This week’s string thing challenge #121 is tree themed to mark the occasion of the lighting of the National Christmas tree in Washington,  D.C. The challenge is to create a tile using a triangular tree-shaped string and fill it with the official Zentangle pattern Aquafleur. Adele was inspired by a beautiful Aquafleur tree tangled by CZT Carole Ohl (link).  A step out for Aquafleur (by Maria Thomas) is available here.

When I saw that Aquafleur was the tangle for this challenge I was very motivated. Aquafleur has been one of those elusive tangles for me — a difficult one to learn how to draw. I have tried it any number of times and never felt like I had it down so to speak. So Adele’s challenge was the impetus that I needed to practice the pattern enough to make a nice tangle. Thank you for another great challenge!

I’m quite happy with the resulting tile since I think my Aquafleurs all turned out pretty well. In keeping with the season I decided to add green and red to the patterns. I usedTombow brush markers and alternated the two colors by each row in the tree. Don’t the colored parts look like pretty bows around the tangles?

Here is another Aquafleur that I tangled in my sketchbook.

I worked hard on the shading and sparkle and think they came out rather well. When I uploaded the image it suddenly struck me that it would have been great to make the bands red. Then the tangle would have looked like a peppermint candy!