Tone on Tone Monotangle Ensemble

Say that title three times fast!  Yeah, I don't want to either.

Sometimes over at the Diva, Laura throws us a challenge that is REALLY a challenge for me.  This week the challenge is to use the tangle Betweed in a monotangle.  Meaning, use only the tangle Betweed in your tile.  This tangle is a challenge for me because it feels awkward to me as I make the strokes.  Well, it does in the "traditional" way of creating it.  I am much better at it when filling in a line or section but trying to do it in a circle really changes the feel of creating it.  Why? I have  no idea.  My brain, sometimes she sees things and sometimes she don't.  Anyway, as I contemplated even participating this week, I thought to myself that there is a reason it's called a challenge so suck it up and do it!

BeTreed (see what I did there?)

At first I tried to force Betweed into a tree shape.  I had checked out a few of the wonderful entries this week and saw a lot of Halloween shapes so I wanted to try something different. I thought that if I could get a tree to work, maybe I could make it into a card for the holidays.  Yeah, that didn't work out so well.  It wasn't terrible, but not so good either.  I didn't even finish the tile.  I decided to move onto a new idea.  But what?

In the last few days I have been using some of the Sakura Gelly Roll pens that I have collected as accents in my inktober pieces.  I bought some of the glaze pens a while back.  At the time I had an idea to use the black glaze on black paper and see how that looked.  Like so many of my ideas however, I never got far.  With the idea of using Betweed in the round, I pulled out my glaze pens, a square of black paper and a circle to trace, and I gave things a go.

Black on Black

I think that part of where Betweed hangs me up is the little spot of shadow.  I always make my lines and then go back to add a shadow spot.  This time using the glaze pen I tried something different.  The ink in the pens really flows and will puddle on you quite easily.  With that in mind, I started each line with a small circle and then made the line.  If the pen is going to puddle on you, why not use it to your advantage?  I was so excited that not only did the black on black stand out - the glaze ink has a nice shine to it - but the tangle turned out pretty well too.  The scan has the paper more gray than black but it is still a good image of the tile.  Since the line of the pen is "fat", I did these on a 5" square.   I debated trying to shade this but I like it without shade so I left it alone.  Once this one was finished, I was so excited by it I pulled out the rest of the set, matching colored paper and DID ALL THE COLORS!  There is a clear glaze that I tried on a white paper but it REALLY didn't show up.  For the white then, I used a Gelly roll glitter pen.  After I got all of the colors done, I realized that I had 9 tiles so I have put them together in an ensemble.  I think that I will put them in their own 5" frames and hang them in one big square on the wall.  A few of the colors didn't scan so well.  The tone on tone was hard for my scanner to see, that or maybe the shine of the ink threw it off a bit, but I think that you can get the idea.

Sorry that I made you get through all this rambling to get to the finish.  :)  Thanks for stopping by and for all of your lovely comments.  Your support is invaluable to me.

Have a great week!