Blanes part II

Sometimes a pattern takes time before I can see the possibilities to go on with it in more than one direction. It is not only about embellishments. It is something else. After the last blogpost I haven´t used Blanes, I felt a little stuck with it. But then all of a sudden Debbie Huntington made a post on Fb where she had used it in a Dingbatz kind of way and all the bells started to ring! I asked her if I could use it in this blogpost and she said yes! So here it is:

She had made it on a Gray tile and used gold and the rest of rennaisance colors. I loved it so much! Now I am convinced about this pattern and now I also can go on with it and just having fun! Today´s meditation between baking bread and buns, I spent with Blanes on a Rennaisance tile:

I used fragments all over this tile and a random string. A fragment of Zonked (Barbara Finwall) in the center and the petals could be a part of Batumber (Kelley Kelly). There are other fragments too. I found that Blanes is fun to use with layering techniques. When I did Blanes at the start I was aware of the metapatterns that easily came around depending on the shading. But I wasn´t too excited about the rest. Now I am happy to be able to go on from here with it! Thank you Debbie, you opened my eyes! 

New pattern! Blanes!

On our two weeks vacation in Blanes, Spain I ran across a lot of patterns everywhere! 

The second day i took a bad photo of a glasswindow in the old part of the little town and back to the hotel I realized that the Suzanne Fluhr had made a new Humpday Challenge that was about deconstructing a pattern found.  I looked at the photo and thought this is it! It is meant to be! But I also thought that this pattern might be so simple that maybe or most likely it has been deconstructed as a tangle already.

Anyway I worked on it and here is my first tile with Blanes:

Back home again I made the step-out, very simple and as this pattern is a grid-based pattern it was very easy to see the possible fragments of it!  Here is the step-out, hope you´ll enjoy it:

Inktober is over! November is here!

I thought I would be able to post more frequently in October but that was not the case. But here is my finished Inktobertangles 2019! It was a journey with this Opus tile. I didn´t work the way I use to with a traditional string. The start was the embedded words Inktober 2019 which was a kind of a string though.

All the tangles are there! I started off earlier than october, since i was in Spain for two weeks and it was nice to come home and find my almost finished work waiting for me. I liked what the fountainpen made for this Opus. I will have to frame it though since the ink i watersoluble and I need to protect the result which I am happy with! Looking back on this I find that there are a lot of tangles that I discovered in a new way and some tangles were new to me. Inaflux (Debbie New) for example, and that one I really liked a lot! Stephanie Jennifer and Debbie New has done a great job administrating this Inktobertangles 2019-event and they do a lot more than this which you can find on their 7F5R-blog! I am already looking forward to next Inktober to come! Thank you ladies for doing this!

Inktobertangles 2019

We are soon entering October and Inktober Tangles Challenge 2019. I have done this earlier on Bijou-tiles and in my Calendar. Stephanie Jennifer CZT has published a list of tangles to do each day of October. Here is the list:

You can find more details in the blog 7 Forests 5 Rivers.

This year I want to try the Inktober Tangles on an Opus Tile. I have only made two Opus tiles before this and now I am stepping out of my comfort zone! As I decided to do this I wasn´t sure of how to. Should I divide the surface into 31 pieces? Should I make a string? After I had thought about it I decided not to divide the tile into 31 spaces to fill. It is risky, maybe there wont be room enough for 31 tangles??? Especially as I wanted to start like this:

I was really pleased with this beginning: Inktober 2019 as embedded letters. I will use my favourite fountain pens, one filled with sepia colored ink and one with black ink. As I am going to be travelling for two weeks in October I needed to start with the Inktobertangles earlier. I will not make blogposts every day with my inktober tangles, but hopefully my blog will be updated more often than I have done the last months! Here are the first three tangles of Inktober:

Printemps, Tunnelvision (Jody Genovese) and Toodles. I am excited to do this! I love that I don´t know where this will end if everything will take place on this Opus or....This is also something that feeds  my creativity, the uncertainty of art in progress. I have thought about that if I don´t have room enough I could continue on the back of this Opus.... Working with fountain pens is nice. The ink is flowing easy, no need of pressure to make it work! Why don´t I do this more frequently???

Kintsugi in Journal and applied on September 11th

Kintsugi is a Japanese technique how to mend broken pottery and make the mending visible. The history is in focus, how things happened. The purpose of the mending is to make the broken piece become even more valuable then before. In Zentangle there are no mistakes and this can very well go hand in hand with the Kintsugi philosophy. Unexpected things happens, these are opportunities to walk a little bit further, finding new meanings, new possible solutions that might bring even more beauty to the art. I loved this prompt created by Janet Burdit and I belive this will affect my other artwork as well. In my journal I first used one zendala that I wasn´t happy about, I teared it to three pieces, glued it on a leftover-paper from my monoprinting sessions, and mended it with gold acrylic paint. I also made some tranzending on a part I liked, the Ocsidot by Sandy Kelley-Jones. The second one was a smaller tangled wonky orb which needed something more, so I worked on it the same way. I love how this spread came out!

This week´s Hump Day Challenge was in remembrance of September 11th and I knew what I wanted to do! Not exactly how though! But I started with a black tile and went on from that:

I used Windfarm (Margaret Bremner), Therefore and Tipple. Then I tore the tile to pieces, glued them on a white Apprentice tile, "mended" it with the same gold acrylic paint and then went on with Wud (Joni Feddersen). As I made this I was back on that bus in the afternoon (yes, in Sweden it was afternoon)where I heard the news about the terrorist attack. The bus was crowded and the driver had turned the radio on. Then there came these breaking news about what happened with the Twin Towers. All of a sudden everyone on that bus was silent listening to these hard-to-belive news. I know exactly where the bus was in that moment. 

To practice the Zentangle method is to practice gratitude. This was a very present feeling as I did this. Life isn´t about finding pieces of a puzzle, but it´s about creating and putting those exceptional pieces together.....

Project Pack 06 - NO Mistakes!

I have followed the Project Packs from Zentangle since they started doing them, but this is the first time I have bought the pack myself. You don´t need to buy anything you can follow the video-lessons and do them on material you already got. A friend of mine who recently went to the seminar in Providence brought me a pack which was great. Thank you Eriko, I appreciated this a lot! In the pack was a mini-journal to work in. I like the idea of journals. But what made this PP06 special was the theme: No Mistakes!. This is one of those things that I appreciate most about zentangle. Maybe one of the most important things that both has affected my own creativity and also it has affected my way of approaching things in my everyday life. As a painting artist I have  been aware of this  philosophy, "there are no mistakes in art - only possibilities". But with the zentangle-method I practise the no-mistakes-philosophy every day in one way or another! Of course this must affect my way of doing things and my way of looking at things!

The introduction-video to the PP06 is recommended to watch HERE.

And here are my eight days with PP06:

When the 8 days were done there are still a lot of pages to do, which is comforting, since the eight day came too fast, I could have followed these videos a lot longer! It is still possible to go back and watch the videos more than one time and I sure will, they are so inspiring.

How to create this pages without buying the pack? Well I tried to, since I wanted to try these ideas in a class last Saturday. I spilled chinese ink on some. And I spilled acrylic Mars Black heavybody diluted with water on some. They both worked very well though I had to let the ink dry much longer till it worked with my white gelly roll. I made this on tiles but I would love to try it in a concertina sketchbook too! Here is one example on chinese ink:

and on on acrylics:

I enjoyed PP06 a lot mostly because of the "no-mistake" theme. But the result working on spilled pages is also very exciting. I look forward filling the rest of this little green journal up with tangles! And yes, I am going to tangle the frontpage too!

Hump Day 06 and a peep into my Journal

Recently I was invited to "Hump Day Challenge" on Fb. This is a weekly challenge from CZT Suzanne Fluhr and I thought it would be fun since "I am the Diva" is taking a break. But I have been so busy last weeks so I haven´t participated until today and this challenge was right up in my alley and I loved it. You find the challenge in her blog here. And if you, like me, don´t know what Hump Day is she gives an explanation in her blog.

Here is my entrance on rennaisance tile:

The prompt was to use a tangle as a string. I choose Hollibaugh

I am not sure that Hollibaugh is the string though I tried to think of it as a string.The "over and under" technique is so much this tangle and I love that. I used Diva Dance Rock n´Roll, Shattuck, Tortuca and fragment T7, which is one of my favourite fragments from the Primer. Everyone talk about the heath right now and I am happy to say that my studio is the coolest place in this house! So I had to have some soothing, cooling dewdrops on this tile as well.

My journal has become an important space to go to thank´s to the prompts published in Our Tangled Life. Though it was a little difficult for me to keep it up in June/first half of July, I have done them.

The 13th prompt came from Priscilla DeConti and she wanted us to tangle an animal. Since The Zentanglemethod to me is non-representative which means freedom and this is very important, I didn´t know how to approach this prompt at first. Then I looked into my other artjournal and found something I did during a workshop led by Carla Sonnheim earlier this year. To see an animal in cracked pavement! So I brought that workshop into tangling and this was the result. I used Arukas, Tagh, Crescentmoon and my newest tangle AAW. I had fun and I enjoyed it! 

Patterns: Doo Dah, Tripoli, Scena, Crescentmoon, Scallopillar (Karin Tarter)
AAW (mine)

This page I finished yesterday and this turned out in a special way. The prompt said Let´s map it! First I was in trouble not knowing how to do this. Maps are special to me, almost magical. I always keep maps I have used on journeys and hikings. When I was younger I was an eager hiker in the Swedish mountains. The nature, the wilderness, the lonliness, all of that was essential to me. Yes I kept the maps in a nice and tidy pile. Among the maps was one over the Abisko-Kebnekaise area and this map was so much used it had fallen into parts. I took one of those parts which happened to fit perfectly in my journal, so I glued it there and started tangling. Someone hade spilled some coffee on the map, it might have been me... As I tangled on I was sent back in time and I could see the stony paths for my inner eye, the amazing views from high points, the marshlands, the clear water, the wild animals, birds, flowers... And I could feel the gratitude that I once have been able to be a part of this wonderful landscape that forever will stay in my heart!

Through this prompt from Malia Benson I got some new ideas to work on in my collages/paintings too! 

Hello again! And a new tangle AAW!

The exhibition went well. I didn´t have to come home with all my work this time. Ofcourse I was happy for those of my paintings that got new homes! But the week was much more than about selling. So many interesting talks with people I had not met before and also with some I had met. And so many asked about the Zentanglemethod! Some of them also went for a try, which was great! Among the paintings I had a couple of Opus-tiles and a few zendalas. I shared the showroom with a friend of mine, Gerd Vading and on an exhibition like this there are also moments in between visitors and then we had a chance to tangle too. 

The first tile ever for one of the visitors!

Tiles made during the exhibition. Some visitors are represented,
some could not come back to get their tiles at the end of
exhibiton, so they brought their tiles with them at once.

During this week I also played with my chop which resulted in a new pattern! My chop has changed since I started tangling. It might change again. This pattern looks different depending on if I only use one kind of stroke or if I draw it with a rounded stroke (C). First one page from my sketchbook:

Then the final step-outs:

I didn´t do the steps on the exhibition, but I made one tile with it:

I was happy with this and I liked to do it so I might go on with it now and then! One thing I liked with it is that it was very simple and that gives a lot of possible variations to play with. If you want to try it, please let me know so I may see what you come up with! It is a great joy for me when other tanglers try my patterns!!!

Ofcourse it was inspiring to be able to tangle during this week sitting among Gerds and my paintings in such a beautiful place! 

 I have got some more to work on after this which might result in at least one more deconstructed pattern! But right now I have a lot to do to get my studio properly cleaned after some months of intense work here!

Exhibition!! 6th-12th of July!

This blog is most of the time about zentangle. But this time it is also about my painting . I am working towards an exhibition in Harg´s bruksgård 6th - 12th of July. It is lasting only for one week but I look forward to do this, the place is beautiful and filled with ancient history! I am sharing this exhibition with my dear friend Gerd Vading, since the place is large and we are going to have a lot of fun during this week when we are together! Today I finished the last of my bigger paintings, 100x80cm, so now I will begin the work to frame them and get them all signed properly.

"Letters" - Tempera/oil on canvas 80x100 cm.

This painting is made in tempera/oil and also a little collage-work. The last years I have been working a lot with mixed media and I will also show these works on the exhibition besides Zentangle and ZIA:s of course. 

Has the zentangle method affected my other artwork? I belive it has. At least I am not aiming for perfectionism any more. I paint for joy. And I am convinced that there are no misstakes in painting either. Since I work with non-representational art I also try to leave the planning as much as I can and work intuitively. Ofcourse technique has to do with it, working with oil and tempera includes some planning, if it doesn´t the painting will fall apart pretty soon. But I am trying not to worry and not to overplan anything. I am doing sketches, yes, but that is most of the time just to set me off! The zentanglemethod has been encouraging in itself and I hope this will be obvious in my work on this exhibition. 

Tangledeck 3 CZT edition is here!

Tuesday was my lucky day (not the only lucky day but one of them)! At last Tangledeck3 CZT-edition landed here at my postoffice! It was stuck in the costumers for more than a week, I had a mailconversation with them telling them that this was a non-violent package, I wasn´t going to sell it to anyone, no commersial purpose and so on. I told them I was honored to be a part of this and I wanted to have it in my hands as soon as possible. When I got the message that I could come and get it at the postoffice, I thought that I would have to pay some costumers fee, since they didn´t drop it in my mailbox, but nothing like that happened! The only thing they wanted was my drivers license so they were sure I was the right one to get it!!!!

The tangledecks are special. I have all three of them and I love to use them. They are not only cards with step-outs. To find step-outs on the internet is very easy. But Lynn Mead has made variations of the pattern on one side of the card and the steps on the other side. The cards work like an inspiration to go on with a pattern in a playful way, and make the patterns come alive.

As I got my copy of Tangledeck 3 I couldn´t wait to start exploring! I had already started on a journalpage for My Tangled Life-group on fb so there were already other patterns done, but I finished the page with patterns from the tangledeck. On this journalpage I used patterns I already knew except for Keystone.

Patterns I already had started with: Bekk (Cyndi Knapp)
Diva Dance and Msst. Patterns from the Tangledeck: Dorsal
(mine), Keystone (Dennie York), Moowa (Anya Ipsen),
 Pixiose (Margaret Bremner),Ruutz (Eni Oken), My Swing
(Simone Menzel)and Wig Wag (Judy Genovese)

Then I went on celebrating with a Renaissance tile with a pattern picked randomly: 

Patterns: Just Lines (Jane McKugler) in focus
surrounded by Pokeleaf and Pokeroot.

I like the random thing so next tile went like this:

All patterns from Tangledeck: Hexonu (Cherryl Moote)
Pip-In (Anoeska Waardenburg) and Line Dance (Alice Hendon)

And this evening´s meditation:

Patterns: Runway (Cris Letourneau) and Yah
(Emily Classon)

This is so thrilling! I never know what will happen when I pick a card from the deck, only that something will happen! All these amazing patterns deconstructed by CZT:s all over the world, is such a great inspiration! I do admire Lynn Mead´s work with all this! And I look forward to find out what every single card is bringing to me!

If you are interested you find all the tangledecks in Lynns blog (shop) and this specific deck you find here.

Same String x 4

The String in Zentangle is something I have learned to appreciate more and more as I tangle on. From the start I did like the idea of dividing the working space with this technique. But now I feel like without a string it is more difficult not to start planning the result of the tangling. The freedom of limits is something recognizable in any kind of art. With no limits it is very very hard to create anything.  The string is the kind of limit that can change during the work, which is the best kind of limit when it comes to create something unique. The string is just a string, it is possible to step over it, to bury it and go in other directions or just follow it strictly. This means that the String is to be followed as a guideline, nothing else.

The Fb group "Today´s Tangles-Keeping It Classic" offers a prompt every week which includes a string and a list of official patterns. This week the string was Fragment B3 from the Zentangle Primer. It was such a great string, I just went on doing it in different ways. I didn´t choose the patterns myself this time, I let a dice with numbers 1-20 do it for me, which worked well since the suggested patterns were 18.

Patterns: Crescentmoon, `NZeppel, Florz and Printemps

Patterns: Mooka and Ixorus

Patterns: Hollibaugh, Florz, Betweed, and Rain

Patterns: Betweed, Striping, Tipple and Ennies

As I did four of them I got a nice mosaique which makes me happy! I can keep turning the tiles, change the places of the tiles and it will look new each time!

I am not sure I am finished with this string yet. There are infinite possibilities to work with this, so far I have used the string  strictly I think, which means that it is possible to see where the string goes even if you don´t know what it actually looks like. What happens if I only use one pattern?  What happens if a pattern crosses the lines going it´s own ways? This is so much fun! To find out what happens if I go into another direction.....