Journaling - Zentangle

I have thought about journaling for quite a long time. Michele Wynne´s blog Coffee and Creativity has been and is a great inspiration. I love the classic Zentangle, I love to do my tiles in black and white and I love the possibilities when it comes to "beyond basics".I haven´t done a lot of ZIA:s (=Zentangle Inspired Art). But journaling is something that I want to explore more. I decided to post my first steps on the journaling road and I might post some more further on. Here are my first pages:

I have joined a group on Facebook (Our Tangled Lives),which will be a support for me I hope. I have chosen my word for 2019, which was the easy part: Possibilities.

Then I found a quote: "You don´t need to know precisely what is happening or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope" - Thomas Merton

This quote just popped up as I looked for it and it is special to me. A couple of years ago I was reading Thomas Merton and his thoughts made a great impression on me at that time, so this is exactly what I was looking for!

This page is about Schway, which I have avoided as a pattern. But maybe Schway will follow me further along???

I have done a ZIA!!! This was because of a prompt in the Fb-group. I read a story about a tradition in Nepal where they use to make flags with messages, prayers to dead ancestors, friends and so on. It was a wonderful story and that made me do this page. I loved it! I also made me a bookmark for this page:

It is tiny just 8,9x4cm!

My latest page is about imagination: Notice the invisible. I used Embedded Letters, Denma (Anoeska Waardenburg), and Sistar (Hanny Nura).

I don´t know where this will take me. But now I have taken my first steps on the journaling road. I will try to do this once in a while and look for the possibilities.

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). 

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!

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!

1st-3rd of April and Elatorium challenges

I am not often talking about weather. But during Eastern we have had days with bright warming sunshine and cold nights. The snow is now melting daytime and freezing by night. A promise about spring is in the air though we can walk on the hard surface of the snow covering the fields around here. I can see how this has affected my latest page in the calendar! I used Paradox as a string as well as a pattern, inspired by Margaret Bremner´s illustration for this month. Peace Petals (Sandy Kelley Jones) is the promise of spring coming. Then Crusade (Wayne Harlow) and Trisade-fragment (Tangleation of Crusade by Staub Korn) are breaking Ice and Shattuck is also coming with the springthing.

When I see my patterns used in challenges and/or by other tanglers I get so excited. I appreciate it very much, it is like connections with others get visible. I just love it. 2 challenges recently has been with my patterns Ezpei and Lenche. These are found in ELATORIUM at Fb. The first one was Ezpei together with Ruutz (Eni Oken) and Garlic Cloves (Jacquelien Bredenoord). You find it here. My entrance is made on a recycled watercolorpainting.

So satisfying to make something on old watercolor I don´t want to see any more!

Next challenge with Lenche, Wall Break (Tina Kirchhübel) and Olspin (YuRu Chen) you find here.

And here is mine:

Wall Break I first tried when Tina published the steps on Flickr and I did like it a lot so I was so happy Ela choose this pattern together with Lenche! Olspin was new to me but I like the playfulness of this one and I will get back to it for sure. Thank´s Ela for doing this! You also find the challenges at Elatorium were you also find the wonderful resourse Musterquelle!

Calendar 28th-30th of March, Crusade and Happy Paradox - Eastern!

Last week in Square One has been all about Crusade. I first saw the pattern i a book by Beate Winkler,"Das Grosse Zentanglebuch". Then I found it intriguing though Beate had made her own step-out, that should be easier to understand then the original step-outs. I haven´t actually used the pattern, but decided to try it and give it a chance. So glad I did! I had to practice ofcourse,in my sketchbook as well as in my calendar. But learning this pattern, I found a new friend!. It is beautiful and it is filled with possibilities. Thank you Chris Titus, it has been a challenging but a  great adventure to go into this!

 I started working from Beate Winkler´s steps, went on with the steps I found at Tanglepatterns.com, which made me think of Crusade as a fragment.  The tiles I made:

 

The first and second one. 

The third one on tan tile. I also added some tranzending which made me happy.

Then I went for the Diva´s challenge 357. She asked us to make a monotangle with Paradox. I picked up the last eco-dyed tile for this occasion.

Oh yes, I had a lot of fun doing this. But once started with Paradox it is hard to stop so as I was going on decorating our Eggs for Eastern, it all came to Paradox!

So this is my Happy Eastern Greeting to all of you! Enjoy and Relax and Keep on tangling!

22nd-27th of March and something colorful!

Revisiting tangles!
22nd: 2n5 by Anita Roby Lavery. Like this playful pattern a lot! So simple and yet so cool to play with!
23rd-27th: Can´T by Chris Titus. First time I met Can´T was in a challenge, I think it was Adele Bruno´s It is a string thing! I was thrilled by the way this pattern seems so different depending on the shading. I didn´t try rounded corners then, but now I did an it was totally something else I saw coming out of the pen! So much fun! I belive Can´T is now going to stay with me!

I have been away a couple of days enjoying to sing Pergolesi´s Stabat Mater in the church of Rasbo. Ofcourse I brought my tangle-kit with me. I used one tile I cut out of a large marbeled sheet of heavy-weight paper that I have kept for years.

Since I have bee busy rehersing Pergolesi I haven´t had the time to try two resent published techniques published by Maria and Rick in the zentangle-app. The first one was to tangle Molygon in a string which looks like a creepy thing going around the tile! I love the little dangerous look of this shape! Then I went for the Cadent-tangleation whick I do appreciate a lot! Some Tipple and Fescu also came along. This is my Happy Eastern tile for all of you!

I am the Diva´s challenge no. 352

Last week I didn´t go for the Diva´s challenge. The reason was I wanted to practice SKYE. Another reason is I wasn´t that interested in the Olympic theme, it didn´t speak to me.  This week´s challenge, no 352, is about hearts and I thought I was done with hearts this month! But then I visited Michele Wynne´s blog  and couldn´t resist to give the heart one more round! I opened up my treasure-box filled with eco-dyed papers and there it was!

Can you see the heart glowing in there? I did and here is my nested heart:

The tangles: Chainging, Tipple, `NZeppel and Dro´t/Wire (Ferenc Nagy). The size is different from what I use to work on, 9x17,7cm.I used some brown colorpens, bronze and white gellypen. It was a nice surface to tangle on and I love the eco-dyed colors a lot. 

Duo-colored surface and rescue tile part 2

One more round to gowith the duo-colored surface, since there was one more tile left out of the first one! Here it is:

I realize I should have taken a before-pic before I cut the tile in parts with the tan tile. I didn´t. If the first one was fun to do, this one was even more! I used Fragment Y4 (from Zentangle Primer; very useful fragment), Eye-Wa (Zt), Florz(Zt) and Knightsbridge (Zt). It is so satisfying to rescue tiles and give them a new life! I also put the two tiles together to see if something happened here:

And yes they can match eachother. Not a perfect match maybe, but good enough! This is a wonderful technique, learned from the Project Pac 2, which was a part of #12DaysofZentangle! I´ll find out a way to use this working with my other collages.

Duo-colored surface and rescued tile.

 Ever since I did the 12 Days of Zentangle, Day 9 I have been thinking of trying the technique on a 8,9x8,9 tile. I saw Sandy Kelley Jones do it, using a tile she hade left just started and I thought I could use it to rescue a tile that went "wrong" from the start. Although I know there are no misstakes in Zentangle I have a small pile of tiles I abandoned since they didn´t go my way from the start. These tiles are a resource belive me! I never know where they will go as I start them over again! My first try on Eye-Wa, a Zentangle original pattern, didn´t go the way I wanted so I laid it in that abandoned pile. As I grabbed it this time, I also picked a tan tile and my scissors. 

And now here it comes transformed to something completely different:

But I wasn´t to happy about it, the tan part needed something more to get more contrast, so I went on like this:

I redrew  the Pookeroot in black, and that small difference made it I think! Except Eye-Wa and Pookeroot there is a bit of Florz too. Now I am finished and happy with my Rescued Tile!

Calendar 1st - 3rd of October

November. Grey and heavy. But still a time to tangle! I started off with the suggested fragment for the month, V4. I like the weavy structure of this fragment! Think I will use it more. The rest of the month I will use my calender doing #Giveatangle challenge in the FB-group Today´s tangles. One tangle a day is the theme. 2nd of November: Vitruvius. I made the striping too, since that was on 1st of November! On the 3rd Schway came up. I have read a lot of comments about Schway like "it is not my kind of cup". Well well, how to handle that. I have used it once. But Then it landed in my pile for not-my-kind-of-cup-tangle!!! I have learned something through my zentangle-journey: Not to give up. Just go for it again. And again. Try to make friends. Lets see if that will work for this tangle!

My Opus 1.

I started my first Opus ever August 20th inspired by the Mosaic-challenge Joey initiated. Today I have finished it. I haven´t worked on it every day, but I have seen it every day except when I was away to Östhammar last week. Don´t know if it was a good idea, but I left the shading and the coloring to the end and that took me a lot of time. I wasn´t sure where this would go at all. But here is my finished result.

I have listed the patterns and the date I first used them on the back of the tile. As I count them there are 17 patterns!!! Is this really me??? I blackened a part I found disturbing in the end. That was satisfying, but I am happy I left the decision till the last day I laid my hand on this!
I took a pic before or almost before shading. Unfortunately it is unsharp. I was so eager to go on with the shading I didn´t take more than one shot.

And here is the start:

As you can see I started with African Artist (Tina Aqua Hunziker), which was the start of Joey´s Mosaic-challenge. I have turned my Opus-tile several times during the process but as I started the shading it just wanted to be the way I took the final pic of it!

It was an experience to do this. I thought I never would. I might do it again, but not too soon. As I have finished it today I don´t even know what I think about the result. But I know I have enjoyed the process very much and that is what counts to me here and now. 

Petoskey stones

Jane Reiter is guestblogger for the Diva this week.  Her challenge is different from others. I have never heard of Petoskey Stones before. It is such a beautiful thing she tells us about! Go to the blog and have a look here!  Here are som pics  (closeups) of the Petoskey Stones:

As you can see the patterns are pentagones and hexagones.

Jane asked us to make a tile inspired by the Petoskey Stones. First I made a little Bijou:

I choose to work with the pentagone, since I never use to do that! I havent used ecoprinted tiles before either! The pattern is Quabog (Zt). The next one is on a regular tile 8,9x8,9 cm:

This one is also on ecoprint paper (Fabriano Tiepolo). I went on with Quabog, I did like this easy and flexible pattern, which I have tried once or twice. The other patterns are Zinger, Tripoli and Tipple, all Zt. This challenge was different and so interesting to do! I think I won´t forget about Petoskey Stones. Ever. Thank´s to Jane Reiter!

More Spoken for IAST 209

I am in a hurry to let my Spoken away for IAST 209. Not to make it but to post it. Here it is:

Adele asked for a monotangle in her challenge. This is almost a monotangle. Printemps jumped in and I couldn´t do much about that!

Weekly challenge with guestblogger Suzanne Fluhr and a calendarpage

The Diva´s challenge this week is created by Suzanne Fluhr. She gave us her own pattern, Aloha.  It is an organic and bold pattern. With many possible way to go. I started with a try in my calender below and then I went on an ordinary tile using watercolor:

I haven´t tried Aloha before. But the pattern attracts me and it can be done in many ways. 

Here is my calendarpage for the last three days:

As I look at this I I find it crowded and quite messy. But this is the way it is. It reflects my state of mind right now I think.
7th of August: This day was emotional. I remembered my friend that passed away and used only L and O tangles. Patterns: Lollipops (Suzanne McNeill), Orange Peal (Suzanne McNeill), Orbs de la Dee (Anneke van Dam), Lotus Pods (Margaret Bremner) LO´s (mine) and Onamato (Zt).
8th of August: I tried to follow Adele Bruno´s tips for tangling Pach (Judy Okawa). All of a sudden the pattern was flowing! Thank´s Adele! Crescentmoon (Zt) also joined.
9th of August: My first try on Aloha (Suzanne Fluhr) and also a first round with Fluxeed (terri Delaune). And of course Fescu (Zt)

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!