28th - 30th of July and Poa

Summertangles 28th, 29th and 30th.  So happy Pach (Jody Okava) came by. This was a favourite when I learned it, but now almost forgotten! This tangle is so fun!! And the next one Scallamp (Sarah Uram) is also a happy one! Then came the zenbutton-day. Hm. Though I have tried this I haven´t really been hooked. Why on earth, this is really fun! What made me change my mind was, I started to think about it as a reticula-fragment play. Yes I have read the instructions several times, but it didn´t settle down in me. But pof! All of a sudden I didn´t worry about a thing, not the outcome, just thinking reticula and fragments I liked. This was a happy moment!

Tonight I made my daily tile. I played with Poa (Marion Kreutzweg) in my sketchbook a couple of days ago:

It was quite fun but I wasn´t happy with it. Poa is the focustangle in Square One. Anya Ipsen had made a beautiful tile featuring this pattern. But where is my Poa? Well I trusted the method and picked up an original tile and went on...dots in the corners, penciled line and a string picked from the air... Here is my tile:

I am happy with it. It is all about Poa and fragment C12. The process was the important way to do it. And you know what! As I look at it now, I remember when I was a teenager, wanting to be an artist! There is something in this tile that is similar to what I did then, working on very big drawings in a surrealistic manner!  I was not prepared for this experiance.

Celebrating Lunar Eclipse - Blood-Moon with IAST253

Did you see the Moon-Eclipse last night? Here in Sweden we call it Blood-Moon. I watched the part of it I could see from here where I am and doing this I realized I should have taken my car and gone to some place else where we could see the whole thing better. But I have watched a lot of great photos people have taken! Today I went for IAST 253. 

With Nipa, Crescent Moon and Printemps we were supposed to celebrate the Moonevent in a M-string. These patterns were all perfect doing this and I enjoyed it much more than I thought of. The moon itself was in my mind constantly while tangling this tile. I was thinking of using color but then I decided enough is enough and I am satisfied with it the way it is. Thank´s Adele for one more pleasant and relaxing challenge! 

25th-27th of July and My Tile

Summer Tangles still going on!
25th: Groovy (Helen Hunt) with friends: Asian Fans (Suzanne McNeill), Jetties and Jonqual, both Zt.
26th: Kuzek (Laura Harms) and some related wild Cadent in the numbers.
27th: Microtangleday! Haven´t gon in this direction before. I usually go into Macrotangling when I have a chance! I went to my box with left over pieces from my cutting my own tiles from Fabriano Tiepolo. And there it was, a tiny little tile just waiting to get the chance! I glued it into my calendar and started with Lisbon-fragment (Henrike Bratz) and filled it with Onomato and something Static-like. Then I Mashed (Lori Byerly) it all in, since there was a lot of emptyness around.

For #mytileproject Nancy Domnauer (Line Dot Calm) I did this one:

Z-string. 1. Arukas (Anita), 2. Well (Westin), 3. Cubine (August) and 4. Ginilli (Randy Wynne Parry), a favouritepattern of mine. The last one was tricky. To choose my favouritepattern when I have got so many favourites! At last I choose Ginilli, which I haven´t used for some time now, but this pattern is absolutely wonderful to draw!

A great familyevent that affects everything at the moment!

Yesterday was a very special day. It was the day when my second grandchild would enter this world. The event was a planned cesarean section so we all knew it would happen yesterday. The only thing I could do was to tangle as I waited. When I had done my calendar page for the day I started to learn the tangle Cindyer (Yu Ru Chen), the focustangle in Square One. Doing this in my sketchbook, I thought of the fact that there are a lot of S-shaped tangles around right now, emanating from Cadent in one way or another.  It is like Cadent has a party with all tangleations invited! Here is my first tile with Cindyer, done while I was nervously waiting by the phone:

As I had finished this, I got the news; the little babygirl had arrived safely and everything was fine with her and her parents. Now I went on with my second tile:

This was happy tangling! The rest of the day was a happy celebration-day of course. This morning I took the first pic of our new babygirl I got and framed it in this tile:

Several suggestions from people on fb encourgaged me to follow my first intention to make the cut-out and use  this tile in this way and I belive it suits her!

Calendar 22nd-24th of July

We haven´t had a summer like this during my liftime. It is all about the heat in July and our forrests that are on fire. I spend most of my time in the studio, tangling and painting. I am happy I can do this. The summertangles -18 is a fun prompt to follow, I learn some new patterns and I am pleased doing it in my calendar.

22nd: A pattern new to me, Bwiya (Anne Marks). I liked this one very much. 

23d: Gingham (Margaret Bremner). I have done it before but forgotten all about it. Now I think I won´t forget it, it is so nice to draw.

24th: Tranzending! I do like this technique a lot. It is a way to remake old pieces ofcourse, but it is also a tremendous technique to make things special and interesting doing basic tangling! Here you can see how Rick and Maria demonstrates this!

In the round with Hexa

Tangling in the round is one of the best methods for me to get into the zone, no worries, no planning, just being there. My friend Ria Matheussen has come up with several beautiful patterns recently and I have paid attention to them but not done much more than that. Hexa is one of them and is built from small hexagones. I like this pattern,because it is easy to learn, it can come out bold or elegant, with different amount of drama and so on. Here is my first attempt:

As I try a pattern for the first time I always draw it in my sketchbook first and then I try it on white surface with black pen. I enjoyed doing Hexa like this and together with Stikz (Laurel Sponseller) D´Rua (Damy) and Antidots (Anita Roby Lavery). 

  

19th-21st of July and a mixed media ATC

Summertangles 2018 is still going on... On the 19th Chainlea (Norma Burnell) was entering the stage. I haven´t tried Chainlea since I first learned it.  I did like the pattern but I didn´t like the way my Chainlea came out at that time. But now I found a wonderful pattern with a lots of possibilities! On the 20th Quérre (Genvieve Crabe) is a fun geometrical pattern. On the 21st we should add some color. Since I haven´t tried (but intended too) Ilac (Ria Matheussen) I went for this, but I wanted to do something different in my calendar. Yesterday I found some pretty tissues in a cheap store, and I glued them on todays date. Then I started to play with Ilac and also added one more Quérre in the background and some Printemps. I liked the way this went!

Then I finished an ATC in the same direction (mixed-media style):

This is influenced by art I do in my studio. Before this, tangling influenced my art and now my artwork influences my tangling! This is fun I think! the patterns used: Sand Swirl (Karry Heun), Slinky (Jennifer Hohensteiner) and Wud (Joni Feddersen).

16th-18th of July and IAST 252

The summertangles continues with Dillo (Lori Manoogian), a day for a Gem in company with a lot of stuff and then XYP (Zt) with Cubic (Karl Stewart) and Cubine (Zt). About the Gem. I seldom draw gems, though I find them quite interesting and relaxing to draw. I also find them meditative. But they are dominant and easily takes the focus from the rest of the drawing. Here with my gem the other patterns drawn are Meer, Tagh, Tipple, some baby Mookas (all Zt), Cruffle (Sandy Hunter) and LZ´s (mine).

IAST 252 was somewhat different this time. We should use Deeday (Angie Gistles) in a simple grid-string and then use this pattern also as a string. Here is what I came up with:

First I want to say that Deeday is an interesting pattern/fragment in itself worth exploring so I think I will go on with that further on. But here I used it as a string too and the patterns added are. Purk, Printemps, Striping (all Zt) an Zenplosion (Danny O´Brian). I made it on a tan tile, not original, but this surface is quite good to work on too.

Today I also finished a zentangle-inspired painting made in mixed-media. The heat outdoors makes me live in my cool studio which means I am very happy!!!

The pattern showing up in this painting is my latest favourite: Gottago (Lianne Woods). 

Gottago, my calendar and recycling

There are patterns and patterns. So many pops up all the time. Sometimes there will be a pattern that speaks more to me then others. I found one like that when I saw a post from Laura Byerly. I had seen Gottago (Lianne Woods) before but now I saw the posibilities! I had one more watercolorbackground from Gerd Vading that was waiting for this!

I almost forgot to take a before-pic, but here it is taken i not too good light!

I loved this little piece of a watercolor! 

And here is my last finished calendarpage:

Following the Summertangles18: Fiore (Jana Rogers), Trix (Lucy Farray) and Zonked (Barbara Finwall).

Today I recycled one more watercolor-tile:

Quare (Beth Snodderly), Squared Cadent (Margaret Bremner), Fassett (Lynn Shelton Mead), Shira (Marguerite Samama), Echoism (Zt) and Eke (Zt).
We have extreme temperature outdoors, +30C in the shadows, so I am lucky to have the coolest place in my studio!

IAST 251 and calendar 10th-12th of July

IAST 251. It´s a String Thing!I love this challenge, since I really enjoy working with the string in focus. The string is supposed to be the guidance through the process. I had no possibility to do the last one, 250, but this one I did. The patterns suggested were Stikz (Laurel Sponseller), which is a tangleation of BB (Zt), and Munchin (Zt). Stikz was a new one to me so I wanted it to play the lead with the string. I belive Stikz can do a lot of things, but this is the way it went for me and I enjoyed the process.

My calendar for 10th-12th of July:

The theme for the rest of July I have decided to be the prompts for Summertangles 2018. I was a late starter with this, but never mind. I used Ponio (Damy), Fescu, Cubine and Opus. On the 11th it should have been Cubic, but in my head it said Cubine and I think I know why. Ever since I learned Cubine it just get me going and I never know where it will take me!  So I am sorry Cubic, but I´ll get back to you later on! I promise! On the 12th the prompt said Monotangle! I just picked a card randomly from Lynn Shelton Mead´s Tangle Deck and that was the Opus card! I don´t draw Opus often but I always like what happens when I do.

7th-9th of July

This calendar page was made on my trip to Vallentuna, Stockholm. The patterns: Shiraz (Linda Farmer), Therefore, Ing, Flors (all Zt) and on the 9th Wisket (Sandra Strait) and Abundies (Hanny Nura). I am  happy with this page since I think it also reveals these were happy days with my granddaughter! 

My result on PP03 !

PP03 was quite a challenge. It has taken some time to finish it but now I am there! This is worth celebrating I belive! I did take pics during the process this time too, which I am happy I didn´t forget! So lets start with the first step:

This was what I started with, the ribbonstring as demonstrated by Molly Hollibaugh.

Filling the ribbons with black pen was fun!...

This is the pic before shading/adding color. I did like this one very much!

I used my watercolorpencils; Madder Crimson and Prussian Blue. And here is my final, finished mosaic! Highligted with white charcoalpencil and shaded with graphite.

Here came the real challenge for me, the background done in graphite! I am happy I went through all these steps, since I learned a lot from doing this. I could have left it without the graphite-background, but I really wanted to try this technique. The patterns I choose for the background: Echoism and Assunta. First I thought I would only use Echoism,but then I decided to let Assunta be a part of it.

1st-3rd of July and recycled watercolor

1st - 3rd of July. New month. New challenges. I wanted to try my new Tombow pen. When I added the water to get the watercoloreffect I realized the paper didn´t like this at all! The color was bleeding through the paper! But the result was pretty cool, though I got a wobbling surface! I used Crescentmoon, Arc Flower (JJ La Barbera), Fescu, My Swing (Simone Menzel) and finally Striping.

Today I couldn´t bare myself! I got a couple of recycled watercolor-tiles from Gerd Vading, my friend in Östhammar. It was such a lovely one, I almost forgot to take the before-pic! But I stopped myself before the surface had disappeared under my tangling!

I started off with Footlite (Carole Ohl), since this is a prompt for 4th of July offered by Jamie Johnson att Today´s Tangles.

Next pic is from before shading:

The patterns added are XYP and Jonqual both Zt. Since this was on a watercolorpaper-surface, I didn´t have any problems with the Tombow pens.

Finish:

There are no ups and downs in zentangle, but I liked it best this way I think. This was fun and thank´s to Gerd for offering such a great surface to work on!

25th-30th of June and IAST 249

Arriving home safely from a trip to Östhammar, where we had a wonderful workshop with amazing people, I am able to post again! I start with the calendar:

The summer is in a mighty bloom and this shows in my calendar too! I started with Arc Flower (JJ La Barbera)- a long time no seen, I almost forgot how much I appreciate this pattern! Then I ran into Mumsy (Sandy Steen Bartholomew), with some Purdy (Margaret Bremner) and then Tri-Bee (Beate Winkler). 

On the 28th another flowerlike pattern was the starter: Cyme (Zt). And Cyme went into Daniel Lamothe´s Dreamcatcher! On the 29th I came to Östhammar and of course there was a lot of Rock´n Roll going on!! Giving the birth to Undu (Daniel Lamothe) and Asian Fans (Suzanne McNeill) and then ending with Mookas and Tipple.

I just have to show you the results from the workshop, since it was so lovely! Here are the pics:

Yesterday, before I started my travel back home, Gerd Vading, my hostess and I made a trip to an exhibition outside town. There I saw some wonderful pictures made by two participants of the workshop! These went straight into my heart:

 

Marja Forsberg has made a portrait of Lars Lerin (a Swedish great artist of watercolor). It is a weave, and it has so much of life in it! Here is a closeup:

And her son Leif Forsberg is a great painter. You can see for yourself:

I love the color and the unique expression in these two paintings!

Well, back home I sat down doing the challenge from Adele this week. It is challenge 249 and it is all about getting Abeko (Lynn Shelton Mead) and the Diva Dance into a string. 

The way it went was a little surprise to me, the Abeko totally took care of the rocking Diva Dance! I loved that!