought I would make myself a tile of my steps. I was still struggling to finish the full tangle without mistakes and I suddenly thought well a step-out is also a Monotangle, if I draw my step-out neatly perhaps that will have to do this week.

Finally I had another go and managed to produce this framed tile of Entwine as a Monotangle to enter, but I am not pleased with it. Once again I really look forward to seeing how you more creative artists have interpreted this challenge.

My Version of the Step-out:-

My Entwine entry:-

19, 15, 18 and 17

Woohoo, it's here, my Zentangle® Starter Kit is here ......*doing the Diva Dance*. All the way across the pond from Zentangle.com itself :-)

Okay, okay, I will calm down. The postman arrived just as I was reading this week's Diva Challenge.  We have a guest blogger, Jen Crutchfield CZT. She is asking us to use two to three colours and said she had gone back to basic tangles in order not to focus too much on the difficulty of any pattern.

Back to basic tangles was like music to my ears. Just what my Starter Kit would be good for, I got out the icosahedron and the legend along with a proper deckle edged Zentangle tile, much nicer than my badly cut bits of basic sketching paper. As instructed, I decided to role the dice and use whatever tangle came up on the legend. The first number was 19 - Purk, hmm... not exactly what I would call a basic tangle but anyway go with the roll. After that came 15 - Flux with which I mixed a bit of Tipple, 18 - Bales and 17 - Zander. Excuse me, but what is the point of a twenty sided dice if all the numbers turned up are next door to each other lol!

For the colour I used Derwent Graphik Line Painter, colours Billy and Tickled. Can you guess which one is called Tickled ? Yes, that is right, the pink one lol. Quite what Maria and Rick would think I don't know, and I am not sure I like the result myself. :-)

BTW! If anyone can help me with a sense of scale when photographing tiles as discussed in my post here I would be grateful for any advice. For the moment I have put a back view of my new Zentangle tile and the dice into the picture, but I would rather present just the tangled tile:-

SuzyMosh Has Excellent Timing

Sunday..... We have a bit of routine on Sunday's, even though we are retired. First of all is a bit of a lie-in. Only to 9am mind you, but when you have been awake since 6am that is quite a lie-in! Downstairs at breakfast we have a little bit more of a feast than normal. We don't have the full Irish (bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes, black pudding, white pudding and fried potato farls) but we do chose one of those items for after our bran flakes as a treat. Which one we have depends on how we feel, occasionally we will have two, say bacon and tomatoes :-)

Next is a walk to the newsagent (just at the end of the street) for the Sunday newspaper. We only buy a Paper on a Sunday, it has so many sections it takes us all week to read, meantime we keep up to date on a daily basis via the online free papers.

Cooking lunch is next followed by eating it :-) Why does it take ages to cook and minutes to eat? Every few weeks we open a bottle of wine. Today it was a bottle of fizz, Cava not champagne, after all it is only an ordinary Sunday. It is Pink Cava - I know, I know, the wine buffs will be having a fit, but there is something very happy making about fizz especially if it is Pink.

After that is the TV. When we were working we had an unwritten rule of no TV on Sunday afternoon, but now we have a more sedentary lifestyle and so that rule is often waived especially if it is raining. At this time of day it is usually sport - Hurley, Gealic Football, or Motor Racing, take your pick because I have an aversion to sport on TV! This is when SuzyMosh has excellent timing because I fire up my iPad and lo and behold her new challenges have appeared and I can get on with tangling :-)

She has two challenges now, the new one is on it's third week - Tangle Me Three - and the original challenge is 'That's New To Me' . Which shall I chose to do first? Well today I chose Tangle Me Three.  After the Pink fizz it didn't take me long to get into the zone. I am not sure it is 'The Zone' Maria talks about but it is certainly 'A Zone' lol.

This week it is Strircles that is the Monotangle. It is hard to think up two variations of Strircles because if you change the pattern under them then it is no longer a Montangle. I drew the original tangle on the bottom, then for my first variation I made a large Strircle with Strircles inside it, and for my second variation at the top I made only the outside edge of the Strircles change colour.

The 'That's New To Me' Challenge was an easier choice. We had H as the alphabet letter and an artist focus of Michelle Beauchamp. I chose H - Hep Mae was new to me and Blooming Butter for the artist focus. I kept it simple because I liked the tangles and I wanted room to display them.

Here are the results:-

The Tangle Me Three Challenge

That's New To Me Challenge.

Any Tips for Photographing Finished Tiles?

Does anyone have any tips for photographing tiles to put up on your blogs? I can't get my camera to see the white paper, it just comes out gray. (When I say camera, I mostly use my iPhone to take the photos, but the proper camera has the same problem).  I started putting them on the fuschia background so the camera had something to compare it to, however if I crop it right down it looks gray again so I currently leave a little of the fuschia behind it. I would prefer to post only the tile.

The other thing is scale. Not quite so troublesome unless you want to post a Bijou tile. So far I have left a ruler alongside the Bijou tile, but that looks ugly.

What do you folks do? Any help will be gratefully received.

This is my entry for Diane's and Carolien's Weekly Challenge YHA. I used Y-Full Power, Hurry, Hurrah and Arnia.

The String Is The Thing.

The theme of this post seems to be strings, as both of the challenges I have entered today use the String as part of the challenge.

Tackle It Tuesday is back for it's second week with the letter B. This challenge uses the letter of the week as the string and at least one tangle pattern beginning with B. I really enjoy using the letter as the string, and this week I chose to use a lower case 'b' , which I drew using Brayd. The other tangles I used are Beadlines, Bunzo, Bales and Blooming Butter. I love that name - Blooming Butter - LOL I must look up how it got it's name!

I have also drawn a tile for It's a String Thing #99. As it is the challenge number Adele asked us to use String Number 99 from the Tangle Patterns website. We also have to use three tangle patterns beginning with T, Tripoli, Tearce and Tracery.

I loved drawing Tripoli in all it's forms. I really wanted to draw it leaving a negative space shaped like a 99, because of the challenge number and the string number, but it was not to be. I just couldn't get it to wrap around the space clearly. Once again I was trying to run before I could walk so I reverted to just drawing the standard Tripoli's, slowly and carefully, which went much better.

I also struggled with Tracery. I just could not get the curves to flow, they ended up all lopsided. I tried very hard and in the end I managed to sneak 4 very tiny ones in so the erratic staccato lines hardly show.

I thought Tearce a rather boring pattern so I used it in tangleastions to beef it up a bit. No doubt you will have managed to do something interesting with it and I look forward to seeing how you have used it when Adele posts our entries.