Diva´s challenge 369

Only doing this with orbs, circles! This challenge is all about orbs. What is more like orbs than Tipple! Here is my entry:

And what is more orb-like than doing a zenbutton!?! I enjoyed this challenge and I love to do orbs in all kind of ways. Also some Printemps wanted to play. Thank you Laura for one more special challenge! Now I am ready for bed and tomorrow morning I am going to visit my granddaughters!

22nd-24th of September and a Daily tile

I find it so pleasing to revisit strings I have done before and do them more then once! It is a way to see them from other angles each time. This is string no 28 from Tanglepatterns. The patterns on this page are: 3 Loops G (Mina Hsiao), Hexonu (Cherryl Moote), Maryhill (Betsy Wilson), Starmap (Suzanne McNeill), Knightsbridge (Zt), Scallop (Suzanne McNeill), Veez (Margaret Bremner) and Tektonik (Tomás Padròs). Last time I tried this string was in november 2015 and it looked like this:

Hurry, Nipa and a tangle I don´t remember the name of. 

In Square One, the focustangle is Lee Bee (Sue Schneider).I have been playing with it in my sketchbook trying to make it mine.

I am not there yet, but I like this tangle. It can be used as a reticula I think. I have tried it earlier but not really taken it to my heart. Now I definitely have and here is my first tile with it in Square One:

I had some fun with it.....

IAST 261

There are strings and strings. This week´s challenge from Adele Bruno offered a string I do like a lot! A string with straight lines as well as a beautiful curve. So here is my entry:

I used the cardstock I got from my printing friend and I like the surface more each time I use it. The patterns are 3 Loops 6 (Mina Hsiao) and Hexonu (Cherryl Moote). I have tried 3 Loops 6 once before, but as I almost forgot about it I am so happy that Adele reminded me about this pattern!

19th-21st of September and one more for the Diva

Now is the time when nights get colder and the garden is changing a lot. I am busy digging up and taking in herbs and some of the plants to be sure they will make it through the cold part of the year. I can see it in my calendar! The string is no. 22 for the last three days. Yesterday I also tried to monotangle Crescent Moon, inspired from what I saw Sandy Kelley Jones do in Fb group Today´s tangles. the other tangles on the page are Mooka, Afterglo (Carole Ohl), Membran Art (Tomàs Padrós), Tipple and Papyrus (Suzanne McNeill). I found the first tile I made with this string! Here it is:

Peanucle (Molly Hollibaugh) and Ipso (Jennifer Hohensteiner) made in november -15.

I liked the straight-line challenge from the Diva this week. I wanted to try it with a curvy string and picked  no. 138 from Tanglepatterns.

I tried this with Lily Moon´s B´tweed-tangleation and Hexonu (Cherryl Moote).B´tweed went a little wild, it doesn´t look the way I thought it would but I kind of like the crazyness in this one! And most important, it was fun and relaxing to do!

Only straight lines in Diva´s challenge no 368

Only straight lines. Yes. I find this challenge so relaxing. It is like keeping things together in a way. Thank you Laura Harms for doing this. I have always liked geometry and straight lines. Not that my lines are so straight, they are wobling and swaying a lot. But that´s not the point. The process is the main thing and doing straight lines or trying to do them is just possible when I slow down. So here is my first tile on this theme:

I also choose a string from Tanglepatterns with straight lines, string 032. A nice one! Choosing the patterns was also a challenge, there are a lot of wonderful straight-line patterns! Here I made it with Balloya (Anya Lothrop), Arukas, Cubine and Paradox (all Zt). Paradox is a paradox, the lines are straight but they look like they are not! I like that effect! I guess I must do some more with straight lines! This was so fun.

16th-18th of September and looking back.

three days with String 002 from Tanglepatterns.com. 

The patterns: Meer, Florz,Beadline (Margaret Bremner), Onomato, Undling (Susie Achter) and Spawn (Shoshi). This time I found the very first tile when I used this string october 13th 2015! My first year with zentangle! Here it is:

As I made this in a project making one zentangle a day for 365 days I also wrote down the patterns: Tour, Quib and Quipple! It seems so long ago though it isn´t.  It is overwhelming to look back like this on early work. I can´t belive it is the same person... but I know it is. 

13th-15th of September and Slow Down with a Zendala!

It is nice to revisite old strings! And so different from when I started working my way through all strings in the Tanglepattern´s resources! Here are three more takes on string 002! I used Tipple, Twilight (Judy Genovese), Beadline (Margaret Bremner), Printemps, Paradox, Webz (Suzanne McNeill), Eke, Diva Dance and Undu (Daniel Lamothe). I would have liked to show the one I did first, but I can´t find it right now. I will look for it.

Today I made a zendala. I saw something somewhere that reminded me of my bottle with Chinese ink and brushes belonging to it. So I made strings on a couple of zendalas using Chinese ink. I love the blackness in this ink!!! Here is the zendala:

I have been writing a lot of Haiku  (Japanese poetry) and doing so I also used this kind of ink doing ilustrations for some of those little poems. Now I could use the same ink with the wonderful brushes like this! So much fun!!! In the centre the pretty pattern OCSIDOT (Sandy Kelly Jones), and then Tipple, Printemps, Indyrella and Fescu. 

Celebrating IAST 5 years!

Adele Bruno has made challenges with strings for 5 years! It is amazing and I have been following this , not for 5 years, but I am so impressed that she has been able to do this. So much fun you share with us Adele! So here is my contribution for this event:

The patterns as suggested for this challenge: Knights Bridge, Kitl (Jem Miller), O (Adele Bruno) and Prestwood (Margaret Bremner). 

10th-12th of September

Sometime ago I did work my way through all strings in the Tanglepatterns resource. Then I didn´t really think about it the way I do today. I won´t go back and do it all over again, I have done that! But I want to explore a string more than once and the calendar is perfect for this task. It is not my unique idea, but I saw Laura Byerly do this and I want to explore it! I started with the most basic strings of all, the Z-string. If you have seen my earlier blogpost, you might recognize the 10th. I was so excited doing this, I had to try it on a tile too in a similar way with Static, Echoism, Crescent Moon and Eke. On the 11th it is quite difficult to find the string but it is there! Mooka, Maze, Tipple and Striping. On the 12th it is easier with Echoism, `NZeppel and Tipple. Same string but totally different approach! I love to see there are so many possibilities!

I am the Diva´s challenge 367

Here is my entry for DC 367!

I got some cardstock from a friend of mine working in a printing. I tried to work on this for the Diva´s challenge with `NZeppel and Gottago (Lianne Woods). I think it looks nice almost like working on a renaissance tile. I only used Pigma Micron black, White charcoal and graphite. Laura suggested `NZeppel and I wanted to keep it simple since `NZeppel is one of my favourites and I enjoyed this challenge a lot.

More Rain and the Diva´s Challenge 366

I finished this calendarpage yesterday morning. Rain is such a fascinating tangle. I wanted to get it work with other tangles, since this is the challenging thing for me when it comes to Rain. Luckily for me I have Lynn Shelton Mead´s Tangle Deck where I can get some clues to go on with the pattern! I belive you can see this influence at least on the 7th if you have got the Tangle Decs yourselves! The other patterns I used are Tipple, Printemps and one I haven´t tried since I learned it, Kathy´s Dilemma. Some different auras too.

Yesterday was the election-day here in Sweden. As I was sitting in front of the TV nervously waiting  for the results I talked to Susan Kelley Pundt on messenger. She suggested I should tangle while waiting and so I did! It was a very good way to spend the time, I needed to relax! Thank´s Susan, here is my tile from last evening and this one will do for the Diva´s Challenge 365 as well!

A little more Rain, Striping, Tipple, Cubine, Crescent Moon and Bales.

Because of the result of the election I woke up this morning feeling bad. So many in our society has voted for a party with it´s roots in nazi- and rasist- ideology! This is scarying and when I was younger I had no idea that I would see this happening in my country during my lifetime! I feel ashamed too, that this is the reality today! I am so sorry and I am not alone feeling like this, no matter that my own party has grown too. So I sat down and made one more for the Diva, which made me feel a lot better. In both these tiles I used the basic Z-string. On the second I tangled Static, Echoism and Eke, patterns I know so well by heart and as I tangled them I felt like I tangled against hatred and evilness which was very satisfying. 

To those who might read this: I am not thinking that zentangle is a political thing. But tangling must open your mind. Tangling gives you a possible way to learn in your heart that diversity and variations are essential and possibilities to go further on, not something you should be avoiding or fear! I think this is why I love the zentangle method so much!

Rain in the Calendar and IAST259

Rain is a zentangle-original pattern, I learned early in my tangling journey from the book of Bekah Krahula. I did like it a lot at the start, but I havent used it so much. Like Fengle, though that pattern came in my way later on. So now I decided to spend some time in my calendar with them and I still like to play with them! Drawing Rain I have a lot of fun exploring Lynn Shelton Mead´s examples in her Tangle-Deck 1.

IAST 259.

We are supposed to use Diamante (Carol Therrien), Sling Slang (Lisette Hofer), 7 Keys (Teresa Clerc) and Hollibaugh. Hollibaugh was the only one I knew! To learn three new to me patterns, well that was a challenge right now! But then the real challenge was to get them together into the suggested string! Hollibaugh, where did you go?? Yes Hollibaugh is there as a reticula! This was fun and I am happy with the outcome! Thank´s Adele for a relaxing challenge!

The Diva is back again!

I have missed the Diva´s challenge! Now she is back and challenge no 366 is all about the basics! So here comes my first entry and I have a party-feeling!

I tangled Hollibaugh, Keeko, Printemps, Crecent Moon and Tipple. I always love to go back to these early learned tangles. And the basic steps, dots in the corners, penciled line connecting them and then a simple string  very lightly penciled on the tile. It is like magic.

Blue on zendala

A few days ago I saw an interesting post by Sandy Kelly-Jones. She tried an idea from Dominique Frottier. Dominique had made a string with words, written on a quarter of a zendala-sized paper and then traced it on the zendala x4. I wanted to try this too and used my oldest granddaughter´s name Juno. I worked in blue which I don´t do often but it was nice to do. The patterns I used are: Stikz (Laurel Spoonseller), Lollywimple (Sandy Hunter), Fragment L25 and Fanclub. Below you can see the traced string. 

This technique was very fun, I like the idea of hiding words under my tangles!

28th-31st of August, 1st-3rd of September

28th-30th of August I used Daviso (Katie Crommett) as my box-string. Daviso is a very special pattern and I have used it several times but not like this and it was very satisfying. Diva Dance was the first one to join and then Cayke (Rose Brown), Tipple and at last Hexonu (Cherryl Moote) and Florz.

31st I was in a hurry but I grabbed Flukes as my box-string and then Tropicana (Kate Ahrens), Printemps and Pookeroot.

New month. Take a deep breath. This week is important, it is the last week before our election-day, Sunday 9th of September. So Paradox helped me to stay focused and also I needed some Twilight to get some rest. I saw Rick Roberts draw Paradox in a blogpost not long ago and that was my inspiration for this.