Friday 8 September 2017

I don't know why I dream this way

Today I want to introduce you to my latest tangle.  It's been haunting me for quite a while, popping up in bits and pieces on many of my tiles.

You can see - bands of it running through my twisted rope string tile -
it edges Batumber on my grey tile - I use it to create a simple but
favoured fill for Dreamcatcher, and it was the perfect choice to finish
a Travelling Tangle sent to me by Elena Greer

For a long time I thought it wasn't really enough in itself to class as a tangle.  It has so many tangle-relatives, which it shares less or more characteristics with.  To mind come Isochor, Indyrella, Barberpole, Marasu, Sugarcane, Starcrossed, Ticking and Kristillis - I'm sure you can think of more?  All of these tangles particularly appeal to me, and all rely on those repeated curved lines for detail.  But each has a particular initial shape which defines it and the detail lines are almost an afterthought.  I wondered what would happen if the lines became the star of the show, and the structure merely the framework to hold them...

And so Clob was born.  Clob because the little lines work best for me when I draw them as I would a CLOsed Bracket!  Of course the name might not suit you if you prefer to draw open brackets instead!



I find the repetition of the Clob line so relaxing.  Shading is so simple - you just pop a line of pencil into the valleys and smooth it out a bit, making it as dark or light as you like.  And suddenly the tangle is transformed - it really seems to shine, and jump out from the paper.



There are so many variations possible, depending on how you lay your initial lines.  Parallel or not, straight or curving or spiral, closer together, far apart, laid over each other, or with gaps between.  You can even embellish within the little brackets.  And of course it plays well with other tangles.

White on black - always the trickiest combination for me. 
Clob accompanied by Flux.



Renaissance tangling - Clob dances with Henna Drum and Cat-Kin.

Call it washed-out or call it dreamy?  Blue and purple tones
give a soft look to Clob with big bright Printemps.

Last but not least the simple elegance of black and white.
  Abukas with bands of Clob and a handful of Fescu.

Perhaps by now you can see why I think those little shiny lines deserve a tangle and a name all to themselves?    I hope you have fun playing with Clob and I'd love, as always, to see your results.

[Hopefully this pattern doesn't replicate any existing tangle I might have missed, in name or appearance, but please let me know if it does.]

9 comments:

  1. I love this! I don't think I've seen it anywhere else but in your work. I will sometimes fill in channels with similar lines as an afterthought, but you've taken this to a whole new level and definitely worthy of it's own name;-) I especially love the last tile.

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    1. Thank you for your feedback and I'm glad you my tangle! Yes, that last tile is my favourite too - one of those that just fell easily into place, unlike the blue one which I nearly ditched! I remember you used Clob-type filling on Ruutz recently and I knew I had this in the pipeline!

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  2. Thanks for this beautiful tangle with lots of possibilities!
    Absolutely gorgeous work!

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  3. I just hoped over from my post where I read the comment you left me. WOW!! All you gave ME credit for belongs really to this tangle. You draw so beautifully 'exact' and shade so beautifully 'correct', I wished my hands were trained to do that. And the variations you gave your tangle...what can say? Yes, our 2 tangles sure seem to come from the same family and I have added yours to mine to complete my side of the family, too.

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  4. I like this - the last tile is a favorite. I think I will try this your way.

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  5. Hello! I was just wondering if there’s something I can do to see your blog better. I don’t know if this will work, but I took a screenshot of what it looks like to us. That big huge picture on th right hand side is making everything else shrink teeny tiny! Trying to read the text is nearly impossible for me as it’s microscopical.

    So here I’ll try to include the screen shot, but I don’t know if I know how. If I mess everything up, please feel free to delete this message. ;)



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    1. Hello, and thanks so much for your comment. I'm sorry you've had trouble with my blog, I had no idea! I couldn't see your screenshot, but I investigated a little.

      Usually I view my blog from a desktop computer and see no problems, but I looked at it on a tablet and saw the mess you described.

      So I changed the way the links to others blogs look, no more photos, and I think that resolves the problem?!

      I hope that's better for you and others!

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  6. I love this tangle; there are times when my brain is just too tired to think of how to put patterns together--the past two months have been that kind of time, what with moving from my lifelong hometown in northern lower Michigan to mid-Missouri--and wonderfully simple tangles like this one are exactly what I need to get "back in the groove," and enjoy drawing again. Thank you so much for coming up with and posting this wonderful tangle.

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  7. Lovely! I think what I like best about Zentangle- is that such a simple tangle like yours, add in a bunch of creativity and you get magic - lovely tiles! I can't wait to try this.

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