Saturday, August 2, 2014

Duotangled

This past week flew by as I unpacked, laundered all the clothes from our trip, and took the kids to various appointments. Now that we are home from our grand British vacation, it is "back to school" season here! School starts August 11, which I know sounds early to some of you, but keep in mind that our summer break began at the end of May.

There was much to be done this week, but I managed to find time to tangle two traditional Zentangle tiles for Diva Challenge #178: "Duotangle by the Letter!" My first and last initials are A and B.

avreal & bales
aquafleur & Margaret Bremner's beadlines
I still haven't downloaded my photos from England and Wales . . . but I took loads! Some on my iPhone, a few on my iPad, and a few hundred (I think!) on my son's digital camera. It's been a few years since I'd been to Europe, but I remembered the frustrations of running out of battery life and filling up memory cards, so I was well-prepared this time. My family doesn't have a lot of patience for posing for photos, so I don't have all that many classic, posed vacation pics. I do have lots of closeups of architecture and textiles and other ornamental objects, as Zentangle has turned me into a shameless pattern hunter. Can you relate?

While we were touring around Great Britain, we spent considerable time in our rental car getting from here to there. I kept a sketchbook and pen handy, and the joy of being on vacation and surrounded by the beauty of the Welsh and English countryside inspired a few new tangles. I haven't done the step outs for them yet, though. :-) Is it odd that I use vacation to work out nonrepresentational patterns instead of drawing the beautiful scenery that surrounds me? (It doesn't bother me, even if it is a bit odd!)

While we were traveling, I did not bring any full-size Zentangle tiles to tangle. What I did bring was my tin of the new Bijou tiles! They are perfect little travel companions! I had envisioned tangling some Bijou tiles at each destination, and leaving them behind for others to enjoy, but once we reached a destination, we were so busy sightseeing, there was rarely time to sit and draw. While we were in York, in the spirit of my B.Y.O.B. challenge, I prepped a tile with some Earl Grey tea (see it here along with a greenish Bijou tile, both of which were tangled in the Newark airport on the way home) and utilized truffle to tangle a Bijou tile that I still haven't shaded (shown in this post). Not exactly enough to leave a snail-trail of darling little tangled Bijou tiles around Wales & England. So they came home with me, just as Bijou came home with Rick and Maria. 

If you have no idea what I am talking about, read all about Bijou here. :-)

As always, comments are welcome and deeply appreciated!
Happy tangling!

6 comments:

  1. two nice tiles. I especially like aquafleur with the little beads on it.

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  2. Thank you, Kia! I wasn't sure where I was gong to end up with that one, but am very happy with how it turned out. :-)

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  3. Both look great, but really like the Aquafleur tile.

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  4. I like both of your tiles too, the first is so airy and the second full of contrast. Thanks for sharing some of your your UK trip.

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  5. Both are lovely! Especially I like your Aquafleur tile. Wonderful the combination with Beadlines!

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  6. Thank you for the comments! The first tile I did (avreal and bales) seems to have been an effective warm-up; I'm glad I didn't stop with one tile for this challenge and pushed to get the second one done. I love aquafleur, but because it can be so "showy" I don't turn to it often. When I do choose aquafleur, however, I have such fun with it!

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