Straight lines second round

I just had to make one more with straight lines only! Today! Maybe one another day too! Because I think this is such a wonderful challenge from the Diva!

Here it is and I am so happy with it! The patterns are: Cubine, Nipa (!!!), Lantern (Donna Blair), 3D-Room (Damy Teng) and Tattle (Milde Weiss). I started with an E-string, my youngest son had his birthday a couple of days ago, so this is a kind of celebration too!

W2 one more time

Since I was unsure if I had made W2 or Huggins in my last post I made one more for IAST 164. This time I checked the steps before starting so now I know that I have done W2 and nothing else!

I made it on one of those shavingfoam-tiles I have left. I can´t say it is a monotangle this time. But W2 is in focus. Garlic Cloves wanted to say goodbye for now so it took some space! then I used Hibred as a frame and embellished W2 with Dorsal (mine), Waves (Suzanne McNeill) and Beadlines (Margaret Bremner)

W2 or maybe Huggins?

IAST 164 is this week about W2. The border, the penciled line is the string. As I have been working all day cleaning up my mezzy studio, and put new white floorboard on the floor I am tired by now. So I just sat down relaxing in my new clean world with a tile starting the W2. But as I am finished I don´t really know if I have done W2 or Huggins. How did this happen? 

Well I don´t mind. I like what I did. For embellishment I used Laced (Elisabeth Martin), Beadline (Margaret Bremner) and something I don´t know what it is. Maybe a mini-Wawes (Suzanne McNeill). It look like that.

Straight lines only!

I am the Diva´s weekly #286 is great! Only Straight Lines allowed! It is a fun challenge and a challenge that lead away from the comfortzone. What about making Crescent moon with only straight lines? 

Lots of patterns are built only with straight lines. But when you try to make a rounded line into a straight other things happens. If you are lucky a new pattern appear. Or a pattern you already know shows up! That happened to me. I started with straight lined pattern Gord (Sue Zanker). Then there appeared an oops  and that became a straightlined Betweed. At least in my mind. It could also be someting else. Paradox is another patter with straight lines. But then I wanted to try Crescent Moon with straight lines. I think it came out as Dex! This is fun to do and I sure will try it again!

Black is Black

There is something about black tiles. I love to work on them sometimes. Not always. There are traps to fall into. One of them is to get  balance in the greyscale on black surface, not to smudge everything up. The easiest way to avoid this is not to use anything else than white gellypen. If you do that, there is no greyscale. Only black and white. As I am deeply in love with greyscale, that is not an option. I get bored very easy if there isn´t one. Now I almost have run out of black original tiles so today i used one I have cut myself.

This is the week with Garlic Cloves so i made a monotangle inspired by Lynn Shelton Mead´s monotangle on white tile. The zenstone is a tool I like to use to make the greyscale! If i get too much of zenstone, I only use a brush with a little water on and then I can get rid of the excess! I start "shading" with the zenstone and use a little amount of white charcoal to get some brighter highlight. Ofcourse the gellypen also bring highlight! But there is a value in getting something less "high".

Then there is a second trap. It is easy to belive that a black tile works the same way as a white one. It doesn´t. I have to spare the black parts out if I want them to be black. Ofcourse I can change my mind and go on with a black micron on white parts made by the pen or white charcoal, but that is not the same. I can get some effects doing so, but I am not so fond of that technique. I want to do it the easy way. For me that is to think about the spaces, about forms and where I want it to be very dark and where I want the light to be bright.

Is there any zen in doing black tiles! Ofcourse there is! To me it is like going into a another zone of zen. Especially when doing a monotangle. I love to do that and when I keep it simple like with Garlic Cloves I love it the most. 

Daily Tile and more travelling tangles

Today has been one of those days when autumn is at its best. Sun was shining and the temperature was warm! When I look at photos from last year, the autumncolors hasn´t come so far this year. But the colors of ocher are just about to appear and I do love this time of year. What could be better than finish the tile from Sue Bailey for the autumn-theme in the Travelling tangles project? 

This is her beautiful start. Except that I had drawn 2 petals before I stopped and took the before-pic.











She had started with Arukas, one of my favourites, and Quandary (the petals). I had an adventure doing this!Quandary was so delicate drawn, but I started from there and then I let Arukas take over and grow. Then I added Tropicana (Kate Ahrens) and Cubine. The penciled string divided the tile in two parts and that was challenge no 1 this time. I wanted the tile to be an unite! I went on and at last, when I added the colors I think I succeded! I was happy with this outcome and I hope Sue will like it too.

She also sent me a black tile:

 

The start is a string consisting of Ansu (Lori Manoogian) and Henna Drum (Jane McKugler).
First I considered not to do anything, it was so nice just like this. But then I couldn´t stop myself.  

I made a pair of auras round the "string" and then I tried a new pattern, Eleganca (Simone Bischof), and one of my go-to-pattern, Florz. 














This evening, when everything was silent I made my daily tile. Next string in my personal project was 167 (Sandra Schubert).

This was my relaxation/meditation for today. I love to go for Garlic Cloves (Jacquline Breednort)so here it comes with Schiefer (Simone Bischof), a tangle I almost had forgotten, but a tangle I like very much. 

String 166

Evening meditation. String 166 (Mary Ellen Calhoun) with Garlic Cloves (Jacqueline Breednoort) and Lolly Wimple (Sandy Hunter).

Travelling tangles connecting people!

I have met a lot of people by now because of the movement "Travelling Tangles Project". To get mail from Australia, USA, Belgium or wherever from is so much more fun than to get those bills or advertisement that fills up the mailbox! Today I´ll let some of all those beautiful starters fill up this post! 
From Kat van Royen in Virginia, USA:

From Debra Huff, California, USA:

From Michele Wynne, California, USA:

From Lin Laidler,MA,USA:

Something happened two weeks ago or so! I got e-mail from Ria Matheussen in Belgium! She is not on Fb but she wanted to participate in this project anyhow and she wanted to do it with me! I then got such a beautiful letter with a wonderful handmade card from Ria. Now I have finished both tiles she sent me, and I have mail for her on the go! Here is her happy mail for me!

This is almost a "before-pic"!  started to embellish the ribbon before I remembered to take the photo! But you can pretend the lines in the ribbons should not be there:

I am so happy to be in this project. It gives me a lot of inspiration and also with theese exchangings it is like I know the persons behind their mail and by their finishing the tiles I sent them in another and a deeper way than only "seeing" eachother in communities on internet. This is such a beautiful idea!

Power failure and tangling

This afternoon, very unconvinient, we had a power failure. It was a gloomy day, no sun so I went for the place in our hous were we have most light coming in. That is not in my studio, were I have daylight fluorescent lamps, but in the kitchen. But since the light outdoors were very weak today, it wasn´t the ideal situation for tangling. But there were nothing better I could do for the moment so I went for it. the new focustangle at Square One happens to be Garlic Cloves, and that one I do know by hearth! I choose string 165 (Nancy Eaton) to start with.

For the rest I choose tangles I am familiar with too; Beadline (Margaret Bremner) and Tripoli. Ovy (Adam Roades) is new to me but I found it easy to learn and fun to draw. About the power failure; I don´t track it except when it comes to the shading. But I like the imperfection, it reminds me on the circumstances!

As electricity came back we could have warm food for dinner! It was a reminder of how dependent we are upon electric power. Not much works without it! It is hard to understand the way people had to live long time ago with candlelights and woodstove and... So much work they had to do just for keeping themselves warm! With that in mind I opened my computer and found that Sandy Hunter had come up with a new pattern: Lolly Wimple! I recommend you strongly to go and have a look! Sandy´s instruction on the pattern is worth reading. I wanted to try it at once and I thought it would work in Joey´s challenge this week!

It is in the "finish my tile" series and the start was Buttercup! That is also a pattern from Sandy Hunter!I also added Florz and something I don´t have a name for, but I am sure there is a pattern like those tiny, little shaky lines between the Lolly Wimples!
that´s all for today. Now I am going to use some mor electricity in this house! 

IAST 163

Adele Bruno´s weekly challenge 163 includes Flukes, Cruffle (Sandy Hunter) and Andante (Lily Moon). And a fabulous string, very playful. If I only had got the string I wouldn´t have choosen theese three patterns in combination. Now I had to find a way to make the patterns fit in. Yes I know, the string is only a guidance and nothing else. First I tried it on a black tile. I ended that piece with gellypens of different colors. I had some fun, but the result was quite a mess. I put it aside, ready to work on it another day. And started all over again on a white tile. When I was finished it wasn´t too bad but I couldn´t say I was satisfied. I put it aside and went out working in the garden with my little dog as a helper. She is pretty cool in that role! Digging under bushes and carrying sticks and stuff around! When we were finished, I took another look at the tile and yes, I saw what I had to do! Turn it around. Work a little more on the shading! Here it is:

In this moment, studying the tile I kind of like it! Ofcourse I could have done it otherwise, but now it is here like this and I am happy I did it. I might try this challenge again some other time. Maybe with the same patterns. Or maybe something else is coming up. You never can be sure about that in zentangle!

Daily tile

The Diva´s challenge this week is of course Back To Basics. I get back to this, because this is the most important thing about zentangle. Lets be clear: this is the purpose of zentangle. I try to do this every day. There might be a day when I don´t, but that´s a day when something is missing. Most of the time I show my tile if not in this blog, then in a community on Fb. Another thing about this is: I only use a white or a black tile. Not a colored. Not color pens or pencils. It is a meditation and it is the process, not the result that is important. Here is my tile of today (made this evening):

I used string 164 . I needed to slow down, there has been many busy things going on here. I can see that on my lines, which are drawn quite shaky and irregular at the start, but in the end they stabilized. Ping (Yu Ru Chen)is obvious the start. Then came Puf (Carole Ohl) and this is much more in focus. After that I draw Lily eyes (Skinnystraycat) and Star Map (Suzanne McNeill). I intended to take a pic before shading but forgot all about it. I usually do because at that moment I am just in the zone and the plans and intentions are far away. I love that.  

I am the Diva´s challenge 285

Sometimes it just happens. A challenge is a perfect match with me. Today it was a mazy day in court and I felt tired out coming home and opening the computer to have a look at the challenges coming up. I wasn´t in the mood for tangling but I wanted to know what was going on. As I saw the Divas challenge I was really excited and just went for it.

Please go and check the challenge following the link above! Doing this I first dotted the corners, penciled the lines between them and made an intuitive string. Started tangling and let the patterns just grow out from Hamail (Tina Akua Hunziker). Gra-Vee (Laurel Sponseller)followed and then in order: Rain, Tipple, Fife, Florz and at last a little Ipso (Jennifer Hohensteiner). These are all patterns I know by hearth and I had a great moment of relaxation doing this tile. Thank you Laura Harms, you brought me back to basics when I needed it the most!

Narwal and string 163

Narwal (Sam Taylor) is a tangle I have tried before. I have seen a lot of tanglers using Narwal in such a beautiful way. But I was in trouble doing it. Not that I couldn´t produce it. But to get the flow and being in the "zone" was another question. So I put it aside for a long time now. Today I had come to string 163 (Barbara Finwall). I just saw it there!

So I encouraged myself to do it! Without hesitating and no practise this time. I just checked the steps and started. Now I felt relaxed with it and this time it just went on and on. I thought there would only come one but as I draw I couldn´t stop! I love to feel it this way! All of a sudden I didn´t have to think, it just came out of the pen!

Meer is the second pattern and down in the left corner is Bubbles (Suzanne McNeill).

Personal Project

I like projects. During the years I have had a lot of them in different fields of creativity. I have done two 365-projects. That means projects lasting a year or more. The thing with projects is that I can go back to the start and follow my own development from the beginning to the end of the project. Now I have a smaller project to work on. The strings in the tanglepattern.com! I have
come to no. 162 (Nancy Smith). This string I have looked at for a couple of days now, not knowing what to do with it. This morning I went into my personal collection of all the patterns that I have done or patterns that I will try. And there it was! Margaret McKerihans wonderful pattern Ta Da, which I haven´t done for some time now! But this is a favourite of mine!

The others are: Crossroads (Sandra Strait) and Beadlines (Margaret Bremner.

The documentation of this string-project is very easy to follow. Every tile I make in this purpose I publish at tanglepattern.com under the string. This is so simple and I like the simplicity when it comes to documentation! I don´t have to gather the tiles in any special way, I just do them and put them in the boxes with my other finished tiles1

OOps!

There are no misstakes in Zentangle! But there are Ooops! When they appear it is very easy to give it all up! To throw away the tile in the trashcan or even worse tear it into pieces. Today with gloomy, grey weather I was so close to do exactly like that. Not only with the first tile but also with the second. Should I go back to bed or what! No, I did take the lesson about Ooops seriously, so I didn´t. The first tile with Oops was for Square One and the focustangle Fife.

I should have taken a pic of the Oops. But I didn´t think of that. Now it ended up like this and I am satisfied with the process. Knightsbridge, Crescent Moon and Starmap was added. I like the Crescent Moon, the way it appeared.

Next tile was for IAST 162. The pattern in the challenge are Ing, Hollibaugh and Bubbles (Suzanne McNeill). I started with the string and then after that what happened? Yes an Ooops immediately took place! But I was encouraged by my last tile with Fife so this time I just went on and throw all planning in the trashcan instead of my tile!

And this is my happy outcome! Tipple also followed as it very often does. I had fun with all the Oops this time and I hope I will keep that in mind when they appear. Because they will, I am sure of that!

Morning meditation with new patterns

Today I made a string of my own and I wanted to try 3 patterns I have not tried before.

I found 3D-Room (Damy Teng) in Lori Byerly´s blog. Then Kloorz (Sue Zanker) and Eleganza (Simone Bischoff). The string I just drew instinctively before I choose the patterns. Some Ooops in Eleganza, but that´s the way it went. In the 3D-Room Cubine, Printemps and some Holes (Suzanne McNeill) also took place.

Tripoli

The Diva´s challenge #284 is all about Tripoli. Tripoli as a monotangle. When I first learned Tripoli I liked it a lot and I used it quite often during that period. This is a highfocus-tangle. I love to do it sometimes. I can also be very frustrated doing it. There are a lots of possibilities doing some oops(!) here and there! Doing that in a monotangle can be distressing! I made two tiles. The first one I used string 161 (Joan Lilley).

I tried to keep it simple. But I am not sure I did. The second tile I used one of those shavingfoam-tiles and the result was totally different!

To use the color as a string did fit Tripoli very well! I loved to do this and I think it can be seen!  

More travelling tangles

In zentangle there is a form to go into for certain reasons. You have your pen, tile, pencil and tourtillon (stompfer). There is a ceremony, a ritual, to start with. The slight dots in the corners, the pencil-line that binds the corners together and the string. Why is that? I have learned it this way: to do the same thing, use the basic material, to start in the same way, is a prevention against planning. This helps to keep focus and not to worry, just be in the flow. But when it comes to travelling tangles, what is happening? There is a lot of color, almost no string (?), almost no dots in the corners or pencil-line connecting the dots. I thought of that today finishing Crystal Kieloch´s tile.

Where to start? What to do? I almost started planning something. Then I started to think of all very young students I have met. When I gave them paper and other stuff to work with, they didn´t start to think what to do. They just started with the pencil or whatever they had and let the paper get filled. No planning. They had access to their inner life and that came out while they were drawing or painting. And the result was always satisfying! But this process was easily destroyed or very much disturbed if they were aware of certain expectations from their teacher! So I had to be very careful not to interfere with their creative process!

Thinking of all this I took a deep breath and looked at the tile again. The patterns already drawn was my string! I placed my brown pen somewhere and started to draw auras letting the "string" guide me.

I was so happy doing this, because it worked! I just went on and on! When I was finished I felt  satisfied with the process and I could appreciate the outcome! It was a golden moment. Crystal had started with Printemps, Bittersweet (Crystal Kieloch) and Rope. I added auras, Meer and Ruutz (Eni Oken).

This evening I made my daily tile. What came out was a monotangle with Crezendo (Pam Hartz Miller).

String 160 (Lianne Woods). It is what it is and I loved the process. So simple as that!

  

Australian traveller finished and Joey´s challenge 130

Last night I  finished the beautiful tile that came to me from the other side of the Globe! From Australia with colors that reminds me of the midnightsun high up in the mountains of north of Sweden! That is fantastic: The unit we should be aware of and that includes the whole creation of this world!

First the start once again:

Sue Zanker started this tile with Youie (Jennidee Mills). I think this pattern is a tangleation of Betweed, so I added Betweed, Nipa and `Nzeppel:

I loved to work on this surface! The tile is a little bit larger than I am used to: 10x10cm. The colors brought its own light into the work. It was all there, I only had to bring it out! Thank´s Sue Zanker for this wonderful experience!

This morning I went to the vet with our Pumi. She had to get her vaccinations done! She is quite reserved to unknown people. Bisse knows how to act with other dogs but people is another thing! This was her first experience of a Swedish vet. And she was so cool! Nothing at all seemed to worry her! She was just curious about the whole thing!

Happily home again after making her Pumi-race on the green at Brukshundsklubben (nearby)she fell asleep and I went into tangling the 130th challenge of Joey´s!

I used string 159 (Dorothy Allison) on a black tile. The starter of the challenge was Tipple in the corners. Tipple is such a nice pattern and I have used it a lot. This time as a starter it almost took over the place! I than added Mooka and Indyrella. It was some time since I worked on a black surface because I just have a few left of the original tiles. I have to get me some more. Soon. Because I find it relaxing in a certain way.

String 158

Morningmeditation using string 158 (Anne Marks). For once I started listening to music. Sundays there is a program in Swedish Radio called "Text och Musik med Eric Schüldt". It was a celebration of Arvo Pärt´s 81st birthday! Eric played "Für Alina" and "Spiegel im Spiegel" among others and that happens to be my favouritemusic! So that was the start of this tile!

This time I took a before- and after shading-pic. I don´t know if the music affected this tile. In one way or another it might have done. But not in the way one could expect though. The music is tranquil and filled with beauty of simplicity. But it is also complex so maybe that is showing here??? The patterns are: Crezendo (Pam Hartz Miller), Mashed (Lori Byerly), Centre Square (Aleesha Sattva) and Tipple.

Stringthing

Today´s meditation. String 157 (Jane Eileen Malone). Patterns: Crezendo (Pam Hartz Miller), Plower (Helen Williams) and Cubine.

The simplicity of this string makes it very useful. I belive any tanglepattern will fit! Love that!

Rain

Today was the perfect day to do IAST 161. It is about weather and especially RAIN. I have a lot of tiles left after the shavingfoam experiment. They all smell! The perfumed foam odour didn´t go away completely, but it doesn´t dominate my studio anymore. If I can´t find odourless shavingfoam I guess the experiment ends with the tiles I have left. I might have a little allegic reaction to it also, since I have been sneezing while working on these tiles! But it still is fun and I hope I can go on with it in an odourless way!

Now it is about rain. Rain is a zentangle I learned from the start. It has a very strong appearance and that might be the reason I haven´t used it regularly. I like to do this tangle! 

The other tangles in the challenge are Hibred and Raindotty (Jane Monk). I also added Pais (Rick Huber). It is fun to tangle on a marbled background, but I am unsure of the result. Maybe it is the shading. Watercolorpaper is fine with watercolor, but I have to try it some more I guess. Or get me some other paper that suits Shavingfoam better.

Happy mail from Australia!

Now I must show you what I got from Sue Zanker! Yesterday my computer was very slow, I could hardly manage to do much. But today I have the pictures of the beautiful post I mentioned yesterday!

Here is the beautiful letter and a surprise to me: She gave me a finished piece of art from her hand! It is wonderful!

And above are the starters. They are so beautifully executed and not to much on it so I just have to continue! Today I finished the white tile:

Sue had started this with a tangle called Alefa. I haven´t seen it before and don´t know who has created it! If anyone knows please tell me. I added Betweed, Mooka, Tipple, Fescu, Aura Leah (Carla du Preez)and a little Beadline (Margaret Bremner)

I enjoyed doing this and I am happy about the outcome. I am looking forward to do the next tile but I think I´ll wait till tomorrow. When I get some goodies I want them to last!