Diva Challenge #295, Made by Joey #142 and Travelling Tangles

Diva Challenge #295

Reticula and Fragments pt.2

This week's Diva Challenge is to continue on with more Reticula and Fragments, a technique introduced in The Zentangle Primer v.1. It seemed to be a challenging challenge for many last week. There are so many possibilities with it once you start wrapping your brain and pen around it, it can become a little addicting (well, for me it was). I just had an R & F Aha! moment when I saw Annette Plaga-Lodde's blog, CreA(R)Tive, this morning. She perfectly illustrates fragments.

I don't have the book and as things stand, I doubt I'll be seeing one in the foreseeable future, so I'm not referencing the letter/number system the book uses to identify each grid and fragment. In last week's post I noted how I'm sort of sleuthing my way through this concept (which I love by the way) sketching the varieties of grids (reticula) and fills (fragments) that I've seen in others posts, not only from last weeks submissions but also from the Facebook group Reticula and Fragments.

I'm glad we were given the opportunity to explore this more. I chose a grid I saw somewhere that reminded me of a lattice. I framed it first with a fragment of Pokeleaf. The challenge was to use a fragment that was asymmetrical so that when rotated or mirrored it was different.

My beginning

I cannot draw a straight line to save my life. My first diagonal lattice was all wonky. I'm using a tile colored with art tissue. I'm not sure where the fragment came from. I started off in my sketch  book, copying things I saw on the internet and then noodled around with some ideas:

research and development

Made by Joey Challenge #142

Finish my Tile Series: ZigZag string and Pipez

This happens to me from time to time: I look at a challenge and I'm sort of "meh..." Nothing clicks, nothing inspires. One minute I'm thinking I'll take a pass for the week and then the next minute I'm down with it. The pattern Pipez was new-to-me. it has a Steampunk vibe and though I liked the pattern I don't have a lot of Steampunk in my arsenal, then the zig-zag string seemed like an odd juxtaposition. I did, however, have one tissue colored ATC where the colors seemed to follow a left to right swipe. I penciled in the string and the vertical lines of Pipez and did not stop until this was done.

I had a lot of fun with this! I had no idea where it was going. I chose not to worry about if a pattern "went with" another pattern, and inadvertently found odd juxtapositions quite freeing.

I have accumulated quite a backlog of Travelling Tangles in the last two weeks. The next group swap is going to be assigned tomorrow, so a new wave will be coming in shortly. It's supposed to rain this weekend so I'm giving myself up to Travelling Tangles and Christmas gift art. Fingers crossed for a productive weekend;-)

This is my finish to the third of three tiles sent to me by the lovely Jem Miller (aka Ragged Ray) 

in West Sussex, UK.

This is Jem's gorgeous start. 

I love how the colors so seamlessly transition from red to green. In fabric parlance we call this technique "Ombre". I saved this one for last because I truly was afraid I'd mess it up. Jem's line work is so clean. It was such a graphic beginning and my hand is much sketchier. The first two of Jem's pieces can be seen here. Margaret Bremner had recently posted pics of several bookmarks she'd made out of older pieces of art and there was one that had a beautiful Umble. I tried to copy that. I tried, but my line work will never be that clean...Anyhoo, with a little inspiration from Margaret and Maria (I used a few MT inspired columns on the white bits) I managed to finish Jem's lovely start without too much anguish;-)

This is my finish to a lovely start by Linda Kinsella in Ontario, Canada

Linda's starter tile

This was for the Breast Cancer Awareness Pink theme swap. There were so many possibilities here. I had a lot of fun with this.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog. Your thoughtful and generous comments delight and inspire me!