7th-12th of March

As I have been busy with my paintings last few weeks I haven´t spent much time tangling! But then the calendar is perfect to keep me on the road, doing something every day!

Last three days I have practiced Tofube (Damy). It is the focus tangle in Square One. At first I didn´t really get it as you might notice. But it was fun and I went on with it and now I like it a lot! I let Huggins make the job on 11th which made me take it to my heart! 

Reflections on "Non-representational"

As I ran into Zentangle method, one of the first things I heard of was that Zentangle was non-representational. To me that means Abstract. It isn´t made to look like anything. I was attracted by this idea, since that was very close to my thoughts about my own art. Of course I can draw a cat and then tangle on it. But as I do that I immediately jump into planning. Another aspect of this is  that the cat has a top and a bottom. Zentangle hasn´t. Nothing prevents me from doing tangles on a cat just for fun but the only thing this way of drawing has in common with the zentanglemethod is the structured patterns.

Today I made a happy tangling, doing an exercise from Zentangle Primer using Shattuck, Jetties and Bales. Couldn´t resist to make the tangleation of Bales I learned from Martha Huggins.  Here it is:

Jetties is a pattern consisting of orbs. Could be balls in the eyes of the observer and if so it could be representational. But the meaning of non-representational is something else. Abstract doesn´t mean there are no recognizable objects. The picture as whole is abstract and there is no intention to make it in an other direction. Maybe this Shattuck may look like a fence? If the observer think it is, than it is ok, but there is no intention to make a fence, the interpretation is in the observers eye.

In abstract art you find a lot of symbols, well known or only known by the artist. Patterns are used in symbolic ways. In zentangle this also happens, but it is always unpredictable, since there is no planning. Even if this was an exercise, I didn´t plan the outcome, but I decided to use these patterns as suggested in the exercise.

This tile is special in another way. Tanglers are using "chops" to sign their tiles. Till now I have used the signature I use on my paintings. But today I knew what my chop should look like! It took some time, but here it was!

Another example of non-representational drawing:

I tangled the cover of the notebook I got from my granddaughter a couple of days ago. Tangles used: Showgirl (Vicki Bassett) and Well Well (Zt). Looking at it I could make an interpretation and speak about whirling feathers or something else, but it still is non-representational.

I love the possibilities non-representational pictures, abstract pictures gives to me: It can be anything and I never get tired of looking at them. And I never get tired of making them, since the focus is mainly on the process and the process is so liberating!

I am the Diva´s weekly challenge 314

The UMT this month is about Scallamp (Sarah Uram). UMT means Use My Tangle and is a recurrent challenge from the Diva. This is fun, it is a way to find unexpected patterns and Scallamp is such a pattern. I went on recycling the same watercolorpainting as last week.

As the grang is rough (surface of the watercolorpaper), it is quite difficult to use Micron 0,1. I started this with the Micron but than I grabbed my Lamy Fountainpen, which worked so good on this surface! One problem though, I forgot that the ink from the fountainpen isn´t waterproof! So shading with my distress marker almost went into a mess!the rest of the shading is graphite for that reason and I used white charcoal and white gellypen for highlitning.

Except Sallamp I used Ruutz (Eni Oken), 5C Aura an 5C Wrapped (both Ina Sonnenmoser)

From this I learned, that I´ll look for some old watercolorpaintings with fine grang to recycle! 

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:

28th, 29th and 30th of April for Lily Moon

In Square One the focus is on the patterns of Lily Moon.Lily Moon is such a great tangler and one of the administrators of Square One. Her patterns are beautiful and I have used most of them in my tangeling journey. There is a dark reason for this focus - Lily is in a situation noone wants to be in right now and Chris Titus took this initiative since tangeling also is a way to bring strength and energy. In this way Chris invited tanglers all over the world to send their thoughts or/and prayers to Lily. It is a wonderful idea.

My last three days I have focused on this task. A freehand penciled heart as a string. Under the tangled hearts there are wishes penciled from me for Lily. I wish her strength, peace, comfort and balance. 

28th of April: Andromeda and Andante by Lily Moon + Balloya (Anya Lothrop) and Fescu.

29th of April: Andromeda an Amphora by Lily Moon

30th of April: Drogon and Lealad by Lily Moon.

22nd, 23d and 24th of April and something about Celtic Knots

 Here is my calenderpage from today:

It is a lot of growing in it. It might be the spring coming. The notes:

22nd of April: Started of with Praa, a new pattern from Simone Menzel and then I went on with Papz, my own new one.

23d of April: Papz, Fun Bee (Beate Winkler), Meer, Edgar (Jody Genovese) Fun Bee is the focustangle in Square One and it sure gives an airy feeling to the rest! It also reminds me of the Opera Aida, by Verdi, that takes place in ancient Egypt!

24th of April: Tonight as I couldn´t sleep I went to Lynn Shelton Mead´s blog and her last post is about Celtic Knots. Who hasn´t got a fascination for Celtic Knot´s? I have tried to draw them many times, but it hasn´t been uncomplicated. I haven´t found celtic knots being useful in tangeling before. So I´ve dropped it. But Lynn shows a way to think about thise beautiful patterns that makes them work as tangles! I had to try it, so I tried it with more Fun Bees, a little Papz, Tipple and Fescu with Echoing lines (inspired by Melinda Barlow). It was great fun to do so I continued doing it the same way on an ordinary tile, using more Fun Bees and Beadlines too:

And yes it still works as a tangle! I will play with this more for sure! Thank´s to Lynn, who opened a door I thought was closed! 

18th of March

This page from my Calendar is made for the Diva´s challenge mostly. I can´t stop doing Zingo (Indy and Mazzy)!

 It kind of sends me right back to the playground! I also came across Trifle, a new pattern from Margaret Bremner, which is so easy and fun to draw! Meringue (Kelley Kelly) is a pattern I haven´t used for some time, but I love it. So I am quite happy about this entire page!

15th of March and string 247

This time I start with the string-thing. I have now come to string 247 (Anette Plaga-Lodde). Not many left now.I kept it simple this time and I liked this string a lot!

The patterns are: Tesell (Judy Okanawa), Pico (Staub Korn), Star Map (Suzanne McNeill) and some Tipple (Zt). This was my first try on Tesell, which is a lovely pattern. I found similarities between Tesell and Pico. Both are to me Reticulas and looking at it this way I get them work. I will go on trying Tesell as well, it is very fun!

Here is my calendar for the last three days:

Monday 13th: I needed a Dreamcatcher (Daniel Lamoth) to catch bad dreams going around. The followers were: Cruffle (Sandy Hunter), Liefing (Dorothy Allison), Gneiss and Tipple both Zt.
Tuesday 14th: Beadlines (Margaret Bremner) connected with Brrrst (Kelly Barone).
Wednesday 15th: I had to try Zingo (Indy and Mazzy)! Zingo is in the Diva´s challenge this week. I loved to do it and this pattern I will go to again! Caviar (Lori Howe) just poured out of yesterdays Brrrst and Fescu was growing out of Zingo.

I am very busy right now, my exhibition opens at  25th of March at Fröja gallery, Östhammar, and I am sharing the gallery with Gerd Vading, my friend. I have done some late paintings, hoping they will dry in time. They are a little wet today, I use oilcolors. Here is 2 of the paintings that sure will be in the exhibition:

Dancing Queen

After you have gone

This blog is about zentangle but I choose to show two other pieces of my art today. Hope you´ll enjoy it!

Zendala again

There are time between my zendalas.  I haven´t done many of them. but they are what I call double-up-zentangle. Lot of zen and lot of relaxation. To go into  a zendala and be there every stroke at a time, that also means I have to have time to do it, since it take a least one day for me to finish it. I have done 2 zendalas quite fast, but I made them for challenges and as I see it now, they didn´t work in the same way.

I started this zendala 28th of March on a rennaisance tile and had to take a break before it was finished because of our two dogs needing their evening-walk. So I left it to rest over the night and finished it yesterday morning as soon as I could grab my pens.

I am happy I did instead of forcing myself to finish it late at night when I ought to go to sleep! It was a special moment to do this. I am not into doing mandalas. I don´t use pre-strung tiles. The round empty tile is good enough but I have to be in the moment and remember the steps in the process. Once started it is just to go with the flow. Here I started with Way Bop, which I used as a string. The funny thing is that I didn´t love Way Bop at the beginning of our relationship, but in the zendala it is perfect. And now I think I start to love it! The other patterns are Arukas, Pokeroot, Paradox, Trio (Hanny Nura), Antidots (Anita Roby-Lavery) and Archer (Peg Farmer).

I want to explore more about zendalas. It would be so cool to be able to go to a class where the zendala is in focus. But till that will be reality I have to work on it myself and do my own experiences. I just love it.

1st and 2nd of March

1st of March: Carole Ohl started this month with a Fragment as inspiration. I used it together with Pokeroot.

 I found it very effective to have Pokeroot to create layer which means depth.

2nd of March: As Gerd Vading has made a fabulous Featherfall in "Tody´s Zentangle" that reminded me of this great pattern by Carole Ohl. I had put it in my patterns-to-try-box and forgot all about it. Now I tried and it is a wonderful pattern to play with! I also brought Shard (Carole Ohl) out in the bright with Antidots (Anita Roby-Lavery and a pattern new to me; Ziggle (Chase Messineo). Ziggle was fun to draw! I will get back to it!

28th of February

Last day of February. I used Flec (Ragged Ray), Hamadox (Diana Scheur) and Cheesecloth (Suzanne McNeill)

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.

11th of February

My Calendar for today:

Crescent moon. then I choose Reticula A2 with Fragment Q2. Then Florz (Zt) passing by and Web (Suzanne McNeill).

In SquareOne Flowery (Ina Sonnenmoser) is the Focustangle. I was just wondering what kind of hearts I would like to use for Valentines tangling. Here it is!

I prefer to see hearts instead of flowers in this tangle! Or heartpetals.... The other tangle is Waax (Esther Piszczek), a new found one for me. The string is 238 (Beth Snoderly). 

3d of February

Today I went on with Fragment 1S, but now in a bent Reticula. 

I like the way it went and now Paradox with Diva Dance also came back underneath.

1st and 2nd of February

The Reticula and Fragment-chapter in Zentangle Primer is very inspiring. It isn´t unfamiliar for me to work in this way. I have had periods when I have used this technique in my paintings and then I have been totaly caught by this. Very simple elements can be used in many variations and out of one fragment can a lot of patterns be developed. Here I have used the same fragment, 1S in two versions.

I love this experience. It is like going into another world of thinking and creating. And to have this as a part of the zentanglemethod is thrilling!

31st of January

Last night I watched the video Rick and Maria had published in their newsletter. Rick draw a duotangle using Paradox and Diva Dance. I just had to try his way of doing it at once so here it is in my calendar for today: 

Paradox and Diva Dance together like this! Since I first learned these tangles I have loved to draw them, but this way was new to me and I had much fun with it! It happens to be I am the Diva´s challenge no 301 too! So this will be my first entry for her challenge too.

The video was deliberating. I had to use the ideas I got one more time today in my evening meditation. So this is one more for the Diva´s challenge too: 

Since I choose to go to string 233 (Debra Sweeting) everything became different! I guess Paradox turned into a tangleation or something and the Diva Dance too! It was fun to let Bucky be the playground for this!

30th of January

The last days of January. This month has slipped away too fast. Need to slow down.

Today I remembered my intention of practicing Dewdrops a little bit more. Here they are placed on Papyrus (Suzanne McNeill). I often land on her patterns. They are always easy to learn and the zen-factor is high! Love them. 

I am happy that this entire page feels like a continuum. 

Now about the paper in the calendar, since at least Simone Menzel is wondering about it: The paper in the calendar is quite different from ordinary tiles. The pen glides very easy on it, almost too easy, I have to take care where I start and stop a line. When I look closer on the result, I can see this clearly. The shading is different too. It is harder to smudge the graphite, but the result is very nice if I succeed to do it properly. Most difficult is it to get it well done close to a line from the pen. Except for these two things, which I start to get used to, the paper is heavyweight enough to resist rough processing. I haven´t gone into color so I can´t tell how that is yet. Summary: I do like this calendar very much and the paper in it, though since I am used to original tiles I have to get used to the differences to make the best out of it. But so far I find it worth it! 

28-29th of January and string 232

January 28th is a monotangle with Casella (Conny Holsappel). I have never done this tangle before, it has been sorted in the pile of tangles-to-try. This was a fun tangle and I hope I can learn it by heart to be able to use it freely! It went on into 29th were Viaduct (Wayne Harlow), Popcloud (Carla duPreez) and Static waited. So far I love this page. Don´t know what´s going to happen tomorrow!

My daily meditation-tile is special to me. I was going to try the focus-tangle in Square One using string 232 (Lori Byerly). I had practiced the tangle Bucky (Zt) in my sketchbook... but what happened?? I missed the step with the dots. OOOps! There are not misstakes in zentangle. So I just went on. Now wiser about Bucky! Here is the result:

The Bucket is the tangle down in the right corner. 3D-Room (Damy Teng) is on the left side. In between there is my oops and I don´t know what it is but I like it. Maybe a tangleation? Thank´s to Bucky I learned to appreciate the oops!!! I am happy about that!

23d, 24th and 25th of January and finally string 216

This month of January seems to have an inner high-speed. I do work on slow-down-method. Now I haven´t posted in three days f.ex.

23d of January brought me this:

There are tangles that don´t appeal to me at once, they are a challenge in themselves. So is Aquafleur (Zt). I have tried it but never used it in a tile or posted it anywhere. To make such a tangle mine I have to do it many times over and over again. That´s why I let it follow me for three days. Here on the 23d it comes with Static. I think I have got a more relaxed relationship with Aquafleur during these three days! 

24th of January: Here is the entire page:

On the 24th I could integrate Aquafleur with other patterns in a more comfortable way. Dragonair (Norma Burell)could take the lead this time together with Cruffle (Sandy Hunter), Tipple and Flux.

25th of January is today: 

Monotangling Mooka!I take the chance to hang on with Mooka for a while. This is a wonderful zentangle. Maria Thomas was inspired by  an Art-Deko-artist, Alphonse Mucha creating this. You find the tutorial with the story here.

At last I publish string 216 (Rosemary Turpin). It takes a long time to go from Rättvik in Sweden to a place in the US sometimes. Now Sandy Kelley Jones has got this, so I can show it here:

The patterns are Starawn (Judy Murphy), Alexa (Henrike Bratz)- a tangleation of Appearance (Sandra Strait), Navaho (Karen Mlot),Diamond Drops (Janice Sherlock) and Yincut (Zt). I choose the patterns randomly from the Tanglepattern library. I should do that more often using the Random Tangle Selector, because it is so FUN.

20th of January and the Diva´s challenge Drawings

20th of January. A new president of America. So far we don´t know about the future but we have reasons to be cautious. To sit down tangling might not be anything that changes much outside my personal space. But I keep doing it as a shield against evilness. It gives me some strength.

The patterns are Tri-Bine (Laura Liu), Beadline (Margaret Bremner), Sander (Zt) and Pokeroot (Zt).

I guess we need angels. There is a pattern for that: Drawings the latest from Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts. I am the Diva´s challenge is Drawings! I love that pattern.  Angels doesn´t know borders, nor frames. They do what they must do without fear. That´s my vision. So here is my tile for the challenge:

Drawings is followed by Static (Zt) and Pixioise (Margaret Bremner).  The string I used is no 230 (Beth Snoderly).I am satisfied with this today. We need Angels.