It's a Quandary!!

This week's Diva Challenge was to use the tangle pattern, Quandary. You can see details about the challenge at I am the Diva.

When the Diva posted her challenge I immediately responded on FaceBook... a bit whiney, for sure...

You're killing me! One of those patterns I can't seem to master.....guess I've got my work cut out for me!

To which she responded....kind of unsympathetically, I think :)

time to master it. :D

Let's just say that her smiley face wasn't enough to make me feel better... :)

But seriously, why not master it, that's what the Diva's Challenges are all about getting out of your comfort zone and exploring a tangle pattern... or more.

So, I took her up on her challenge. And in the famous words of some... I told myself to "Suck it up, buttercup."

It was tough and I had to keep reminding myself that my Zentangle practice is about the process...not so much the product.

Thank goodness for Rick and Maria's great step out for the pattern: Quandary


Here's what I came up with:

This is my first tile. I avoided a string and just let it go where
it wanted. I started to feel a bit more comfortable with it in the process.

For this tile, I tried two different variations. I also worked bigger.
I was more pleased with this tile. Quandary started to look flowery, too

Another variation of Quandary. This time I used the new Renaissance
tiles and a brown pen. I used a copper pencil crayon to add a bit of
shadow and I used a gold graphite pencil to shade as well. It was a fun
experiment with the Renaissance tiles, too.

All in all, I am happy with the results. That darn Diva, she sure knows how to make us stretch to find the possibilities! :)