TriShapes to Monotangle

This week's Diva Challenge is brought to us by Sue Clark, a CZT from Loveland Colorado. Sue's idea is to use three shapes (circle, square, triangle) to create the string. The other element of the challenge was to "tri" tangles that we had never used before. That part was easy, as there are so many tangles popping up, one can hardly keep track. Enter: tanglepatterns.com! I visited this site, went to the beginning (A), and started down the list, adding tangles that I hadn't tried yet. This was fun, as I didn't have to think, just pick in the order they appeared. I love doing this! It gives me a sort of permission to not care so much about what I want the tile to look like, or what I think might go together. Not that those things are bad, but one can often get over-focused on presentation and outcome.
   My string had many sections! So I used many tangles! (Antidots, Arc Flower, Archer, Asian Fans, Basketweave, Bateek, Bilt... with a little 'Nzeppel and Paradox thrown in, just because I love them!) This was a fun process: to just let go and fill each section without the worry of what the outcome would be. I started to feel very busy, and so did my tile. I liked how it felt, but I knew I had to do another tile to balance myself out a little!

During the first tile, I paid attention to which of the tangles I was enjoying most while doing it. Which rhythm suited me at the time? I settled on Archer, a tangle created by Chris Gerstner. I decided to do a monotangle tile: just using one tangle in all the sections created by the string. I used the three shapes again to make the string and filled them with Archer. Even though this tangle appears to be a "border" tangle, I mirrored it and then let it stretch out and attach itself to the Archers in other sections of the tile, connecting the ends of the lines to whatever was around it. Shading was lots of fun, as lots of shapes appeared that I hadn't seen when I just tangling the lines. And where did the string go? Hard telling, but it's in there!

Thanks to Sue and Laura for a fun challenge this week, and Chris Gerstner for a fun tangle. And thanks to tanglepatterns.com and all who contribute to it!