Striping with the Diva 2

I made another round with striping for the Diva´s challenge this week. I really like stripes in any form. And I wanted to try two for me new patterns: Stone Story by Tina Akua Hunziker and Ruutz by Eni Oken. Ruutz is also the featured pattern at Square One this week. The other patterns are Tri-Bine (Laura Liu), Ticking (JJ La Barbera), Snail (Sayantika Ray) and Knightsbridge.

Linedance

Just to draw a line, let it continue without interruption. No thinking on what´s coming up next. It sounds very easy but this is one of the hardest things to do for many of us. IAST no. 142 is about this. Use Quib as a sttring and then fill it up with Echoism. Echoism is a tanglepattern that is so familiar. You find it everywhere when it is about hand-writing, calligraphy and ornamentation. It must be a very old pattern, start at one point and then go into eights. That is the basic.

I also recognize it as a part of other patterns. It is in itself a perfect string! I think I am going to try to use it that way some day! The Quib is not that familiar. But they work quite well together I think.

This challenge from Adele Bruno was very relaxing and there are a lots of ways to go with it. This was my way today. 

Striping with the Diva

Black tiles are special!So different to work on and so exciting, because you never know where it will lead you! No planning but following the Diva´s challenge this week: Striping. I like stripes very much. I often use it in my paintings too. A lots of them or just a few stripes. The outcome is never the same. There is one thing that makes this challenge so inspirating: It is so free and open. I enjoy that. Sometimes you need a lots of limits to get into the zen-zone. Very often that is not the case for me though. I am most satisfied when I just may be in the flow and it takes me somewhere I didn´t expect. So there might come more striping this week from me!

There are just 2 patterns here: Onamato (which I learned very early in my tangeling journey) and my own pattern Dorsal. I felt they made a great match so I am glad the way this went!

Slow Down 2

Today I made Joey´s challenge no 110. As I saw this challenge with Roman numbers as string I was thrilled. Every week a new number. It is like boxing up tangles in geometric systems. This week was  Joey´s idea to use 5 tangles! Thats a lot! But today I found it very relaxing. So much going around me, it was good to just do it. Slow down. One stroke at a time. I worked on a Rennaisance-tile using Black Micron 01, Red Micron 01, Sepia F (Faber Castell, White Charcoalpencil, Gellypen, and graphitepencil 2B and a little 7B.

Patterns: Ticking (JJ La Barbera), Wedge (Rosemary Turpin), Showgirl (Vicki Bassett) Snookums (BJ Thompson) and Diva Dance. I am glad to find Showgirl among them! Showgirl is a pattern I never tried, but one of those I had in my little drawingbook, because I wanted to try it sometime! And forgot all about it! Now here she is taking a big part of the tile and i think she will show up another time, because she is just beautiful to work with!

Slow Down

Today I had a high-speed dog to handle. Bisse (our Pumi) is now 8 month and a teenager-dog. Her energy is fabulous and overwhelming.I have worked hard to calm her down. The result is I am exhausted and the high-speed has moved into me. It is fun to see her when she runs freely and it is fun to play with her. But then I have to get her in a more calm state of mind and thats the hard work. 

All this affected me when I finally sat down tangling.I really had to tell myself this: SLOW DOWN!I skipped the challenges and went on with string 101 and focused on the breathing and it worked.  I did slow down. Choosing to work with Snail (Sayantika Ray) was a natural choice as it is the focus tangle of Square One this week. 

The other patterns are: Snookums (BJ Thompson), Natti (mine) and Lenche (mine). Lenche is the hungarian name on Bisse, so it was clear to me that she still was in my mind. But now I feel cool and ready to be with her again. 

Celebrating a birthday and string 100!

Today is a great day. Sun all over the place. The spring is here. I have done my string no. 100. A great artist is celebrating her birthday today. Tina Aqua Hunziker CZT from Switzerland. Her patterns are so inspiring. Every time I use one of them I feel grateful and blessed. Using string no. 100 there were three spots perfect for her little Kauribena! You also find her website in my linklist! With this I want to say Happy Birthday to you Tina! 

The other patterns are Jay-Six (Eni Oken)and Snail (Sayantika Ray).

Shading

Shading or not? As in other questions about zentangle there is no right or wrong. A light shading is very often making big difference. A heavier shading can make a very dramatic difference. I didn´t care too much about shading when I started tangling. It takes more time if I want to work with shading. One can work with light and shadow in other ways, and get contrast by chosing tangles that matches. But it is a great tool to use shading to make the tangles "pop-out", to get a 3D-effect. Nowadays I hardly manage without that. I use a pencil 2B most of the time, sometimes I also use 6B, but only where I want the darkest corner or lineshadow. I am talking about black on white tiles. There are black tiles and renaissance-tiles as well and working on black surfaces there are other ways to go.  

Today I managed to take one photo before shading and one after. Most of the time I don´t do that, because I forget about it. But I find it developing to see the tile I worked on before and after. So here it is.

As I worked on the shading I also found that I wanted a border, so that came later. This is a crowded tile. No open spaces. But that´s the way it went today. Patterns: Snail (Sayantika Ray), Ping (Yu. Ru Chen), Discolea (Tina Akua Hunziker), Ta-Da (Margaret McKerrihan) and Kassandra (my own pattern). I used string 99.

It is A String Thing no 141

Adele Bruno´s weekly challenge no. 141 is really about a string. Three patterns only. That suits me very well today. And the string is really nice! I might use it again, so I save it for further consideration! The patterns are Baton (Carole Ohl), Ma-XIII (Chantal Florin) and an old favourite of mine; Queens Crown (Suzanne McNeill). I enjoyed not to plan, just to let it come out the way it did.

About Strings

The string is something I appreciate and it is essential when tangeling. Just a light graphite line, drawn freely. And then let the string guide you! After some time with my own free drawn strings, I got a little bit stuck. They intended to be very much the same with small differences only. So I went into the hughe string-library found on Tanglepatterns.com and started to use strings created by other tanglers. That was really fun and also developing! So, in my 365 project I initiated a new project inspired by Lori Byerly: I will go through the whole library at Tanglepatterns.com and try all those strings. Ofcourse I won´t stop creating my own because of that. But I enjoy to work on other´s creations, it often makes me surprised!

Yesterday I went for string 97. You find it here. I was in a sad mood. I had been talking to a close friend of mine who has cancer. He has meant a lot to me in my life and supported me in so many ways and now there is a chance I might loose him. I realize that. I sat down and grabbed the string and started. It went away with me and finished, I was calm and grateful about just being in the moment.

Patterns: Mashed (Lori Byerly), Tri-bee (Beate Winkler), Zinger and some Holes. 

Today I went on with string 98 and I was surprised about how many tangles that popped up! Starting with Meer they all wanted to come: Florz, Btweed, Tipple, Shnek (Hanny Nura) and Viaduct (Wayne Harlow).6 tangles. I have had a period when there are 1-4 tangles at the most. Still I don´t feel this tile is too busy. 

Challenges

There are a lots of challenges in zentangle-world and in life. Most of the time I appreciate challenges. Sometimes they stress me up. Starting with a blog about zentangle is such a challenge. Why do I do it? It is certainly not because I want to display how clever I am or how talented. My zentangle-journey started a little bit more than a year ago. Since I was acquainted with zen-meditation and what that has meant in my own life I was curious about what the zentangle-method would be like. And a little suspicious too, because I have also learned that talking about zen doesn´t always fit in the zen!
I was stuck though. I love the zentangle-method. It makes me focus, it makes me feeling relaxed. And during my last year as a teacher (I am now retired) I have found out that this method also suited my students. And they were students with learning difficulties. My experiences of the method and my own development during this year makes me feel grateful and I will take the chance to tell others about it. Now when this is said I start to relax blogging. I take a deep breath and go for it! The first tile I show here is from yesterday. A personal challenge of mine is to work through all strings on Tanglepatterns.com. This is string 96. Lori Byerly is doing this challenge as well and she is ahead of me. Actually I got the inspiration from her! It was fun, because when I published this I saw her tile too and they are connected! But I didn´t peep on hers before I made mine! Here beneath the string you find our tiles! It may not be obvious, but we both used her pattern Bublz in the outer space of the tile! Things like that happens and make me smile! The other patterns are: Shnek (Hanny Nura) and Yah (Emily classon).

When it is about zentangle I have learned that challenges can work two ways. It doesn´t depend of the challenge, but it depends on where I am at the moment. If the challenge make me plan, I am almost sure I won´t get the satisfaction and relaxation I need from tangling. The stress comes around and I have to make a result! But very often a challenge makes me focus and just be there in the zen- mood. This was the case with I am the Diva´s challenge no 264 this week. Very simple rules, just make a Spring-string and tangle on! I did love to do this and the patterns just showed up! I used Leaflet (Helen Wiliams), Ipso (Jennifer Hohensteiner), Nipa and Tipple. Here it is:

Now I´ll go on from here: Just one stroke at a time. Keeping that in mind I think this blog might give a little inspiration to someone to take steps towards knowing about the method and maybe give it a try! Please let me know if it does!

Shnek in Square One

Square One is a community on Fb which I am proud to be a part of. Square One consists of several undergroups and it is possible to be a member of them all if one wants to. My favourite undergroup is Square One Purely Zentangle. There are strict rulings in the groups and in Purely Zentangle, there are only tangles on 8,9x8,9cm allowed and only black pen and grafite. No color. In this group there is one tangle in focus every week and for now it is all about Shnek, a tangle by Hanny Nura (prev. Waldburger). Hanny has made new stepouts for this tangle, which made the whole pattern much easier to learn and to vary. I had a lot of fun doing this!

This was my first try and I used it with Cruz (Caren Mlot), Tipple and Zinger on "Rope String" by Margaret Bremner. The second one was a zendala which I showed in my previous post.

This is my third try with Shnek. I used it together with string 95 from tanglepatterns.com. This time I tried a few variations together with Antidots (Anita Roby-Laverý), zen-gems and Tipple. Shnek also worked well as a border. To shade or not to shade that is the question. Since I really love the feeling of 3D in Zentangles I use to shade.

Note: When I don´t write the name of the creator of a pattern, that doesn´t mean I don´t know who has created it, but then it is an Official Zentangle by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. Linda Farmer has made a list of official Zentangles and you find the list here.

I am the Diva´s challenge 263

This week Laura Harms has made a great challenge in her blog! To make a "Globular grid" and tangle away. I have been travelling this week and that means I haven´t got enough time to make this in one occasion. I made one half at home before I left and the rest i made in two parts. I tried to keep the zendala together and I am pleased with the outcome during these circumstances.  I made it on a white zendala-tile. But I might try to do it again because I had great fun doing it though I couldn´t make it the way I use to! The patterns: Zonked (Barbara Finwall), Shnek (Hanny Nura) and Cubine.

Joey´s weekly challenge no.108

Joey´s weekly is all about Roman numbers at the moment. That means to use Roman numbers as a string. This week it is all about number VIII. Here you find the challenge. I found it a little bit tricky. Four patterns and a lot of small spaces. But since I decided to join this challenge I wanted to give it a try. And keeping "One Stroke at a Time" in mind it all worked very well. I am glad to be surprised!

Here you can find the earlier numbers I-VII and other entries for Joey´s challenge.