A long blog-post about Oops!

Warning! This will be a long blogpost! At the bottom of this post I will give a summary in Swedish dedicated to my students in the Workshop I had in Östhammar recently! Svensk sammanfattning i slutet.

In Zentangle we learn: There are No Mistakes! This was one of the first things I heard about when I started my Zentangle-journey. As things happens that doesn´t go the way we intended to on a tile, there is another word for it: Oops. O: Outstanding, O: Opportunities,P: Presented, S: Suddenly. This describes very well what it is all about. To look upon mistakes as there are no such things as mistakes, but new oportunities to go into another direction. 
Common Oopses:  The pen doesn´t work like expected, the ink comes too fast or doesn´t come at all, the drawn line occasionally doesn´t go the same way as in the step-out for a certain pattern and so on. Or spilling coffe all over the tile, not by purpose but by accident! Or a pet jumping on your hand while drawing a subtle line!

Very early I got a good advice, not to throw tiles away, (but keep them for further consideration) just because they didn´t look like I wanted them to look or because I thought I had ruined them! So I started to keep them in a box named "Z-bargain". I didn´t look into that box until recently when there came a prompt in a Fb-journaling group about Oops.

Digging in this box I found a lot of stuff but my first choice was a black  self-cut zendala, without date,  done long ago and another black tile done recently. Unfortunately I forgot to immediately take a before-pic but this is what the zendala looked like after I had highlighted it a little more and worked on the gem adding some orbs around it.

Patterns: Arukas, Ammon (Sandy Steen Bartholomew) and
´Dillo (Lori Manoogian)

I still didn´t like it so I made a cut with my circlecutter (not a very good one) and fixed the unbalance.

The squared tile I made while preparing for the workshop in Östhammar about Reticula and fragments. It was in a mess and I did mess it up even more using Colorsoftpencils. That´s when I remembered to take a pic:

The Colorsoft pencils was a bad idea. After adding the colors nothing else seemed to work on this surface! I realized that I had to do something totally different and something I usually never do working on my tiles. In my other artwork I often make collages and mixed media and recently I have been working on paper from books to make them translucent so that the words will appear on the collage without too much paper to be seen. I glued such a piece of paper on my tile and then worked on it a little bit more. Here is the final journal page:

This was such a satisfying way to bring tiles alive! I had to dig a little deeper in my box and found this:

Lucky for me this tile was dated! As I found it I knew what this was all about. I was deeply disappointed with the tile at the time I made it. Now I didn´t think it looked too bad but I was still bored looking at it. The reasons why I gave it all up was, I didn´t like the shading at all and to save the tile I used watercolor on it and the green pen obviousely wasn´t dry enough! What to do with this? My first impulse this time was to grab another tile to recue, I wasn´t sure I could make anything with this one. But then I said to myself: There are No Mistakes! And from there I went on working on it. Doing so, I really enjoyed the process and here is my finished tile:

Patterns: EAXY (Nadine Roller), Fassett (Lynn Shelton Mead)
and as a border I used Centipede.

I was happy when I saw the outcome and grateful to this opportunity to give this tile new dimensions! Here is the final journalpage:

Of course I have earned new skills and techniques over time,but this is NOT about that at all. This is about finding out the truth in the message: No Mistakes only New Opportunities. A way to look upon my work from another angle, without condemning, but with curiosity where everything will go and what will happen if I do so or so. A chance to discover new solutions. To embrace the Oopses and be grateful as they appear. This is one of those things that are important in the Zentangle method. When I am able to watch my work in the light of "No misstakes" a magic door opens up and wonderful things might happen! I do love that.

Svensk sammanfattning: I Zentangle lär vi oss att ”Det finns inga misstag!” Det var en av de första sakerna jag fick höra när jag började min Zentangle-resa. När oväntade saker händer, som inte tycks bli det man själv avsett använder vi ett annat ord i Zentangle: Oops. Skulle man översätta det så blir det  istället EMVP: E: Enastående, M: Möjligheter, V: Visar sig  P: Plötsligt.  Att byta synsätt, se på misstag som att de inte alls är misstag utan nya, oväntade möjligheter att gå i en annan riktning.

Vanliga Oopses eller på svenska Emvp: En penna ger ifrån sig för mycket bläck, för litet, eller inget alls, en ritad linje avviker från en step-out,  eller man råkar spilla kaffe över sitt arbete. Eller att något husdjur hoppar mot ens hand när man ritar!

 Tidigt fick jag också ett gott råd: Kasta inte bort en tile bara för att den inte ser ut som jag tänkt mig eller för att jag tyckte att jag förstört den av någon anledning. Så jag spar allting i en låda som jag döpt till Z-fynd. Jag brukar inte titta i den lådan särskilt ofta tills  nyligen när en prompt kom upp i en Journaling-grupp på Fb. Prompten handlar just om Oops.

När jag grävde i lådan hittade jag både det ena och andra och valde till slut ut en svart, odaterad Zendala som jag själv skurit till. Den gjorde jag för länge sedan. Jag valde också en nyligen undanlagd svart tile som jag gjort när jag planerade workshopen i Östhammar. Den blev rörig och jag la undan den och gjorde en ny.  Tyvärr tog jag "före"-bilderna efter att jag kommit en bit på väg i arbetet. Zendalan bearbetade jag först med att förstärka högdagrar och lägga till rundlar runt stenen i mitten. Men det räckte inte, jag fick också skära ner den till en mindre zendala för att få en balans. Den nyare tilen rörde jag först till ännu mer  genom att använda Colorsoft pennor, vilket gjorde att inga andra pennor fungerade på den ytan, så jag fick ta till metoder från mina collage innan den blev sig själv. Ingen zentangle precis men en ZIA! Jag sammanfogade allt sammans till en ny sida i min journal som jag är glad åt!

Nästa räddningsaktion blev så en daterad tile från 2016. När jag återsåg den kände jag igen känslan av besvikelse som medförde att jag la undan den. Orsaker: Jag var totalt missnöjd med skuggningen och försökte uppväga det med att lägga till akvarellfärg, vilket medförde att det gröna bläcket flöt ut. Oops! I efterhand kan jag konstatera att jag hade fallit för frestelsen att planera den här tilen och den blev inte som jag hade tänkt från början. Men nu tyckte jag inte att den var så dålig som då. Efter en viss tvekan fortsatte jag, nu utan att planera! Jag njöt av processen och blev glatt överraskad över resultatet!

Självklart har jag genom åren lärt mig mer och tillägnat mig fler tekniker, men det här handlar inte om det. Det här handlar om att se att det faktiskt inte finns några misstag, bara nya möjligheter. Ett annat sätt att se på arbetet jag gör från en annan vinkel, utan fördömanden och snabba slutsatser. Om att ta till mig Oopsen och vara tacksam när de visar sig, för de ger mig chansen att upptäcka skönhet i det oväntade. För mig har det tagit tid att kunna vila i detta! ”Inga misstag” är en magisk dörr om öppnar sig och underbara saker kan hända! Det gillar jag!

Zenbuttons and My Tile 2

Zenbutton is a quite new word in Zentangle World. Marguerite Sammama brought it up. Here is the background and how to do it!

I practiced on Bijou some time ago, during the Valentangle-period, but didn´t get hooked. I have seen a lots of beautiful buttons around which made me want to give it a go one more time. This time I didn´t think button at all, but reticula and fragments. Which happened to be the clue. Yes I have read Marguerites guide before and I knew where she got the idea from. But it just didn´t speak to me. This time I made it on a tan tile 8,9x8,9 cm, which I had got from my friend Marie Penzing. I have run out of rennaisance tiles...
 Don´t exactly know what was the difference this time, but I didn´t think much of the result but focused on one stroke at a time. Oh there was an Oops! I appreciated this Oops, it led me into another direction, making my Chop as a fragment on the button! I think I will use it some other time, it was fun! The fragments I used on this Button are: G23, D16, C4, V5 and Lisbon Fragment (Henrike Bratz). So happy with this button I had to do one more the next day:

Well I have ran out of rennaisance tiles and I am looking for substitutes, since the originals are not easy to get in Sweden. I took a cardstock from the back of a watercolorpad which is accid-free. It is heavyweight though and with a hard surface. My cutting-machine didn´t like it at all. I forced it to cut though and now it has got a terribly squeezing sound when I touch it! It maybe kills my cutter but I loved this surface a lot and the pens didn´t have any problem with it.
This time I used the fragments: T5, K3, H16 and Chrissie Frampton´s fragment from her pattern Jackstripes. Instead of using a fragment in the center I made a little gem, which I don´t draw often. 

Today´s meditation. I wanted to do one more for My-tile-project. I wanted to try it on a black tile, which was really fun! My firs tile you find here.

Tangles of my choice except for the month:
And (Sandra Harsveld) : Anita 
Wacho (Livia Chua): Westin
Cubine (Zt) : August
Tipple (Zt) : Favouritetangle

I am thinking of using this concept further on but not referring to myself. It is such a good concept, I love it. Thank´s to Nancy Domnauer who came up with the idea!

I am the Diva´s weekly, the calendar 25th-30ies of May and Keenes

This will be a quite heavy post depending on the heath of the month May. We haven´t had so warm in May during my lifetime. I heard it on the radio, we haven´t had this climate since 1776!!! May is the month when the garden needs a lot of work, when seeds and plants has to be set in the soil. But I wonder where everything goes this year....

Yes I have been tangling. My studio is the best place in the house when it is to hot to stay long outdoors. I start with the Diva´s challenge: a monotangle with Carole Ohl´s Puf.

I learned Puf as one of the first tangles on my tanglejourney. Then I didn´t understand what tangleations means and how this works. I didn´t even see the similar start as Bales has. Now I know that Puf and Bales are closely related to eachother and I love them both. I find it very interesting the way patterns are connected to eachother, the way they can emerge from eachother and go into something else further on.

Here comes my calendarpages from the last six days (oh time´s running fast):

As I watched Melinda Barlow drawing my pattern in her video I felt strongly I wasn´t finished playing with it. So this is what I made on this page. Cheesecloth (Suzanne McNeill), Tofube (Damy) and Cubine also appeared.

In Square One Keenes is the focus tangle. So much fun! Couldn´t stop actually as I started. the negative spaces this pattern creates are so interesting. Tipple was the one who followed. This was the natural way to go, Tipple is a relative to Keenes in more than one way!

Then I went on with the tile for Square One. The first thing was an Oops taking the scene. I didn´t feel like starting this tile with an Oops, so I put it aside and started it all over again. I know, no misstakes, and this is not the way I use to do it. But here comes my first tile for Square One: 

I love this tangle! Though it seems simple, it has so many dimensions! I used it as a string too as you might see. Fescu is there and also Tipple of course.

This evening I started over again with the Oops-tile.  It was so fun to go on with it, not knowing what would happen.

The string is gone (it was the same string as on the first tile. There is some tranzending in this one, which I needed to make something new out of the Oops and I also blackened parts, not to cover but to emphasize the negative spaces. Oh yes I appreciate there are no misstakes in zentangle! Oopses comes my way to give me another direction. I love that!

13th-15th of April and a black tile

Oof is an official tanglepattern and I have been using it now and then. I like to play with it and it always looks different! Now I found Cris Letourneau´s tangleation Oofs-A-Daisy which is a great one too! I had to try it on a black tile:

It went this way with a lot of Tipple. Very relaxing moment with this tile!

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.

28th-31th of December and a Happy New Year 2018

My last post with the calender for 2017. The end of an adventure with tangles. 

28th: Phen (Beth Snodderly). I find this pattern interesting. Easy to learn and very simple. Which opens up a lot of possibilities, how to use it, make tangleations and how to embellish it. 

29th: Phen with Organic (Sayantika Ray) and Fescu.

30th: Organic, Pen and Opus. Opus is a tangle I don´t use much and it is a tangle I need to work on to make it mine. Tipple down in the right corner too.

Last day of the year. I looked through my calendar and there are a lot of interesting and fun patterns during the year. I picked som of those that were new to me. Balloya came across my way as I saw a video from Melinda Barlow. In March I played with Edgar (Judy Genovese). I met Meshmerize (Tomas Padros) in the autumn and Toodles was in the #Twelvedaysofzentangle from Zentangle.com 

Ofcourse there were a lot of other new patterns but as I started with Balloya, that pattern decided which would follow!

I found another very nice pattern as I saw a tile done by Ela Rieger. It is called Flormoeba and is designed by someone with a pseudonym; cherokee 410. I needed to try it on a black tile so here it is:

Isn´t it a lovely pattern! You´ll find it here.

Today it is the first day of the New Year 2018. I had to celebrate it doing my first tile for this year:

Yes, Flormoeba again, Organic (Sayantika Ray) Orbs de La Dee (Anneke van Dam), a blown up part of Featherfall (Carole Ohl), Diva Dance, Striping, Tipple and Fescu.

Well I guess I will go on posting from my new calendar in the future. I got one as a gift from a friend of mine. The tangling in the calendar is very addictive. And I love that addiction!!!

Striping on a black zendala and calendarpage 25th-27th of November.

In PP01 there was a video with striping on a black presprung zendala. As I didn´t have a presprung black zendala I searched the web and found a template I wanted to try. Here is what I decided to try. I printed the template, used my white charcoalpencil on the back of the paper, placed it on my zendala and traced the lines and so there I had a "presprung" zendala! I don´t use templates very often but for this purpose I thought it would work ok.  This is the first time I made a monotangle on a zendala and I must say it was the perfect thing to do on a presprung one! I do enjoy the process  working on a zendala very much. So: More zendala in my life is a promise to myself. 

Here is the calendarpage:

Viaduct (Wayne Harlow), Cubine, Beeline and Drupe. A strange combination I thought. Especially to get some Drupe on 27th to be done! But however it came out and I do love this page more than I thought I would. Cubine is a favourite of mine for sure but I wouldn´t have chosen these combinations if I hadn´t followed the #Giveatangle2017 -prompts! So glad I did. 

Calendar 22nd-24th of November and the Diva´s challenge 342

Margaret Mc Kerihan´s Ta-Da is a favourite of mine though it was some time since I used it. Thank´s to #Giveatangle2017 I found it again! Some small Fengles also joined and then came Phroz (Lynn Shelton Mead) and Viaduct (Wayne Harlow).

I am the Diva´s challenge no 342 is about making a duotangle using Paradox and Bunzo. Paradox is one of those I want to make friends with. The pattern looks complicated, but as Laura Harms says: It isn´t complicated to draw. I don´t use it very often though I find it relaxing and flowing easily. It is something else. I find it difficult to make variations on. If I try to, I am not so pleased with the result. It is like Paradox is so perfect by itself... But I like to let Bunzo play with it. It kind of soften the sharpness in Paradox. I made it on black tile today and here it is:

Bunzo is a kind of wild striping and I like that a lot. Like there are something organic inside it waiting to come out!

16th-18th of November + Crazy Huggins

Following the November Prompts in Today´s Tangles (FB)in the calendar is very relaxing! And fun!

16th of November: Sandswirl (Kerry Heun) and Molygon.
17th of November: A favourite of mine,Papermint was added.
18th of Novemger: Then a new to me tangle, Flourish (Stephanie Skelton) showed up. I love the way the combos of patterns worked out.

Of course I watched the video about Crazy Huggins published by Zentangle on Youtube. I was unsure about doing it, since I don´t have the new Sakura gelly-pens. They are not available in Europe at the moment. Hopefully they will soon, since I would like to work with different tips on the pen. I have got some, but the quality of the ink is not so good, at least not on the finest tip 0,7. It works well on black gesso-surface, but not on the tiles, it seems to disappear into the surface. But despite of this I decided to give Crazy Huggins on black tile a round!

I did it as an exercise, following Molly´s instructions and I am quite satisfied with the result. I love working on black tiles. But I am soon running out of them....

10th - 15th of November

A busy time and I have not updated my blog! But I have been tangling in my calendar between singing in my beloved choir "Siljans Vokalensemble"! So here we go:

10th of November: Betwinkle (Alexandria Cortez Diaz) and Noon.
11th of November: Betwinkle with Papz (mine). It was special to have my own tangle as #Giveatangle2017! I loved to see what others has created. Here I tried some tranluZence with the beautiful Betwinkle!

12th of November: Papz meeting LaBel (Sue Jacobs).

In the Fb-group Today´s Tangles, Sandy Kelley-Jones reminded us all that in zentangle there are no ups and downs, so I tried to turn my page 180°!  Because of the numbers this is easy to forget. But this time I happened to like the page more when I turned it!

13th of November: Huggins and LaBel. Huggins is such a great tangle! I just love it! Some extra Huggins appeared. There are days I tangle in my calendar at the Breakfast-table. I spilled some tea on this page accidently. And ooops some more Huggins grew up right there!

14th of November: Verdigog with more Huggins.

15th of November: Molygon and Verdigogh.

It is a little more than a month till Christmas. But here I have felt like it was Christmas due to the last Newsletter from Zentangle! Rick and Maria has published a Project-pack with some videos that are like Christmas-gifts! Here are my latests tiles inspired by the videos:

A new zentangle Dewd! So nice and so addictive to draw! You find the video here.

And this is a new tangleation on Bales as shown by Martha Huggins here. I loved this little one while listening to her voice telling what to do. So easy and so much zen. 

IAST 215

I don´t work n ATC-size (8,9x6,4 cm) very often. But I got a few black ATC:s from a friend. I wanted to try this weeks IAST-challenge #215 on this one:

Two patterns suggested for the string: Clob (Jem Miller) and Delys (Jenna Black). Love them both and will sure use them further on!

Diva´s challenge- Guest Post Marguerite Samama

As I said in yesterdays´s post, Marguerite Samama made the guestpost for the Diva this week. The focus is on fragment D1 from Zentangle Primer. It is such a fun challenge, it can lead to whatever! I love this because there is a lot of possibilities to get surprised! Here I tried this on a black tile:

Except D1 I used Wud (Joni Feddersen) and Snorr (Sandy Hunter. The string is Margaret Bremners "ropestring". It was such a joy to do this! Thank´s Marguerite for a relaxing challenge!

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! 

One more Heart

I couldn´t help it. But the truth is, I had to make one more Heart! I had to try it on a black tile too! So here is my 5th (!) Heart for the Diva´s challenge!

Papyrus (Suzanne McNeill) in the background. Fluxecho (Lynn Shelton Mead), Flux and Tipple. That is all there are. Tangling on a black tile again was a happy moment. I love this surface! Because of the problem getting original black tiles I am very economical with those I have got! Too economical! So now I promise myself to work on them more regularely! Because I enjoy doing it very much! 

About the Heartshape as a string: It is liberating to use the shape as a string, at least for me it is. I can leave all my representations about hearts aside and only let the tangles flow. It is amazing. Thank´s Jessica Davies!

10th, 11th and 12th of May

This page i only use Fragments from the Zentangle Primer. I have thought about that for a while inspired by Simone Menzel´s work.

It was very fun and I only used one kind of Reticula, the one with squares. I started with one I have tried before, W7,  then I  went on with P6, M7, P5 and F2. M7 became a favourite! I think I will go on with this Fragment-Reticula-thing for a while it is so fun!

I talked a lot about Molygon in yesterday post. Today I tried it on a black tile and I got a tip from Sue Zanker, Australian tangler, to make them fatter.

Now I think I found a way to work with Molygon that I feel more comfortable with. This one was really relaxing to do and I like the way it talks to me.

Frunky Diva´s challenge

I am not joking when I say I got Frunky this time by the Diva´s challenge! I just couldn´t stop doing this pattern from Katharina Königsbauer-Kolb! I tried it on black with Meringue (Kelley Kelly) and some Tipple....

I tried it on a little Bijou with Striping......

and finally on an original white tile with Joki (Kim Arts-Bruins).

27th of February and string 240-242

February 2017 is soon gone. Looking backwards, it has been a busy month and my studio is full of things going on. The calendar is very often my start of the day, before I go into anything else. It wasn´t planned but now I have had three days with Waybop, a tangle I didn´t even like from the start....

The last one today is different from the two before, as I only used 6 "seeds". It looks more like a decal or something you put on the wall. I liked it though. The patterns except Waybop, are parts of Arukas, Pardox, Caviar (Lori Howe), and Mashed (Lori Byerly). there is one thing with the calendar I am not comfortable with. As I blacken bigger areas, the black doesn´t come out black and even, if I try to make more layers of black it will all be messed up. Now I have tried that, I will be more careful not doing so much black areas.

Now to the strings I have done´. The first one, string 240 (Anette Plaga Lodde):

A monotangle with Tri-O (Hanny Nura). This one started with a little Oops and then it went out of control into a monotangle-orgy! It was so fun and I think Trio will be one of my favourites. 

The second one, string 241 (Barbara Finwall):

Barbara Finwall has made a lot of very interesting strings! I used it with Yaw-Dee (Peg Farmer), the focustangle in Square One, Huggins and Beadlines (Margaret Bremner). Yaw-Dee is so cool!

The third one string 242(Joyce Blodgett):

Yes! A black tile at last! Haven´t done that for some time now. It is odd that I did this since it was my first try on Ragged Ray´s pattern Flec. But I had to try that since I liked his example on the black tile in his blog a lot! It is a fun and easy pattern. I will sure try it more. Here I used it with FragmentY1 in a wavy reticula following the string and Some tipple.