Firstly, I have to say thank you so much to everyone who has left a comment on my blog, or emailled me, over the last day or so. The interest in my Scroll Feather pattern, and drawings, has been overwhelming. I really appreciate that you took the time to leave me a message :) Also, thank you to Linda for including my pattern, and the wonderful work that she does with her Tangle Patterns website - this fantastic resource has been my bible.
Now, this weeks Diva Challenge. I have to say, IX was a little hard for me to see initially how it would work with my style of drawing, and, when it was launched, I sketched it in my pattern log, then pretty much ignored it. Poor little IX.
This is what I LOVE about the challenges, they make me step outside my comfort zone and try to make a pattern work for me.
So, the GOOD: I love that elements of the design become "embedded" as in Auraknot, and that it lends itself to organic flowing designs.
The BAD: I am shockingly bad at drawing evenly spaced parellel lines. I think I lose concentration half way along the line and just start thinking about, I don't know, maybe feeding my cats. LOL. Or, I continue even when I know my hand is contorted way past what is normal and it spasms. I'm like the little engine.....I think I can, I think I can.....well, I can't!
The UGLY: for me, the end caps on IX just don't work in my drawings, they just feel too clunky for me - so, the challenge for me was how to overcome this - here's what I came up with:
Motto 1 - "when all else fails, draw a daisy", I've extolled the virtue of the daisy many times, LOVE THEM, so yah, I drew 'em again. Here's my IX daisies, you can see I capped the ends without creating the extra lines (though I did try it out on one end).
Motto 2 - "fall back on the scroll", said in a trance like voice. No capping at all on the pattern here.
Motto 3 - "make it into a ball". Another ploy that I use when I don't really know what to do with a pattern, is to work it into a ball shape. I actually think IX works brilliantly with this and would use it again, shading the ouside edges to make it appear more rounded. It also solves the capping problem for me as the pattern appears to continue over the ball edge. **I have edited this photo to show approximately the actual size of the ball, which is approximately 5cm, or 2". The larger image blows out the lines and shows all the imperfections :)
A 5 minute drawing I did last to experiment with using alternative end shapes, rather than a triangle, on the first line of the pattern - I think tear drops, smaller circles and boxes would also work well. Maybe another time when I'm up for more experimentation.
hx
