31st of July

Last day of July. This month I have overcome something. Peanuckle was a pattern I did avoid. I don´t any more! So today I made another pattern, which is a project not to avoid! I haven´t done it for quite a long time.

Yes it is Cadent (Zt). It looks nice when other tanglers use it, but when I do it I am not comfortable. Something with the lazy S:es. To keep focus on one stroke at a time... I need to work on it. And the shading too. I have to go for that. So that is a project in August to make friends with Cadent. Here with Fun Bee (Beate Winkler) and Fescu (Zt)

Todays meditation. I made another tile with Trisnail (Jenna Black).

I like the edgy approach of this pattern!Knase (Zt) and Tipple (Zt)also came by. And something else.

Slow down with the snail

Sometimes it is more difficult than other days to just slow down and draw what comes up. Those days I need two things. 1. A pattern to start with. 2. A string to lean on to. I need one more thing: I need to remember to appreciate, to breath an then start doing it one stroke a time. Familiar isn´t it? Today´s meditation (with some interruption):

Trisnail (Jenna Black), Firecracker (Suzanne McNeill), Waves (Suzanne McNeill) and Fescu (Zt). Yesterday I watched Melinda Barlow draw Trisnail and it looked fun.  So that was what I had in mind as I draw. I liked her way to put some drama in (the black part)! She didn´t use a string, but I did. I like to make strings from the spiralform!

The last three days i my calendar, i practiced embedded letters:

It is fun to do. But my problem is that it is very easy to overload the embedded letters with a lots of patterns! I am an overdoer,  so I have to live with it. As I tangle on, this will lead to something, I know that. It always does so I don´t care to much... Backgrounds to my letters I, J and C are: Florz (zt), Flukes (zt) and Cayla (Chrissie Frampton).

In a round and an embedded B

My first tile today I tangled in a round. With a string made of my "chop".

I have made my chop (my signature) as a pattern and now I tried it as a string. I went on exploring Sandy Hunter´s patterns and found Sweet 101. Rain had to be there this rainy day! Diva Dance since I felt like dancing today and in the background Papermint by Sandy Hunter.

My next tile today:

I had to try embedded letters again! So here comes my B with a lots of patterns! Snorr, Lola and Sweet 101 from Sandy Hunter, the others are zentangles: Rain, Pokeroot, Knightsbridge, Crescentmoon, Fescu and Arukas. Think´s thats all there are.. B is not so much hidden I think, but I like it like this. 

My calendar meets Sandy Hunter

There are so many talented tanglers around this planet. Some of them I have found. Most of them I haven´t. One of those tangler Ifound early on my tangling journey was Sandy Hunter. I have enjoyed her tangles a lot, Akoya, Lollyvimple, Merryweather and ofcourse Crouffle which is very easy to get addicted to. Last three days I decided to find out more about tangles from Sandy Hunter I didn´t know  and had not tried before. Here are the three patterns I choose:

25th: Snorr. I thought thisone would be a little bit difficult to learn, but following the stepout I found it was very easy and very fun to draw.
26th: Papermint.I have seen this pattern being used once and wanted to try it. So unexpectedly fun! Very easy to learn!
27th: Pooma. This pattern I choose because I had not seen it before and in the stepout Sandy showed many variations of it and this is one variation. To me circles are fun to draw but they are also tricky. Very seldom I have managed to draw a circular circle. Not this time either, but it doesn´t matter it looks cool anyway!

IAST 205

I bought a circlecutter a while ago. It was cheap. But I wanted to try it. But the result was not too good. I made two zendalas with this cutter that are almost ok. But I don´t recommend others to try it since the difference between original tiles and handmade ones is far to big. Anyhow I made IAST 205 on this handcutted tiles.

The first pic is the unshaded one. 

The second is after shading. Adele asked us to use Shard (Carole Ohl), Pauline´s Pigtail (Adele Bruno) and Shattuck (Zt). 

I am the Diva´s weekly no 326 with guestblogger Elisa Murphy!

Elisa Murphy asked us to draw a monotangle with ´N Zeppel. As drawing it we should remember the feeling of not fitting in. Or a person struggling with  the -not-fitting-in- situation. Read more about it here.

I made two tiles. This came first:

Me thinking of my youth. The feeling of not-fitting-in was strong. I wanted to but couldn´t. It is nothing unusual in this, a lot of people have this experience. But it was like a relief to draw a tile and visualize it like this.
Then the second one:

This is my today. The ground, quite steady, is there and I am conscious about it. My mother went her own way and now I am doing the same. After looking at this tile I decided to add some blue watercolor. Very lightly. 

It was very meditative and relaxing to do this challenge. I am glad I did it! Thank´s Elisa Murphy!

Calendar and letters

I got stuck with Block´d (Jane Eileen) for some reason! For three days I played with squares in my calendar.

22nd of July: My first Block´d ever. Here with Metro (Anya Ipsen).
23rd of July: Block´d with Beelight (Zt).
24th of July: Block´d with Fragment W7 and Diva Dance (Zt.

Very relaxing to work with this pattern and it may take a lot of appearances! 

Then this happened: I ran into a video with Kitchen Table Tangles. I looked at it twice at least. It was all about embedding letters. I love letters. Letters are magic. But there is also a problem. A close friend of mine (not longer with us), she was an illustrator and made beautiful calligraphy. I followed her work during several years and I admired her creating so much beautiful letters! I know it takes many years of practice to be able to do what she did by hand, not at the computer. I decided not to go deeper into that calligraphy-thing because I figured out I won´t have that time at all. Looking att the video I found another way to think about it. And I couldn´t wait trying!

Actually I thought I couldn´t make letters beautifully. But looking at this I know it is possible. I loved to work with this the way Maria and Rick presented it in their video! It was so easy! I made my first steps with embedded letters on small Bijou. It felt safer in a way.

You can also check out Melinda Barlow´s lesson about embedded letters here! 

Something borrowed, something blue - IAST 204

Next part of IAST-challenge with weddingtheme. I found this string tricky! Check back on the link above, and then you might understand what I mean!

At last I decided to try it on a rennaisance-tile. Something blue is my version of Suzanne McNeill´s Blue Bonnet. The borrowed pattern is B´Tweed a zentangle original pattern. This is what I love about string: the result will be a surprise almost every time! I would never have done this in this way if it had not been for the string! The string thing is one of the challenges I always want to get back to, because the string keeps me from planning and the only decision I have to make is where to start! The blue tones in this one are made with pastelpencils, the rest is White charcoal, graphite and micron.

19th, 20th and 21st of July

The last three days I have used two tangles that has been a challenge to me. Sez and Peanuckle. They have landed on my tiles, in my sketchbook and now in the calendar.

Sez was the one I started with on the 18th but it followed to encourage me to go for Peanuckle, which I put in a Dingbatz just to be sure it wouldn´t run away! On the 20th, I combined it with Asian Fans, (which is in the Joey´s challenge this week), Msst and Printemps, and today the weather is gloomy, so Msst continued and now I tried to put Peanuckle under it using what I learned on the tile yesterday with Tranzending technique. Mooka and also Fescu joined.

Experiments and challenges.

The first one today I made on a recycled watercolor painting. On both my tiles I combined Made by Joey´s challenge with guestblogger Susie Ng and I am the Diva´s guestpost Jessica Davies. The recycled one came out like this:

This might be more focus on Peanuckle than on Asian Fans (Suzanne McNeill). But Asian Fans are there like a shelter for Peanuckles I think and then Marnie (Chrissie Frampton) also took place. I regret my try with the shading with Distress markers here, they didn´t work the way I intended. But I kind of like it anyway. 
Then the next tile:

Here is my experiment. I have seen  something called Tranzending. As I understand it, it is like getting a pattern look transparant and let another pattern show through it. Well I worked hard on getting it look like something today, using Asian Fans over Peanuckle. I can´t tell if  my try  worked or not, but it was an experience. The technique was demonstrated on a seminar with Maria and Rick and ofcourse I wasn´t there so I had to guess how to do it.  

I am the Diva´s challenge no 325

Jessica Davies made her second guestpost in the Divas challenge. I am challenged this week. Second pattern I don´t use becaus I found it non-flowing as I tried it earlier and I didn´t like the outcome of them at all though I struggled with it! But this time it is different.

The difference might not be that I have been a tangler for a while since I tried Peanuckle last time.  I have learned to slow down even more as I work on a pattern I don´t like or I don´t get the sense of.  By making Sez (in my last post) again and again and now Peanuckle I am so happy to find out they could be my best friends in tangling! Looking on the video where Molli Hollibaugh draws her Peanucle, was an eyeopener for this occasion. Click Here to watch!

Here is one Peanuckle I did last I tried! 

13th-18th of July

My calenderpages from the last 6 days:

13th: PS23 (Susan Kelley Pundt), Marnie (Chrissie Frampton) and Fescu

14th: Cruffles (Sandy Hunter), Trilad (Laura Liu), Aah (Zt) and Tripoli (Zt)

15th: Trilad, Aah and Cruffles 

16th: PS23 (Susan Kelley Pundt), Fluxecho (Lynn Shelton Mead), Caviar (Lori Howe) and Tipple (Zt).
17th: Marnie and Paradox (Zt).
18th Marnie, Paradox and Sez (Zt).

Something old, something new - IAST 203

The challenge from Adele Bruno this time consists of two tangles, one old, Sez (Zt) and one new, Trilad (Laura Liu).

Sez is the tangle I don´t use very often. In challenges I have done it a couple of time. But it hasn´t come to me otherwise. But I have learned that tangles I am in trouble with I should go back to now and then because some day it will happen, that it just fits into the puzzle like the right piece does! Maybe this is what happened here with Sez. I did enjoy to do it which I haven´t before and I am satisfied with the outcome. Thank you Adele, I wouldn´t have done this if you had not put it in your challenge IAST 203! I am looking forward to the next part, something borrowed, something blue!!!

Tangling whereever I go

I visited my granddaughter this weekend. She had her 3rd birthday. This time I went by bus and I have done it before and did it again: I was tangling on the bus! It is such a good thing to do making the distance feel very much shorter! The road is bumpy, to be able to do this I have to slow down more than I use to, but to control the line drawn is almost impossible. They are still wobbling around the tile.

I love to do it, because I can´t expect anything else then what comes out. Now looking at it I think the wobbling does give something extra to the tile. Who cares about perfection! This is just to be in the flow, nothing else! The patterns are: Rain (Zt), Barquillos (Maria Tovar), Cul de Sac (Suzanne McNeill) and Radiowaves (Suzanne McNeill).

Next tile I made after the birthdayparty before going to bed:

More Fluxecho (Lynn Shelton Mead), Flux (Zt) and Narwal (Samantha Taylor). I have prestrung a couple of tiles with roundings because I want to try this out. I liked to use Narwal here, I haven´t used the pattern very much. 

The 3rd tile I made this morning, after a night sleeping in my own bed. I wanted to try the challenge Sandy Kelley Jones initiated on Today´s Tangles:

The patterns are the basic-patterns: Printemps (Zt), Knightsbridge (Zt), Crescentmoon (Zt) and Hollibaugh (Zt). But the borderline is supposed to be a curvy one ant that makes the difference! It was fun to try it like this!

One more Heart

I couldn´t help it. But the truth is, I had to make one more Heart! I had to try it on a black tile too! So here is my 5th (!) Heart for the Diva´s challenge!

Papyrus (Suzanne McNeill) in the background. Fluxecho (Lynn Shelton Mead), Flux and Tipple. That is all there are. Tangling on a black tile again was a happy moment. I love this surface! Because of the problem getting original black tiles I am very economical with those I have got! Too economical! So now I promise myself to work on them more regularely! Because I enjoy doing it very much! 

About the Heartshape as a string: It is liberating to use the shape as a string, at least for me it is. I can leave all my representations about hearts aside and only let the tangles flow. It is amazing. Thank´s Jessica Davies!

Joey´s challenge no. 173

I haven´t been doing Made by Joey´s challenges for a while, but I have been there now and then just to see what is coming up. Today Joey has a guest-blogger, Michele Wynne making the rules for this weeks challenge. I have been following Michele and her blog coffee and creativity for some time and knew she would make something fun out of this! Andshe did. We are supposed to use the Rope-string and keep it simple.

I failed to keep it simple. But here it is. As I wanted to try out more to draw in a round I couldn´t resist doing this. So many patterns popped up at once and wanted to be there! It is crowded. But I had fun doing this and it is like patternsampler :). I have tried the ropestring once before so I am happy I got back to it! Thank´s Michele for the challenge!

Hearts in my Calendar

Obviousely I couldn´t stop myself once going into the challenge with tangled hears. I can´t explain this, because Hearts are not my favourite-tangles nor my favourite shape. I was happy to read Jessica Davies story, it made me think of it in an another direction. 

 The last three days are differenthearted. I also added pink, which I normally don´t.
10:th of July: Coffecups (Simone Hassel) and CO2 (Antonine Megger).
11th of July:5CAura, Ina Sonnenmoser, Mooka, Paradox, Diva Dance and Tipple (all Zt).
12th of July: Merryweather (Sandy Hunter) and Florz (Zt).

To use Hearts as a string is a good idea. Then I don´t care about if it is a heart or not, it is just a string. Looking at the result I am happy about the way this came out. The heartshape is just a shape, the tangles just found their places.

Thank´s to Jessica I did something unexpected to myself!

I am the Diva´s challenge; Guest Jessica Davies

From now and a couple of weeks Laura has invited guests to continue with the weekly challenge. First out is Jessica Davies with a challenge: Tangled hearts. This is my first entry:

I go on with my recycling of old watercolorpaintings. Can you see the heart? Of this particular piece I ought to have taken a before-pic! The reason is; I thought it was a very ugly piece! But I could see a little heart-shape in the middle and from that I could go on tangling! I used the patterns: Phroz (Lynn Shelton Mead), Fassett (Lynn Shelton Mead), LO´s (mine), Knase (Zt), Golden Tipple (Zt) and Zinger (Zt). The Zinger-part wasn´t Zinger from the start, just small bows to make a movement, but all of a sudden Zinger had to come out of that! The painting underneath worked well as a string. I am  happy to see the ugliness turned into this! It is like magic!

Coffecups and lack of milk

This morning wasn´t what it used to be. No milk for my coffee!That means no coffe to me. The Grocers is not next door where I live, so instead of taking my cup filled with coffee and milk I choose to tangle the focus-pattern from Square One, which is: Coffecups by Simone Hassel!

I didn´t intend to make it a monotangle but as I used string 83  (Anne Marks) it just became one! This pattern was more fun than I thought of! And I think my tile is fun too! But now I have to get me some milk an get me some coffee for real!

And finally, better late than never, I got me a delicious cup of coffee!

IAST 202

Tangling before going to bed is so good! I appreciate the feeling of peace this brings to me no matter what has been around in the daytime. Tonight I made my entry for IAST 202.

The patterns in this challenge are CO2 (Antonine Megger), Popcloud (Carla du Preez) and Xplode (Margaret Mc Kerihan). I admit I had some doubt about this challenge. Popcloud is a pattern I use now and then. But Xplode an CO2? I have trouble with Xplode since it tend to mark up and down on my tile, which isn´t the case most of the time, as I always turn my tiles around working on them. But Xplode doesn´t care about that! The tile has up and down, if I like it or not. CO2 is very simple to learn. But I find it difficult to shade. So this tile was supposed to be a challenge. I started with dots in the corners, penciled the line connecting the dots, and then I made the string. Slow down I told myself, slow down! And then I just didn´t bother about result, the string took over and then there it was. The process is what I love in zentangle. The result is what it is and I am happy to say I do appreciate what came out once again! This is a happy moment. 

MD-tangles II and making a monogramtangle

This morning meditation went into a MD duotangle! Since I saw a tile by Lynn Shelton Mead where she made a tangle of her signature/monogram, I wanted to try this. It was a little scary though. I have made my signature for many years so many times on my paintings and the last years also on my tiles. To use this as a tangle! What an idea! It is like placing myself in a center-posistion, God forgive me, and admit that I liked to be there! Here it is:

It is also like revealing something about myself that I am not used to do. But it is also a way not to take myself to seriousely, but have fun! I used the Monogram-tangle with Daniel Lamothe´s Dreamcatcher. I loved to do this! 



7th, 8th and 9th of July has all come with a flow in my calendar and I am so happy about that. I cntinued with MD duotangles and that gives me a lot of pleasure!

I am still in the candystore. Patterns: Meer (Zt) + Daviso (Katie Crommett), Maryhill (Betsy Wilson) + Dorsal (mine) and Marnie (Chrissie Frampton) + Drawings (Zt). These patterns are patterns I like a lot, since they are all easy to learn (mine included), and relaxing to do. And they do come with surprises when shading!

MD-tangles and tangling in a round.

This is a special week. the FB-group "Today´s Tangles! has reached 1500 members! This happened yesterday (Friday) and the group has exsisted just about 8 month. We had to celebrate this so we made up a challenge for this occasion. MD are the Roman numeral for 1500, so we decided to make duotangles using tangles starting with M and D. Here are my first calenderpage in this way:

I like Duotangles. I should do them more often. Doing it just using tangles with two letters is even more fun. Like going into a candyshop and finding candies you haven´t tasted for a long time and maybe almost forgot about! My first tangles on the theme are: Mooka (Zt) + Dillo (Lori Manoogian), Maisie (Carla Jennings) + Dreppal (Ela Rieger) and finally Mashed (Lori Byerly) + Diva Dance (Zt).

The Diva´s challenge no. 323 has got a theme: Home. Didn´t know at first how to work with this. But I kept the theme in mind, just waiting for whatever would come up. Here is my tile:

I decided to tangle in a round. The circle is essential thinking of home as this planet Earth. Also thinking of home as home inside me. A circle is also a spot on the map. Yes here is were I am right now. The weather is a little bit rainy, the sky is clouded but there are also things growing in the garden. The tangles coming up are: Rain (Zt), Pokeroot (Zt), Phroz (Lynn Shelton Mead) and Popcloud (Carla du Preez). To tangle in a circle on a tile is like working on a mini-zendala. But using the tile helps me to relax and just let it flow.

Flux and Fluxecho

Exploring a tangle´s possibilities might in happy moments lead to a new tangle or a tangleation. Take a look here in Lynn Shelton Mead´s blog. As I saw Fluxecho I decided to try it at once because of my own experience with Flux. This is what happened:

Flux is the pattern I have worked with since I started tangling. It is an easy one-stroke-pattern to learn immediately by heart! But it has been a challenge to me as well. There are so many tiles I have seen with wonderful flowing Flux. I enjoy working with Flux, but very seldom it works the way I want it to. Don´t ask me why, there is no good answer. Taking off with Fluxecho was so fun! Then Flux just took the place of it´s own! I think I needed something more steady to be able to let Flux flow and Fluxecho was this steady ground! 

I love when things like this happens! It is inspiring to find new ways to go. 

Zendala-time

Today it was my Zendala-time. I needed to take my time doing it. The Zendala is like a dance in slowmotion. It takes time. And it is an effort to stay focused longer than it takes to work on an ordinary tile.

In fact it was the recent pattern, C-view, from Ria Matheussen that pushed me into this. The other patterns are Camread (Susan Yeo and her Malaysian friends), Crescentmoon, Fescu with auras, and Printemps.

I started with a dot in the centre and then I made a string with my pencil, very lightly. I also made a circle to be able to do an even frame. I like to draw in a circle a lot. I do. The result is always interesting. I don´t want to use rulers. I don´t want to use tools as I draw a zendala. I have tried to use templates, there are a lot of them to be found searching the net. Right now I prefer not to use them. Don´t ask me why, I don´t have a good answer.

Drawing this, trying to stay focused, I find it very peaceful. Yes. I loved to do it!

  

1st-3rd of July

First three days of July. We have hade something like summer here! Warm, sunny and blue skies. Not the entire day today.  But quite warm! In my calendar I started with Carole Ohl´s suggestion and used Fragment K14.

Working on it I immediately thought of one of my favourites: Fassett by Lynn Shelton Mead, so in the second day of July I went on with this and also brought with me wonderful C-view by Ria Matheussen. Today, the 3rd of July I wanted to continue with Phroz, also by Lynn Shelton Mead. Phroz is told to be the sister of Fassett. I have done it before (only once), but went back to Fassett as my first choice! Today when I was doing my service in court listening to very depressing things I started to draw Phroz on my notepad. Listening to the victim´s story I felt a lot like crying. Don´t know why and how but I felt like Phroz was the right thing to do to keep my mind open and calm. Thank´s Phroz! I needed you and as I got home I made my calender-page with Phroz. After this I belive Phroz is also one of those patterns I will keep in my go-to-list! 5C Aura took place in the number.