Boogie Woogie Bugles

I love the UMT (Use My Tangle) challenges when the Diva poses them.  It's fun to play with new patterns created by fellow tanglers.  This week, we are asked to test out bugles by Joyce Evans.  It's a pattern that goes together fairly easily and looks like it has a lot of possibilities for tangleations.  You could made the initial bean shapes small or large, this altering the size of your bugle cones.  Then there are all the filler options for the cone and/or the negative spaces in between.

I grabbed a Renaissance Zentangle® tile and started with a wide border.  I wanted to try Bugles as a border.  I didn't worry about where they would meet in the corner and just worked on one side at a time.  I visualized the pattern a little and chose to do one central stack of Bugles.  I left the pattern unfilled while I worked on the rest of the tile because I wanted to see if an idea spoke to me.  

Next I worked inward.  I created a bit of a crescent moon border that immediately made me want to use Tripoli.  That's a big deal for me!  Tripoli is one of those patterns that often makes me cringe.  Patterns that I think look better with a little more precision sometimes stress me out a bit.  If a pattern causes me stress, I immediately avoid it in favor of anything that helps to promote and continue my relaxing artistic journey.

I have to say I'm pleased with how Tripoli came out.  After a training by Zentangle's Molly Hollibaugh, I am no longer afraid of Tripoli.  Her suggestion of creating a triangle, then adding an aura of one line really worked for me.  I just built one triangle at a time not worrying about if they stayed the same size or got a bit wonky at times.  Collectively, I knew that all of the triangles would pull together as a great team.

I decided to finish up with an inner aura in the negative spaces of Bugles to carry the Tripoli feel a bit further.  I love how even a new pattern can call to mind other patterns.  It's like books and movies--there are no new plots.  Everything is just an exciting new reinterpretation of another creation.  I love how patterns evolve and morph enough to become something new while being reminiscent of something else.  It shows how universal patterns are and how we all have similar yet different views of the world.  I find it rather comforting to think of everyone having a similar exposure to shapes and patterns.  We may speak different languages, but we all have fundamental exposure and experience with shapes.  

I ended with some shading to recess the Tripoli area and to highlight the central border.  I used an Irojiten colored pencil that closely matched the brown Micron pen.  I love playing with blacks and browns (and often whites) on these tiles.