Summary of Valentangle 2020 and my Bitty Book adventure (to be continued)

Valentangle 2020 is done! My little Bitty Book is not done. My mathematic skills has never been outstanding, so I got some pages left to do! But I found a solution for this! The left pages are going to be .... Dingbatz!!! But first  here  are Valentangle day 2-14:

Day 2: Trinity (Stephanie Kiefer)

Day 3: Minstrels (Hanna Geddes)

I did appreciate that Marguerite made a fragment for 2020 too! She called it Double Hearts. But this little fragment can be used in so many ways!!!

Day 5: Starsky (Sue Schneider) was a new pattern to me! I liked it a lot.

Day 6 was another special day. Marguerite hade presented a string that could be used when making mosaics! I will try that further on.

Day 7 was the Zenbutton day with Jack Stripes (Chrissie Frampton) and fragments

Day 8: Sun (Hanna Shan)

Day 9 with Taiga (Tomás Pádròs)

Day 10: Focus on corners!

Day 11

Day 12 Khala (Anica Gabrovec) 

Day 13: One more take on the mosaic-string

Day 14 Tangle an envelope

Last day of Valentangle was ofcourse on Valentines day! We were supposed to tangle an envelope. But my bitty book wouldn´t be big enough for an ordinary envelope. I once got a stack of Origami papers from someone that didn´t know what to do with them. I took one of those papers and made a tiny little envelope that would fit in my book. But ofcourse that envelope needed something in it so I tangled a last little Bijou which was a perfect match!

That´s all for now. Next time I hope my bitty book is finished!

Practicing Way Bop.

I think everyone knows that it takes practicing to learn a tangle. Most tangles are easy to learn and easy to draw. But there are tangles that need some more practicing than other tangles to learn them and know them by heart. Those tangles are often called high focus tangles. Of course there are differences between tanglers - what seems easy for one tangler might be hard for another. Sometimes I am not motivated to practice as much as I should to make a tangle beeing mine, and I abandon that tangle and maybe I don´t pick it up at all. But those tangles very often  come my way anyhow and I can´t avoid them much longer. This is interesting, they just show up and tell me to do them over again!  This happened in the last prompt in Todays Tangles - Keeping it Classic. Way Bop: A new possibility for me to learn! 

Step-outs are good. But I don´t like to have the step-out in front of me while tangling. I need to know the tangle by heart to be able to get the full benefit of tangling. 

On the first one I had to look at the step-out. It was a little struggle until Printemps, Striping and Flux could take care of the process and make it pleasant again.

After this I asked little Bijou to help. I made Waybop more than three times, acutally I tangled on the back of the Bijous too. The three last Bijous I didn´t need the step-outs any more! Happy moment!

The second tile was a joy to make! Not me struggling any more. Here with Jonqual, Zinger, Flux and Printemps. This was a way to make friends with a beautiful tangle and I guess Way Bop has come to stay with me this time! 

Daily tiles and a classphoto!

To me it is important to do my daily tile (=daily meditation)in one way or another. It helps me to keep my focus, to appreciate, to relax and stay calm. Every tile, and I mean every single one, represents something that is important to me. Every tile is a moment of gratitude for something in my life, gratitude for the method that says "anything is possible, just one stroke at a time". 

Tangles: Quandary, Pokeroot, Pokeleaf and Heartvine (Lori Howe). In gratitude for a short meeting that created a difference in my life.

Tangles: Pokeroot, Pokeleaf, Diva Dance rock-n´roll. In gratitude for Bach´s cello suites played by Jo Jo Ma.

Tangles: Mooka, Shattuck, Tipple, Pokeleaf and Knightsbridge. In gratitude for the Zentangle Method created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas.

Tangles: Qua-Sahnt (Heidi Halpern Kay) and Brizl (Susan Kelley Pundt and myself). In gratitude for friendship that means a lot in life.

Tangles: Zenith and Bales tangleations. In gratitude for little friend Bijou!

Of course there are days when everything seems to happen, almost no time at all left for tangling. But there are always at least 10-15 minutes! Who can say there isn´t? And 10 minutes is what it takes to make a little Bijou! Bijou is always a friend in lack of time! Yesterday was such a day. I had to go to the vet with our black Pumi Bisse, she has been limping for a while. It is one thing to be sitting in a waitingroom by yourself, another to take care of your dog during the examinations and x-ray and waiting for results. You can´t tangle. You just has to stay calm, and be comforting. Home again, having supper, taking care of other things that had to be done, I was very happy to have my little Bijous to go to before bedtime! 

Why do I write about this? I do because I want to stress the fact, that zentangle is not a competition, it is not about doing the perfect tile, it is not about being clever, it is not about having lots of time to spend on yourself, it is not about perfectionism and all that. It is all about the process. To slow down, to appreciate what comes out of the pen and leave the worries behind. Then appreciate the little piece of art that came out of the process. It is so simple!  

At last the classphoto from the CZT 32 Seminar! Love to look at this and remember the days we shared!

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!

I am the Diva´s weekly challenge 358

 March was going fast! Now it is already a new UMT (use-my-tangle)challenge at the Diva´s place. This month it came to Tomàs Padrós "Pick Pocket" This is a highfocus-tangle. I had to think a lot about what I was doing. First I made a little Bijou:

Then I tried it on tan surface. I found this heavyweight-paper in a book-shop and it is Acid-free. I liked the color, it is very close to original rennaissance-tiles. But with one big difference: The shading is much harder to do, which disturbs me.

Still I don´t draw Pick Pocket fluently but this is the result. Before I started I watched Laura drawing it here on YouTube!Dewd just poured out of Pic Pocket, which was fun! The string is based on my spilling of coffee. I did that on purpose.

I also used Staub Korn´s tangleation of Pick Pocket, which she named Picker Pocker!With Staubs permission here are the steps!

Oh by the way things happened yesterday which made me register for CZT32-seminar in october. It is hard to belive, but I am GOING! Never thought this would be possible! 

The Diva´s challenge 346 and one more take on Christmas

The first challenge for 2018 from the Diva is a Duotangle with two wonderful patterns: Phicops (BRad) and Huggins (Zt). Who can resist this? I made my tile on a tan surface, not original rennaisance but almost the same color.

Maybe there is too much space to the right of the tile, but I kind of like the way it turned out.

I had to do  more on Bijou duo-colored (Twelve-days-of-zentangle, day nine) to get something to play with: 

The one to the left: Shnek (Hanny Nura) and the one to the right: Ginili (Randi Wynne-Parry).

And together:

The fun is to move them around and get new shapes and pics! I loved this technique! 

2018; First page in the calendar and Twelve Days of Zentangle!

New Year and a new Calendar. The new one is also designed by Carole Ohl and she has invited a guest artist: Margaret Bremner. I like this calendar even more than the one from last year Mainly because the paper is another quality. It is White and not glossy and in my opinion it is easier to shade and the pen doesn´t slip away because of the surface!

I didn´t really know what to start with at first but then I decided to give Rumpus a round, since I didn´t try it too much before Christmas and I didn´t find it very easy to make it personal. I am glad I gave it a chance, since I found it both fun and relaxing to do! On the 1st of January I tried to follow Maria´s way of doing it on the video adding Toodles and auras too. I also let Dewd surround the whole page.

I haven´t done all of Twelve Days of Zentangle yet. But I intend to do some more.  On the ninth day we should use one black and one tan Bijou. I didn´t have tan ones and only a few black left. And I didn´t want to use one tan 8,9cm tan tile, since I´ve just a couple of these left too and I want to keep them for some other special occasions. But I had another tan heavy-weight paper and fourtunally I had a black one in the same quality so I just cut them into Bijou-size. I think it worked well!

The patterns I used are My Swing (Simone Menzel), Arukas and Nipa. I liked this technique very much and I think I´ll try it again!

Merry Christmas to all of you!

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!

Calendar and letters

I got stuck with Block´d (Jane Eileen) for some reason! For three days I played with squares in my calendar.

22nd of July: My first Block´d ever. Here with Metro (Anya Ipsen).
23rd of July: Block´d with Beelight (Zt).
24th of July: Block´d with Fragment W7 and Diva Dance (Zt.

Very relaxing to work with this pattern and it may take a lot of appearances! 

Then this happened: I ran into a video with Kitchen Table Tangles. I looked at it twice at least. It was all about embedding letters. I love letters. Letters are magic. But there is also a problem. A close friend of mine (not longer with us), she was an illustrator and made beautiful calligraphy. I followed her work during several years and I admired her creating so much beautiful letters! I know it takes many years of practice to be able to do what she did by hand, not at the computer. I decided not to go deeper into that calligraphy-thing because I figured out I won´t have that time at all. Looking att the video I found another way to think about it. And I couldn´t wait trying!

Actually I thought I couldn´t make letters beautifully. But looking at this I know it is possible. I loved to work with this the way Maria and Rick presented it in their video! It was so easy! I made my first steps with embedded letters on small Bijou. It felt safer in a way.

You can also check out Melinda Barlow´s lesson about embedded letters here! 

1st, 2nd and 3d of April. It is all about Dingbatz!

Dingbatz is taking over mydesk right now. Small little drawings I didn´t know about a week ago. Or I didn´t have a name for them. I have seen them in books and on typhographical things. They are all special. All unique. Or should be. I had not connected Dingbatz, or Dingbats as the typhographical term is, with zentangle. But Rick and Maria did and trying to do this it is all obvious. So my latest calendar page is more sketchy than it use to be:

First I tried to identify the patterns I used, but now I have decided not to do that. It is like going into the djungle, there comes new things all the time! And working on this there will be more fragments than anything else. Ofcourse, if there are obvious patterns like Paradox and Fescu f.ex. I can name them. As I did here.

Dingbatz are fun to draw on Bijou-tiles or on ATC:s. Here is one little Bijou:

Yes, it is easy to identify Pokeleaf and the Mooka-parts. But from now on I won´t talk about that when it is about Dingbatz.  They are fun to do and absolutely addictive! They are made in a very short time or no time at all. And very special! Love to do it!

I have a lot of beautiful books in my library. One is a collection of Russian Fairy-tales and these fairy-tales are illustrated by an artist called I. Bilibin.  His drawings are amazing and there are a lot of Dingbats to be found on the pages. Look at this one: