22nd - 27th of December

Christmas time is a special time if we like it or not. Things are not going on as usual. At it´s best, we are together with people we love and are deeply connected to. At it´s best we are in a peaceful mind. This year I have not spent much time tangling. But my calendar has been with me anyway.

I almost never use other pens than Microns. But on 27th I was sitting tangling with my granddaughter and we had a bunch of Sharpies around and I wanted to try this in my calendar. Not so clever, the Sharpie bleeded through the paper and came out on the 22nd! But now it is there like it is and I won´t correct it.
22nd-24th: X-mas Red (Liu Chiu), Drawings, Auraknot and Fescu.

25th-27th: Mooka, Ipso (Jennifer Hohensteiner), Toodles, Crescent Moon and Noom Repus. By the way I like that name Noom Repus which is Super Moon backwards!

I also finished a tile for the 12 Days of Zentangle!

This is Day Ten. Striping like Marasu in a Paradox Reticula. Very relaxing and very easy to do. Perfect in the middle of the night before going to bed!

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Adventure with Toodles and 12 days of Zentangle

I have revisited my old working place at school the last three weeks. I am retired but sometimes I luckily get the question if I can do some more working, meeting my old students. I appreciate every occasion I am able to do this. During this period Toodles was released from Zentangle. Couldn´t resist presenting Toodles for the students. They watched the video from Rick and Maria and then we went to work on it. We had so much fun and I want to show you some of the artwork they did. With their permission ofcourse!

They all look very different and unique. And we had a joyful time together!

Late the same evening I couldn´t stop myself I had to do one more for Twelve Days of Zentangle Day Six. Here it is:

Now they all have their Christmas holiday and I am preparing my own christmas here at home. What could be better than take a break, watching one more video an tangle? Lucky for me I had got one prestrung zendala from Ela Rieger, a couple of month ago! And it was a tan zendala. Exactly what I needed for Day Seven video!

Mostly when I do a zendala it takes a lot of time to finish it. But doing it this way with auras it didn´t take long at all! So relaxing and very simple to do! Loved it!

16th to 21st of December

Two more calendarpages on the shortest day of the year. 16th-18th of December Toodeling around with Rumpus and Toodles, two newly released patterns from Zentangle. Both are fun to do but toodles has got something extra I think. 19th-21st of December I remembered Icanthis from last year  here with some more Toodles!

Apprentice tile

12 Days of Zentangle goes on and a lot of inspiration follows! I think I have not mentioned Apprentice tile?! It is a little bit larger: 11,4 x 11,4 cm. The common tile is 8,9 x 8,9cm. On Day Four Rick use the Aprentice tile and since I cut my white tiles myself from a sheet of Fabriano Tiepolo paper (same as in regular tiles), I easily cut me a couple of Apprentice tiles, just to experience the difference. Original Apprentice tiles are cut from a Bristol-paper though.

I used Pigma Micron 0,3 to get closer to the same pen Rick used in the video. It was fun to do this and I had no trouble at all using a larger space. Doing the Diva Dance with Sproings as it was demonstrated was fun and very relaxing. I had to tell myself to STOP, it just went on and on and on! 

I also realized that Apprentice tiles are prefect for not only young beginners but also for adults and not only for beginners! It offers a larger space (sometimes that is very refreshing), which might be easier to handle if your eyes don´t function as they should do or if you have trouble with fine motor abilities! The effect of the 0,3 pen on this size is comparable to the 0,1 on 8,9 x 8,9 cm !  

10th-15th of December and 12 Day´s for Christmas.

One of those things, I don´t have much time for in December is posting in this blog, or being present in social media. That´s the way it is. I try to make my christmas-cards, and allow myself to prepare things I like to do for christmas. But my calendar is on the priority-list as well as be sure I have a moment for meditation every day. 

10-11th, I went for Flux. Flux is a flowing tangle and can go on forever! This was inspired by Molly Hollibaugh´s day two in the 12 Day´s of Christmas.

13th of December is important here in Sweden. We celebrate Lucia from Siracuse. This time of year we need some enlightning in the darkness, the sun doesn´t shine too long during the daytime so Lucia coming whit candles in her hair is popular in more than one way. I felt for star-shaped tangles and started with Afterglo (Carole Ohl, Auraknot (Zt) and X (Lila Popcheff). The stars are accompanied by Striping, Pokeroot, Pokeleaf and Echoism, all (Zt). A little glimpse of blue...

12 Days of Christmas from Zentangle consists of one video a day, starting on 12th of December and is very inspiring. I intend to try them all but in my own pace and own order. Don´t know if I succeed..

Here is my tile for Day One, using Crescent moon, Hollibaugh, Printemps, Bales and Sprinkle. Sometimes it is so good visiting some basics as the Z-string and early learned tangles just trying to do something new with them!

Then I jumped to Day three:

Maria demonstrated her new tangle Rumpus. I followed her instructions to experience this tangle from the start. It was a meditative moment today, doing it like this on a white Zendala and Rumpus will stay in my library of tangles for sure! I love the repetitive strokes, and the possibilities I can imagine for this tangle!

Some Daily tangles and the Diva´s challenge

Eye-Wa (Zt) and Zedbra (Margaret Bremner/Laura Harms) works well as Drama-tangles for the prompt in "Today´s Tangles". Actually this was my first round with Eye-Wa! But it won´t be my last, since this tangle was so fun and easy to do!

Another one for the prompt: Echoism (Zt) as a string and a favourite of mine; Cubine. 

And now for I am the Diva´s challenge 344:

Afterglo (Carole Ohl), Ipso (Jennifer Hohensteiner) and `NZeppel. I did this on an Echo-diyed tile. Afterglo is one of those patterns I did love from the start and used quite a lot for some time but then I almost forgot it. 

4th-9th of December

I do like my plan to make friends with patterns in December!

4th-6th I spent time whit Phicops (Laura Harms and Brad Harms) and Swarm (Zt). A little Fescu also grow n the 6th. I did improve specially with Phicops, a beautiful tangle.

The last three days I spent with Pea-nuckle (Molly Hollibaugh). I like Pea-nuckle a lot, but I need to work on it to find the flow! Some Swarm and Phicops still wants to participate!

About Prompts + 1st-3rd of December

Right now in early December, the busiest month of the year, I find prompts for tangling very useful. In today´s tangles Sandy Kelley Jones have made some prompts for 1-12 of December and even if I maybe don´t do everyone, I want to do as many as I can. I am one day behind already but the prompt for 2nd of December seemed so fun to do I didn´t want to miss it! Here comes the first one:

1: Use the first tangle I ever did. Don´t know exactly if this was the first one. But anyhow, one of the very early recognizable tangles I did was Hollibaugh!
2: Use the latest tangle: That was easy! Veez by Margaret Bremner!
3: Use a tangle I want to make friends with. There are some but I choose Swarm,which is a tangle that confuses me a lot. 
4: Use a bold tangle: What could be more bold than Schway!!! 

Here comes the one for yesterday:

I won´t explain this, but the prompt is soooo fun! The patterns I used: Veez (Margaret Bremner), Hypnotic (Elena Hadzijaneva), Papermint (Sandy Hunter), Dewd and `NZeppel. First I thought I should leave the open space in the middle, but then I had to Papermint it! So much fun! Thank´s Sandy!

And the calendarpage:

1st of December: I used the Z-fragment Carole Ohl suggested which I liked a lot. But now we are closer to X-mas, so Ipso (Jennifer Hohensteiner) also wanted to come! 2nd and 3rd: Swarm. The tangle I want to make friends with. We are not there yet but much closer!

28th-30th of November

This was all for November and #Giveatangle2017!  Patterns: Drupe, Chain Link (Barbara Finwall), Amphora (Lily MOon) and Batumber (Kelley Kelly).  Yes, I tried some tranzending on Drupe!