Puzzling
Initially, ‘Puzzling’ was going to be a quilt……
or, at least, part of a quilt.
I started a new quilt pattern and came across a quilt block that I liked. I was going to make a ‘Wall’ size quilt – about 36″-40″ square or there-a-bouts with this block and several other blocks. As happens on a seemingly regular basis, I was sidetracked. I began looking for quilt blocks that would created secondary patterns when used with the initial block that I liked. Whilst looking for other blocks, I began ‘seeing’ the secondary patterns that this block would create within itself when laid out side by side.
From there, I wondered how the block would interact with itself as a Tangled Line Art piece. ‘Puzzling’ was now born:)
The outline for the block in ‘Puzzling’ is drawn on a 6 x 6 grid of squares. In my original drawing, each square within the grid is 1 1/2″ square making each block 9″ square. The completed ‘Puzzling’ is a 2 x 3 grid of blocks laid out sided by side.
The lightly coloured version of the block outline shows how I envisioned the block to be coloured. When completing the Tangled Line Art piece, I ‘coloured’ each block the same.
Other Suggestions
To create a totally different piece using the same basic block try some of the following ideas-:
- Colour the block in totally different colours.
- Place the colours differently.
- Use more colours.
- Use less colours.
- Colour the same block in two different colourways and alternate the colourways when completing the piece.
- Consider having all the blocks in the same colourway, bar one. Create a feature of the same block in a contrasting colourway. If you do this, don’t place the different colourway block dead centre – off set it.
My ‘Puzzling’ piece went through several different iterations along the road to completion. I found that I had added several lines in the outline where I intended that there should be spaces. To ‘correct’ this, I added more parabolic curves where I had intended there be an open area. I then had to change my mind about how I intended completing a different area so that the completed piece was too ‘heavy’ and still looked balanced.
Other Info…
For the most part, I find that spacing the lines 1/4″ apart creates a nice smooth curve is well balanced. In smaller areas though, I have found that I need to make the lines closer together so that the curve is a smooth curve, not a ‘stilted curve. Each of the smaller blue squares is 1 1/2″ square. In theses squares, I made each line 1/8″ apart, not 1/4″ apart. If you look for the ‘finer’ blue squares, these are the squares that I am referring to.
Out of interest, and as a bit of useless trivia 🙂 I thought I would work out how lines there are in total in just these squares. There are 24 of these smaller squares in total and 66 lines in each square. This makes a total of 1584 lines just in these squares alone. I have never thought to work out how many lines in a completed piece – Maybe I will one day 🙂
Anyway, enough from me for now… I hope you enjoy the piece.
Please try your own hand at Tangled Line Art. You will find it easier than you think and very rewarding. Please feel free to contact me via the contact form below to ask any questions that you may have. I would be more than happy to answer them.