Friday, September 9, 2011

Diva Challenge #38 - Better Than a Pair of Ducks - aka Paradox

The challenge this week - a monotangle using Paradox - probably my favorite tangle.  Once you get the hang of it and remember to turn your tile - the possibilities are endless.

What's that quote about life happens while you're making other plans?  That's exactly what happened while working on this challenge.  I had yesterday all planned out - lots of time spent at the studio working on tangles and this challenge, get home to post it (before the last minute!) and then kick back and enjoy a little football.  Oops - not gonna happen - little did I know that when the power went out about an hour before I was going to head home that it would turn into a long but OK evening with no power for me and about 4 million other folks in our region!  Power back on during the night - all is well but they are warning that the system is fragile from a total blackout and power up so it's nice that the temps dropped about 15 degrees from the last few days.

Back to the challenge - first up I decided to break out the pyro pen and woodburn one.  It is burned on a 4" basswood tile. I rather like the way it turned out.  Used a template to draw the initial octagon and then freehand from there.


click  image for larger view

This one I used a pentagon as the string and then let the experiment begin.  It's not a typical Paradox in that it does not spiral into the center in the traditional way of drawing it.  Instead I used the Paradox stroke - first by drawing 5 lines all the way around each leg of the shape. Then reversed course and drew 5 lines going in the opposite direction.  Next just repeated the 5 lines and the reversing it until reaching the center and completed it the standard way.  Does that make sense - easier to do than write it out!  Have not decided how I want to shade it so posting as is - for now.

click image for larger view

This last one - an old one -  not really for this challenge - just because I like it and wanted to include it here for future paradox reference.

click image for larger view


Love Paradox - did a few others but will need to scan and post later.

9 comments:

Ethyl Formate, AKA http://thelma.smugmug.com/ said...

Absolutely LOVE the pyro-ed tile. It is grand! I like paradox, but (paradoxically) I always have trouble with it. Guess I need to practice more...

Kay said...

Even you didn't use the traditional way of drawing Paradox, this came out great too. That's the fun of experimenting. At first sight I thought it looks like a curvy path surrounded by trees leading deep into a forest...
All your work is beautiful!

Terrie said...

OMG - you used woodburning to make that? That's amazingly beautiful and seems SO hard. Like your alternate way of drawing too - how cool to think of a new way to tangle that design!

Mariët said...

I love the wood burned one, but the other two are also very cool!
And The second one is very Paradox like, Great job with that!

Shelly Beauch said...

Super tangling, I can see Paradox is a favourtite!

JJ LaBarbera said...

They are all wonderful!

Unknown said...

Beautiful. I love the pentagon - I, too, have experimented with changing directions. It creates such a unique effect! Wonderful work :)

Susan said...

LOVE these!!! WOW...the first one is unbelievable! So perfect in every way! That second one is so inspiring....I definitely need to try that!The third one is another I need to try.

Margaret Bremner, Artist said...

These are terrific! Thanks for the link.

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