Calendar 19th-21st of october and one more for the Diva´s challenge 372

This post might be my last for a while, since I am not sure I will have the time  to post before I start my long trip to US and the CZT seminar 32 in Providence! The inktober patterns keep following me though! Here comes Abeko (Lynn Shelton Mead), W2 (Zt) and Hamadox (Diana Schreur). Drawing with the fountainpen looks so different from the Pigma-pens. I think the main reason for this is that in zentangle I slow down my strokes a lot. Doing so with the fountainpen is a little bit risky, since the ink i very flowing. Normally as I draw with the fountainpen I draw very fast strokes but working with zentanglemethod this won´t be the case!!! Somehow I like the result and it is very relaxing.

On the 20th the inktobertangle is W2.  I like weavingpatterns and W2 is no exception. I decided to let W2 have a meeting with Dewd for the Diva´s challenge and this is what happened when I choose to work with a random string and dots in the corners:

I thought I was finished with Dewd but obviousely I am not. It is just going on. It might follow me all the way to Providence.... Now I will concentrate on doing packing-lists and get everything together before Thursday morning when I leave for Stockholm Arlanda!

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. 

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!

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.

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.

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!

IAST 247

Tangling using a string is something I appreciate a lot. It affects me in a certain way, yes it is  a liberating feeling doing this. To be honest, most of the time I do use a string. Here comes my entry for IAST 247 :

For this special string we should use D´Rua (Damy), A´Dalfa (Bunny Wright and Dex (Zt).Dex and A´Dalfa are old favourites of mine, D´Rua is new to me. It has become a new friend I think. Easy to learn, easy to draw, just let it go the way it goes. I love that! Thank´s to Adele for this happy moment of tangling!

Prompts and Dingbatz

Prompt no. 2 in Todays Tangles celebrating 3000 members. Using the corner dots appreciating people/things in life, that are important to me. Binding the dots together with the penciled line is a way to be aware of certain contexts that keeps me up and makes life worth living! Zinger kind of grows out of Hurry and Knightsbridge gives me the Drama kick-up. Tripoli and Gourdgeous also was suggested in the Prompt but this time they stepped aside. These are just my reflections made after the process with the tile, but I love to think about it this way.

I use to do those small Dingbatz now and then, mostly when I am in lack of time and Dingbatz doesn´t take more than a couple of minutes to do. When I have done them, I just let them be but I love these small adventures. Here is my latest one though:

I like to do them on ATC ( 8,9 cm x 6,4 cm). Think I´ll show them more frequently from now on. They are fun and easy to do! And maybe they would be happy getting some more attention from me!

16th-21st of May in my Calendar

I love playing with one tangle at a time. Monotangling. Reading Margaret Bremners inpsiring post with her Cadent-variation I just had to try this. It was so fun and came out in such different ways. I love that!

The last three days I choose tangles that are basic (Zt) and tangles i know very well by heart. This because sometimes all those step-outs easily get me into a planning mode and I sure don´t want that! It is very relaxing just to start with something well-known and then go ahead to the next one passing by! A lot of patterns took the scene: Crescent Moon, Onamato, Dewd, Fescu, Maze, Knightsbridge, Mooka, Tipple, Cubine, Eke, Well and Paradox. Some of them I use frequently, some now and then. Doing it this way, no worries, no planning, is very calming and healthy for my sometimes stressed mind!

One more for the Diva´s challenge 363!

In Square One Slinky (Jennifer Hohensteiner) was in focus for a week now. This morning-rain gave me time to try it and I found a lot of possibilities to make Auras! Snail is also joining the fun! Auras are fun to do and now I think I got back to making auras again thank´s to Laura Harms and her challenge 363! Auras are relaxing to do and there are unexpected things going on while the tile is growing in front of me! No planning. Just letting ink flow.

13th-15th of May and also a celebration-tile.

I think I like to use my calendar now and then for challenges. Now is the busy time of the year in the garden which means not so much time for tangling or anything else but being outdoors with my fingers in the soil. But look, I have helpers:

Iris the Pumi is a great gardener! 

In lack of time, the calendar is perfect! I like to follow the Diva´s challenge very much and opening my calendar I have the possibility! So here comes my entry for Challenge 363:

The challenge is all about auras and I like doing auras. The patterns for this challenge just happened to pop up: Trio (Hanny Nura), Crescent moon (Zt), Somnee (Laura Harms), Axlexa (Henrike Bratz), Meer (Zt) and Shnek (Hanny Nura).

In Today´s Tangles we have now 3000 members! Celebrating this we made prompts relating to the Zentangle method. Today I started off with the first prompt: 

1. Gratitude and Appreciation.  As you sit down to tangle with a clean tile, appreciate the opportunity to tangle, knowing that you are an artist, even if you never thought of yourself as one, because Zentangle came into your life. If you have the Zentangle Primer: Volume 1, appreciate the basic patterns we’re first taught. With this in mind, use the tangles CRESCENT MOON, SHATTUCK, SNAIL, W2 and/or CADENT in a monotangle or any combination of the five.

I used Cadent, which gave me the oportunity to try Margaret Bremners tangleation Cadent Squared. Also I went for Snail, a tangle I haven´t used since I learned it! Almost forgotten, but this easy tangle is so nice to draw! One of the most important thing following the Zentanglemethod is Appreciation. And Gratitude. To appreciate the moment. To be aware of this: There are no misstakes in Zentangle. When an OOps appear, this is a great opportunity to go in another direction. I love this!

25th-30th of April and Walpurgis Night

This is the busy time of Spring. Everything seems to accelerate in the garden which means a lot of stuff to take care of. Here were I live we use to gather branches and other stuff we need to get rid of  and carry it all to a Walpurgis-fire in the middle of our neighbourhood. Our fire will be quite big this year, if the weather doesn´t stop it all. I am very happy I have my calendar these days to draw my tangles in, since I don´t have much time to spend for tangling. I like to explore one tangle at a time right now.It is so satisfying to see what happens with small variations done! I can´t get enough of this I think.

25th-27th: Boucle (Cherryl Moote) is so fun to draw and with lots of possibilities! Loved it!
28th-30th: Zander (zt). Zander is a tangle I have used now and then but till now I haven´t tried to make it mine or adding some variations to it. I did like what happened! And I had some fun, that is for sure!

I have made one tile during these 6 days! Here it is:

Lily Moon has designed Carcole for us to play with. I did like it a lot! Here in company with Shard (Carole Ohl), Striping, Tipple, Flux, Fescu and Shattuck.

22nd-24th of April and some more tangling

Now I start to belive Spring is here to stay! Just one snowpack outside our house is to be seen, but that one has been hughe, now our dogs can jump over it! Flux is a tangle that speaks about growth and brings a promise of a warmer season to come! I love this time every year and it is worth everything!

A couple of days ago I visited a friend of mine and she wanted to know about the zentangle method. I brought her some of my books, some tiles, pens and a pencil. We had a wonderful evening tangling. 
I always love to go back to basics, to basic patterns, it is always so relaxing and I always feel happy doing it.

Nipa, Crescent Moon and Knightsbridge. Nothing more is to be needed. 

Today I made this tile:

Boucle (Cherryl Moote) is the focustangle in Square One. Such a lovely one to draw. It reminds me of Printemps ofcourse. Here together with Shattuck, Maze, Flux and Tipple, all Zt. I am happy how this came together. It has some Spring in it!

16th-21st of April

I think I could go on playing with Oof maybe for the rest of this month, but I won´t. I stop with Oof drawn with straight lines. This tangleation (or maybe a new pattern?) makes me happy.

I am ahead (?!) in my calendar! I am not able to do anything in it tomorrow soo... I now revisited Umble. A pattern I didn´t like at all when I first learned it. I have tried it a few times after that but Umble has not spoken to me. I rather draw Hollibaugh or something else. I belive it is depending on my hands are a little more shaky than they used to be in my youth. Umble is very easy to learn, it is one stroke and Auras. My lines always seems to wobble. It doesn´t really matter that I slow down as much as I can. Most of the time I doesn´t care about this . In most patterns this isn´t disturbing, on the contrary it adds something. But with Umble I am not sure of that. I have tried to find my way with Umble on this page. I have made it thinner, fatter, with more or less black in it. I admit we are not friends yet, but some steps closer. I haven´t given it up, I will go back to it again further on.

Diva´s Weekly challenge 360

This week´s challenge from the Diva is to make a duotangle with Shattuck and Tripoli. These are patterns not often made as a combo, but watching Laura´s video is a great inspiration! Here comes my entry:

To use Shattuck as a reticula is a great idea. I will keep this in my mind! This was a great challenge, with wellknown patterns (no need for step-outs), so much fun and relaxation! Shattuck and Tripoli also happens to be my favourites which made me even more happy about it!

Revisiting older tiles and refreshing them.

In the Zentangle Primer 1 there is a very exciting exercise no 15. There are no misstakes in zentangle. But there are tiles I have done, that I don´t smile when I look at.  The exercise is. Go back and pick two tiles that are not so satisfying. Then find out what is missing and go on with them and see what happens.

I picked these:

They are well drawn, I admit this. But something doesn´t make them special. The one to the right was done in October -16 and the one to the left in August -17. Both have the same problem, they look like they are not finished. Not enough Drama.  After taking this photo of them I went to work. I needed a little more shading and more black. Here is the result:

This one from 2017 definitely needed more shading! Then I blackened the corner above Abukas (Charlotte Carpentier) and in the Dreamcatcher (Daniel Lamothe). Then I added some more black details. The other patterns are Antidots (Anita Roby Lavery) and Tipple (Zt). Very little done but with a result I really appreciate!

This one from 2016 definitely needed more contrast and some small details to make it more interesting. I gave it more black, stipples and lines and some more shading. The patterns areTropicana (Kate Ahrens), Antique (Kathy Barringer), Ionic (Margaret Bremner) and Printemps (Zt). Now I do like it much more! Not much done but the difference is obvious!

16th-18th of March

It is very satisfying to revisite tangles I haven´t used for a long time. I think I will stay with this for a while. Here comes Undu (Daniel Lamothe), Kuna (Csibulle) and Undling (Susie Achter). Two are basically "aura"-patterns and Kuna is only straight, short lines, repeated. Very relaxing to do and the result is so cool. Then comes two daily tiles:

Tufton (Jodi Christiansen) and Tofube (Damy). And a kind of beadline following my simple string.

I haven´t worked on black tiles lately so after having watched Molly´s tangleation on Zenith I grabbed my tools and took my time following her steps. 

I do love the black tiles. It is another view on tangles. Some kind of magic.