Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Paradox pressures

This week's Diva Challenge is brought to us by Marizaan van Beek. When I saw her challenge tile, I fell in love with it and couldn't wait to start my own Spiral vs Paradox challenge journey.
   On the first one, I drew a spiral string in pencil. I then made another pencil string, cutting the spiral into a sort of pie. This created squares instead of the usual triangles one usually sees with the Paradox tangle. I then picked up the pen and instead of going over the string, I wondered "what if" I did the tangle sort of open-ended in each square. Usually, the edges of the triangle or square is inked and the Paradox is created inside that. I tried it without inking each square's boundaries. It was VERY disconcerting and had me very confused as I went along. But, my algebra teacher in high school wrote in my yearbook: "If confusion is the beginning of learning, then you should be the teacher, not me." I never did learn algebra properly, but I did come away with a healthy respect for confusion and what you can allow for in that space! Regardless of the result of this tile, I had fun trying it out, and it gave me a real appreciation for the usual inked edges...



The next one was a little easier to follow, as I did use the triangle shape and I did outline the spiral and the triangles inside it. Using the traditional practice of always starting (well, mostly) in the same corner, this had a very different flow...



I hadn't gotten it out of my system yet, plus it was a rainy Monday afternoon and my friend had the idea to go have coffee and tangle. Now that's a way to spend a rainy Monday: a big creamy cup of Irish Mocha and a Paradox spiral. There was too much chit chat to pay attention to where each triangle started on this one, but the end result feels exactly like the lovely afternoon.

   Thank you Laura, Marizaan, Loretta and Zentangle!!


18 comments:

  1. Like all three of them! love 'n greetz, Ellen

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  2. Favorite is definitely #2, with the black corners and the little white dots in the center. Lovely!

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  3. Love them all..you are SO talented!!!!

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  4. Three totally different looks.... each is wonderful! I like what the squares did! I love the really long triangle made in the second. The third is like a garden bed of beauty!

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  5. And my fav. is the first one - it gives me a mardi gras feel! All lovely!

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  6. Yes! The first is my favorite. It has the feeling of a jester. Very cool!

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  7. Super, such fun, spinning and swirling in Paradox party dresses.

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  8. This is really something ! Three great tangles in one shot !.... and here I struggled to make one... in 3.5" square using a 0.5 pen !
    Are all your tiles 3.5" squares or are they bigger?

    K.N.Malathi

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    1. These are all the official Zentangle tile with athe 01 pen:)

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  9. The last tile feels like dancing kites or something and I can definitely see the spiral in the last two. That next to last one has a very woven effect - great tiles, all!

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  10. oh, I'm glad to hear you get confused too. your examples certainly don't attest to that, but I'll trust you. lol these are all great and fun to see.

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  11. All three are fun tiles...but my favorite is the second one...it's fabulous!!!

    I hope I'm not the only one having trouble typing the word verification words. If you'd like to turn off word verification and just moderate your comments, I have a blog post that is a step by step on how to turn it off.

    Now...let me try to decipher those words again....

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  12. Your first tile looks very Picassoish to me. I love it.

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  13. Wow, these are so free. Like flocks of birds just having so much fun. Great stuff!

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  14. I think the feeling of the first one is just so intriguing and unusual. Love it.

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  15. The second one reminds me on an artichoke heart! All so interesting and different from each other!

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