Diva Challenge: Autumn Inspiration

This week's challenge is to tangle something inspired by autumn. I love the warm tones of this season as well as the iconic shape of maple leaves, so I knew where I was headed right away.
I did not have a chance to participate in another recent challenge where we were to spray, stencil, or stain our "string" in an unexpected way, but I must have had it on the brain because I was inspired to do more than simply trace my maple leaf. Instead I pulled out my kids' Crayola watercolor palate and painted my 4 inch bar coaster in shades of orange. I then placed my maple leaf over the coaster as a mask and painted darker colors over that. I did front and back of two coasters using different colors.
The results of my background painting are definitely "experimental:" I have spent remarkably little time messing about with paints and have little feel for how they're going to act on different surfaces or in combo. So I'm learning, but the final product is hardly spectacular.
After the coasters dried over night (that's the thing about coasters: very absorbent!) I tangled in just the leaf areas.
(Check out my little tip for safely holding your paint water)

These I am actually happy with, especially the Betweed which unexpectedly made a beautiful scale-y pattern when mirrored across the guide lines. I also like the Shattuck, one of my favorite mac-n-cheese tangles (although ironically another one that I regularly mess up. Don't look too closely at the edges!)
I left the leaf area white on the second one and colored it with pencils later. The brown dot was a drip from one of the kids, who insisted on painting with me! But, hey, it looks like the sort of flaw you'd find in a real autumn leaf! 

I am becoming rather less enamored with my blank bar coasters as tangling surfaces.
What I like: They're sturdy, making for a nice, finished project that can be handled or hung without framing. And they hold up well to watercolor. They're quite affordable.
What I dislike: Watercolor is not vibrant on them - too much soaking in. Pencils aren't very vibrant either. Both drawing and especially shading on one even after quite dry is not as easy as it ought to be. The surface is easily inscribed, even when bare. They are not bright white.

So as you see my "don't like " list has outgrown my "like" list. I need to go ahead and slice up some of my nice Canson multi-media paper into 3.5 inch tiles to use when I don't need to bulk of the coaster for a finished product.