I am the Diva´s Challenge 380

Laura Harms has run her blog 8 years now! Amazing! She is celebrating this with a challenge based on circles. As I am quite busy right now I had to go for a quickie, since I wanted to celebrate this! And Zenbuttons are so fun to do, invented by Marguerite Samama! Here is my Zenbutton on a cardstock selfcut tile:

Congratulations Laura! Hope you will go on for another 8 years! By the way, I used  Sakura micron: pink and burgundy.

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). 

Celebrating Lunar Eclipse - Blood-Moon with IAST253

Did you see the Moon-Eclipse last night? Here in Sweden we call it Blood-Moon. I watched the part of it I could see from here where I am and doing this I realized I should have taken my car and gone to some place else where we could see the whole thing better. But I have watched a lot of great photos people have taken! Today I went for IAST 253. 

With Nipa, Crescent Moon and Printemps we were supposed to celebrate the Moonevent in a M-string. These patterns were all perfect doing this and I enjoyed it much more than I thought of. The moon itself was in my mind constantly while tangling this tile. I was thinking of using color but then I decided enough is enough and I am satisfied with it the way it is. Thank´s Adele for one more pleasant and relaxing challenge! 

4th-6th of June

Time is running fast these days! Last three days has been filled with activity! The 5th was the World Environment Day and that was a great day from early morning till late at night, since I took part in an event about our forrests here where I live. We had bright sky and sunshine but not too hot. With us on our guided tour through Ore Skogsrike was Jens Holm who is in the parliament for Vänsterpartiet.

Yesterday was our National Day with a lot of celebration. We went to Levin´s Garden Center nearby that also celebrated their 100th birthday! But here comes my calendar:

Msst (Zt) is a tangle I don´t use very often. I find it a little bit difficult to get it together with other patterns. The transistions are not so easy to make. It is a lovely pattern though. Now I tried to find my ways for it. On the 5th it was so obvious I let Nipa join, then on the 6th I tried it with a completely different pattern, Asian Fans (Suzanne McNeill). Somehow it worked quite well, maybe not too much of Msst though!  

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!

I am the Diva´s challenge no. 348

This time of year, in the end of February the Diva´s challenge is about celebrating Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day. Read more about it in her blog! This is my third participation and my fourth tile on the theme:

It has become special to tangle with the Moebius-band once a year. I didn´t know anything about Moebius Syndrome, before starting following the Diva´s challenge. It is such an unusual Syndrome. But the string is challenging. For this year I tangled around the string. The patterns I used are: Dublin (Chris Titus), Diva Dance, Zinger, Pokeleaf Maze and `NZeppel.

Thank´s to Laura Harms giving som much more than just a challenge!

Here are my previous entrances:

2016

2017

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!!!

Friday - Zendaladay!

Today I felt like celebrating something. No birthday around no special events. Just give myself the opportunity to work on a zendalatile celebrating Friday. Here it is:

The patterns appearing are: Mooka, Tipple, Nipa, Quabog (all Zt) and Lenche (mine). I very seldom use gold in my tiles but today I felt like it was the right thing to do. Working on a Zendala is very relazing. But I admit it is also sometimes frustrating. It happens quite often I come to a point working on a Zendala when I have doubts about what I am doing and start to think of the result instead of the process which means loosing my focus. It doesn´t happen very often working on an ordinary tile 8,9x8,9. But a Zendala takes more time for me to do and then unwanted thoughts may pop up during the process. By now I have learned telling myself, when this happens, just go on knowing that my doubts just are reminders that I´m not finished yet! And it works!

So here is my Friday Zendala. Finished. Doubts forgotten.

2000 members in Today´s Tangles and a pattern new to me

Today´s Tangles on FB i celebrating again! This time we have reached 2000 members! To celebrate this we published a string made by me and Sandy and asked the members to celebrate with us by tangling in this string. As Jane Eileen is the guestartist we asked for using her tanglesuggestions this time. Here is the string: 

And here comes my two tiles:

I used Jane Eileen´s pattern 4Mom, Ah I love You, Socc (Erin Olson), Beadline (Margaret Bremner) and Crescent moon (Zt) in my first one.

In my second tile I used Jane´s patterns and added Cubine and Printemps.

In Square One Ballenchain (Sandy Steen Bartholomew) is the focuspattern after Hakrall. I have seen it done and I have had the stepouts for some time but not tried it. It is a high-focus tangle as well as Hakrall was. Here is my first tile ever with it:

In the background I used Maria Tovar Perez Barquillos and I kept Ballenchain simple. As I got the hang of this I found it very relaxig to draw and I se a lot of possible ways to work on this.

25th-30th of August

The calendar is a perfect companion when I am on journey! I have been away from home a couple of days visiting an old friend of mine and my grandchild. Tangling-time is hard to find under these circumstanses, but the calendar is the solution! 

It can take a lot of time to do it or about no time at all. Hakrall (Holly Atwater) did travel with me. I tried to do it in different ways. It is a highfocus-tangle and I made a lot of Hick-ups as I started in my sketchbook and on the 25th the Hic-kups were still present. Hick-ups is a word I got from Lynn Shelton Mead and I must say it describes very clearly what is happening drawing this tangle! The easiest way to do it for me was to combine it with other tangles. So from 26th I let it play with Sand Swirl (Karry Heun)(using my Lamy fountainpen) and 27th with Balloya (Anya Lothrop). the Bronx Cherrie was also there.

28th was my last day away from home and I continued with Hakrall together with Dansk (Margaret Bremner), Pokeroot and Knightsbridge. I tried to put Hakrall in a box too. 29th, at home celebrating my birthday I waved goodbye to Hakrall for this time. I have been waiting to get Lynn Shelton Mead´s Tangledeck 1 and 2, and guesswhat was waiting for me at the postoffice this day! I got myself a birthdaygift kind of! Looking through the stepouts she made of patterns well known and her examples was so inspiring so I just started off with Verdigogh and following her example I made auras around it! It got a quite different and pleasant look and I loved to try this!

Happy Birthday IAST! And triangles in my calendar.

Isn´t this amazing! Adele Bruno has challenged tanglers all over the world for four years now! IAST Happy birthday to you! Every birthday adds one more candle to the string. Here is my happybirthdaytile for IAST 208.

The patterns for the celebration are: Trella (Adele Bruno), Copada (Margaret Bremner), Wud (Joni Feddersen) and Knightsbridge (Zt). I colored this tile with micron and watercolor. It took me some time to figure out where to start and how to make this. Then I decided to skip the planning and started with my favouriteborder, Wud. This is what came out. All patterns Adele wanted us to use are there! I am surprised!

In my calendar I tried to use patterns with triangles only the last three days. I love triangles and very often I come back to triangles as I paint. It also happens that Marguerite Samama is the guestblogger for the Diva´s challenge and she chose a fragment as a challenge. Fragment D1. As I thought about it I immediately saw that it would be perfect for my little triangle-play! So this will be my first entry on that challenge!

16th of August: Impossible triangles, Fragment D1 from Zentangle Primer and Knase.
17th of August: Fragment D1, D11, `NZeppel and Munchin.
18th of August: Tringle (Lara Williams) and `NZeppel. 

Tringle was all new to me, I found it here.

13th, 14th and 15th of August

Here is my latest calendarpage:

13th of August: Bysomnus (Milde Weiss) is a fascinating tangle. It is kind of wild and starting to draw it makes things go in other ways than expected. I love that but I intended to try Caps (Sue Bailey) with it too, but Bysomnus can be very dominant and you hardly see Caps in this!
14th of August: Caps in focus because I felt some guilt for what happened on the 13th! Caps is a fun pattern and drawing it make me feel a party is going on! Here with CO2 (Antonine Megger) and Fescu.
15th of August: Today our black beautiful Pumi Bisse celebrates her 2nd birthday! Lenche, is a pattern made for her and the name Lenche is Bisse´s hungarian name. Caps went on and Oddbalz (Francoise Lip) joined!

As Bysomnus has its caracter of a wild and dominant pattern it will be a pattern I come back to, because it teases me and I never know where it will go! I can´t lock it in! I can´t decide what will happen next! So yesterday i decided to try it with a string on a tile:

I tangled in a round again, since I want to explore the possibilities doing so. Starting with Bysomnus, adding Sandswirl (Karry Heun), Diva Dance (Zt) and at last I added Tipple (Zt) as a border. I felt I had to do that too keep Bysomnus where I placed it! :)

Recycling again

Going on with recycling watercolorpaintings! I like to do this. It is a nice feeling to make something of paintings I looked at as a failure. Something that can´t be a failure. Because when you tangle nothing is a failure, just a possibility!

As I opened Fb this morning I found out that a friend and tangler, Ela Rieger has her birthday and looking at the tile I wanted to make this one to celebrate her. And it came out like a birthday-cake I think! With berries and candies and things in between. No I didn´t plan this, I only had her birthday in mind tangling! The patterns are: Flez (Lori Howe),Nobbless (Jane Nichols), Schlingl (Ela Rieger), Hearts4G (mine), Fescu and Florz. The string is the old painting.

Celebrating IAST 200

Celebrating the 200th IAST-challenge Adele Bruno has come up with a new tangle: C-Perf. There are several possibilities to play with C-perf and Adele describes it as a happy tangle. It is. And it flows so gentle and easy over the surface.

I do like the C-perf. But confused about how different it looks depending on what kind of C you use. It is a monotangle but doesn´t look like one! Adele´s step-out is a story about the way a pattern develops and worth reading! I will get back to the C-Perf and try it out more. So for now: Congratulations to the 200th Challenge!

Calendar 19th-24th of June

After my latest post we have been celebrating Solstice or as we call it in Sweden: Midsummers Eve and Midsummers Day. This must be the most Swedish tradition there is! Jumping and dancing round a poole decorated with leafs, flowers and wreaths! Eating, drinking and singing Swedish drinking songs.

I am not sure this affected my calendarpages. They are all filled with O-tangles for "Today´s Tangles".

Maybe they are a little busy. But I liked to do them. There is only one tangle I haven´t tried before and that is Owls by Beth Snoderly on 22nd. But some of the patterns I don´t use regularely.

The patterns are: Onamato (Zt), (O)by Damy, Orbs de la Dee (Anneke van Dam), Olb (Helen Williams), O (Adele Bruno), Off Key (Lori Byerly), Orange Arc (Sandra Strait) Oybay (Antonine Koval), Opus (Zt), Owls (Beth Snoderly), Organic (Sayantika Ray), Ovy (Adam Roades), Oke (Michele Beauchamp), On Target (Barbara Finwall) and Oof (Zt).

Hearts 4 G - new pattern!

My oldest son, Gunnar, had his birthday yesterday. He is now 36 years old! I can´t belive time has passed that fast! I still remember everything about holding him the first time in life! Yesterday I concentrated my thoughts on him and then this pattern appeard on the paper. I decided to make it for him and draw it on a rennaisance tile. I don´t know what he will think about it, but he is coming here thursday next week and than I´ll know!

The other patterns here are Showgirl (Vicki Bassett), Apacore (Lori Manoogian), Tipple (Zt) and Maze (Zt). Well yes, it is a heart-tangle and there might be patterns like this around. I haven´t done any pattern using hearts before and this is quite whimsical. First I wasn´t sure to even call it a pattern, but sleeping on it I decided to name it and use it. The hearts are drawn close to eachother and drawn in a way that makes them fit in closely.

Next to do was to make step-out. And try it on a regular white tile.

Here it is with Papz (mine), Paizel (Angie Vangalis) and Cheesecloth (Suzanne Mc Neill).

Finally here are the step-outs:

This pic is scanned to get the ultimate sharpness, but the color 
is not right. The white is too white and the backgroundcolor should be like in the photo of the rennaisance-tile above.

If you like this pattern, let me know! You are of course free to use this pattern as you please!

Amanda Day - Earth Day

I am the Diva´s challenge no. 313 is for celebrating Earth Day or Amanda Day. Laura tells about her son Chewie when he was four years old, he suggested that the Earth should be named Amanda. We are supposed to make our challenge for this Day and Laura herself used package material for her tangle. I love the recycling idea in art as well as in living so I made one tile of paperboard from a box I hadn´t thrown away. Here it is:

I used black micron, gold and white Gellypen, white charcoalpen, sepia fineliner and distress markers for shading. The patterns are: Wud (Joni Feddersen), Fun Bee (Beate Winkler), Papz (mine), Iris (mine), Flux (Zt), Tipple (Zt) and Celtic Knot which I wrote about in my last post. It was fun. I will do more recycling! Just for fun!

13th, 14th and 15th of April

This week Eastern is celebrated all over the world. Of course this affects the tangling as well. I use to sing with the church-choir a lot this special week. But this year I caught a nasty cold that has taken away my voice badly. Not one note has come out of my troat! But I have done some tangeling in my calendar!

 No planning. But a lot of influences from Melinda Barlow´s videos on YouTube! 

13th of April: 5C Aura by Ina Sonnenmoser.
14th of April: Balloya by Anya Lothrop, Beadlines by Margaret Bremner, Printemps, Mooka, Tipple, Fescu and Flux, all Zt.
15th of April: 5C Wrapped and 5C Aura, both by Ina Sonnenmoser. Then some tiny Black Perlz and Fescu with Echoing lines.

As I looked on this page I could see in what way Eastern has affected it! Thursday was quite calm (I had some fever) and the black star down in the bottom must symbolize Judas leaving the others at the last supper. It wasn´t my intention to make it black but it went that way. Friday, "Långfredag" in Swedish and Good Friday in English: It went in such a dramatic way. I started with the Balloya as I had watched Melinda Barlow´s video. That pattern I had seen before but it didn´t attract me before watching her doing it. There are crosses everywhere! Today the 15th, is the day after crucifixion and everything has changed. The diciples are afraid, chocked not knowing what to do or where to go, so they stayed close to eachother. 

My point in writing this is, weather I like it or not, or weather you like it or not, Tangeling brings out into the light what is affecting me/you at the moment. It is not always obvious but it is more there then one can recognize at the first glance.

One more for the Diva´s 300

I was inspired by Ilse´s 3z in the Diva´s challenge so I needed to try one myself!

I wanted to keep it simple this time using Artoo (Laura Harms) and Drawings (Zt) and I liked the outcome. I just didn´t have time to think, just to draw it.

26th of January and I am the Diva´s challenge no 300

I want to go on with Mooka to learn more about the possibilities. Today with Shattuck, Ix and Tipple, all zentangles.

Now to the challenge of the Diva. No 300 is special. It is a celbration of course! Here you can read all about it and see all the beautiful entries!. If it wasn´t for Laura Harms blog and her challenges I wouldn´t have known anything about Moebius Syndrome. Here are my two entries for this challenge:

I found it quite tricky to include the Moebius logotype. First I wasn´t satisfied with my zendala, but it is like it is and another glanze at it makes it anyway satisfying. The other patterns are: Diva Dance, Fescu, Cubine, Paradox, Echoism and Onamato, all Zentangles. 

I also wanted to try it on a marbeled background with the logotype in a smaller size. Here the patterns are: Artoo (Laura Harms), and from Zentangles: Striping, Flux, Tipple, and Diva Dance, I am more satisfied with this tile, since I think the logotype was better executed.