Today’s very pretty tangle, A-dalfa, comes to us from another CZT colleague, Oshawa ON (Canada)’s Bunny Wright.
A-dalfa makes a lovely ribbon or border-style tangle and Bunny illustrates it as an elegant “frame” in her Zentangle® examples below.
Bunny writes,
I came up with this pattern a couple of years ago. My inspiration came from West Coast BC [British Columbia] aboriginal art. We had taken our young grandson out to visit his cousin when he was six and when I showed him this pattern he said, ‘That looks like the art we saw in BC!’ I found a ‘Salish’ name for it but it indeed got ‘lost in translation’ literally!!!
Instead I’ve named it ‘A-dalfa’ after my late parents. Their names were Ada and Alf. We lost Mom seven years ago and Dad last February. I am still grieving his loss but have found Zentangle my ‘go to’ place where I find solace and much peace of mind.
I have included ‘A-dalfa’ in several pieces of art, most recently a piece I did for my dad for Fathers’ Day a year ago. It now hangs in my front entrance.
Bunny illustrates the step-by-step instructions for drawing A-dalfa below where she demonstrates several ways to vary A-dalfa in three beautiful examples. You’ll note that shading along the outside edges gives A-dalfa the “puffy” impression the pattern is embossed. “In my top Zentangle you’ll notice a variation of the pattern, ‘96X.’ Kudos and thanks to Minn Hsiao for her beautiful pattern.”
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July 11, 2016 | 
More like this: 
Beautiful! I love it!!
Very pretty and easy too. It could become a favorite. Thanks for the share. Such a good memory & tribute to your late parents.
Nice one, Bunny. Accompanying stories are lovely. I’ll be doing A-Dalfa real soon. I’m always looking for border types, so I’ll be doing A-dalfa real soon…and remembering long ago visits to museums feasting my eyes on West Coast BC aboriginal art. There’s a great book by Emily Carr (artist from your part of the world)…sorry can’t recall title..you might enjoy it. Thanks, again for the tangle.
Thanks Judith. Emily Carr is one of my favourite artists. I believe the book you are referring to is ‘Klee Wyck’. I hope you enjoy ‘A-dalfa’.
Hi Bunny, I’ve googled, because the title isn’t familiar and I wanted to make sure I didn’t send you down a rabbit hole…now I’m on a hunt for her books, I guess I wasn’t aware that Emily was a writer. The one I read in grad school was Susan Vreeland “The Forest Lover” in 2004 is based on events from Carr’s life.
I know I’ll be using A-dalfa many times.
…it’s about the ‘rabbit hole’ comment…LOL Bunny
That is so cool! It looks so dimensional; tubular! I love it and can’t wait to get my pencil and pen in action!
Thank you Bunny, and thank you for sharing your story.
As always, thank you Linda, for sharing this and for your awesome site for us all!
Love this! Will be trying it this week for sure. Your examples are gorgeous, and enjoyed your story, too!
Thanks for sharing.
I love it Bunny! I didn’t even try it out in my sketch book first, but used it right on a Renaissance Tile. It’s my nieces 1/2 birthday (her birthday is in January and that’s sooooo hard to come up with something so close to Christmas. So, I’m sending her a 1/2 birthday gift (actually, 2 now). 😀 I used it as a border like in your example above and filled it with Sutygal by Jenny Lundak . I’ve got to go get it in the mail, so I won’t have time to scan it. Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful tangle with us.
I really like this one. Offers boldness, easy and great for bordering. Lots of possibilities. Thanks Bunny
I am a great fan of Northwest Coast Native designs – and I love that this tangle borrows from them. I also like the 3-D possibilities it offers so I will be sure to play around with it. Thanks for sharing!
Gorgeous! I love the dimensional-ity of it.
I very often have hand-eye coordination issues when it comes to drawing–not mentally challenged, just can’t get my hand to draw what my eyes see–but I finally tried A-dalfa just now, after putting it off for about a year. I’m happy to say that this is one of the very, very few patterns that came out as the step out shows it! Usually I end up with something that would be unrecognizable to the designer, but this one met with success, and I’m SO VERY HAPPY with it! I like how easy it is to draw, too; my brain actually understands which way things are meant to be 😀
As I was drawing this for the first time I was reminded of Pacific Northwest First Nation art. Now reading this description of Adalfa origins it’s confirmed!