Inktober is over! November is here!

I thought I would be able to post more frequently in October but that was not the case. But here is my finished Inktobertangles 2019! It was a journey with this Opus tile. I didn´t work the way I use to with a traditional string. The start was the embedded words Inktober 2019 which was a kind of a string though.

All the tangles are there! I started off earlier than october, since i was in Spain for two weeks and it was nice to come home and find my almost finished work waiting for me. I liked what the fountainpen made for this Opus. I will have to frame it though since the ink i watersoluble and I need to protect the result which I am happy with! Looking back on this I find that there are a lot of tangles that I discovered in a new way and some tangles were new to me. Inaflux (Debbie New) for example, and that one I really liked a lot! Stephanie Jennifer and Debbie New has done a great job administrating this Inktobertangles 2019-event and they do a lot more than this which you can find on their 7F5R-blog! I am already looking forward to next Inktober to come! Thank you ladies for doing this!

Inktobertangles 2019

We are soon entering October and Inktober Tangles Challenge 2019. I have done this earlier on Bijou-tiles and in my Calendar. Stephanie Jennifer CZT has published a list of tangles to do each day of October. Here is the list:

You can find more details in the blog 7 Forests 5 Rivers.

This year I want to try the Inktober Tangles on an Opus Tile. I have only made two Opus tiles before this and now I am stepping out of my comfort zone! As I decided to do this I wasn´t sure of how to. Should I divide the surface into 31 pieces? Should I make a string? After I had thought about it I decided not to divide the tile into 31 spaces to fill. It is risky, maybe there wont be room enough for 31 tangles??? Especially as I wanted to start like this:

I was really pleased with this beginning: Inktober 2019 as embedded letters. I will use my favourite fountain pens, one filled with sepia colored ink and one with black ink. As I am going to be travelling for two weeks in October I needed to start with the Inktobertangles earlier. I will not make blogposts every day with my inktober tangles, but hopefully my blog will be updated more often than I have done the last months! Here are the first three tangles of Inktober:

Printemps, Tunnelvision (Jody Genovese) and Toodles. I am excited to do this! I love that I don´t know where this will end if everything will take place on this Opus or....This is also something that feeds  my creativity, the uncertainty of art in progress. I have thought about that if I don´t have room enough I could continue on the back of this Opus.... Working with fountain pens is nice. The ink is flowing easy, no need of pressure to make it work! Why don´t I do this more frequently???

Abandoned tiles in Diva´s challenge.

Art is never unfinished, only abandoned! - Leonardo da Vinci

This quote is what Laura Harms starts her challenge 386. I totally agree. It has been a lot about abandoned art/tiles for a while. In my last blogpost I went through this with my journal. So I couldn´t resist this challenge as it walks hand in hand with the Oopses!!

I first found this one:

I belive I started this one in another challenge for the Diva, but put it away, I thought it looked clumsy and didn´t like the way the colors worked.

An here is the result! After I had worked on it a while I actually put it away and almost gave it up. But then I brought it back and went on telling myself I had to look for what this tile wanted and start playing, not judging! Now I am happy I did. The patterns: C-View (Ria Matheussen), Ipso (Jennifer Hohensteiner), Quabog, Maze, Mini-Tipple, Printemps and a little piece of Shattuck.

For the next one I almost forgot to take the before-pic. I just started with Mooka and then I remembered. So the first pick only would have had Printemps on it!

This one wasn´t abandoned in the way my first one was. I started to do Printemps when I was interrupted for some reason and had to do something else. Then I forgot all about it. Now was the time to finish it!

The patterns added: Crescentmoon, Mooka and Fescu. I didn´t go on with the micron I started it all with, I choose to work with  my fountain-pen that sort of has been abandoned for a while and I loved to take it up again!

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!

Taking ink seriousely in calendar 13th-18th of october and DC 372

I used to do a lot of drawing with my fountainpens earlier, but I haven´t done this so much when I tangle.  But for inktober last 6 days I have taken the ink seriousely. I hade some deep burgundy in one of my pen and that made my first page. But now I have no more of that ink left! Maybe this will be the last page ever with this ink from Mont Blanc!!! I hope not.  The patterns: Dewd (Zt), Ando (Kim Winebrenner) and Inapod (Carole Ohl) 

For the next page I went on drawing with my Lamypen filled with black ink (I have a lot of that) and changed to blue in my Mont Blanc and it got just a little touch of the previous burgundy ink! I love that effect! The inktober tangles: Joki (Kim Aarts), Narwal (Sam Taylor) and Luv-a (Sharon Carforio).  With some help of Aquafleur and a tiny Squid.

The Diva challenge 372 is all about Dewd. This pattern is so fun and relaxing to draw, I feel like I could go on with it for ever!

I decided to try something different. I used a fountainpen which is made with a caligraphy-nib (inspired by Lauras dip-pen): 

I don´t use this pen very much but I like the way it works. The result is a little bit rough but I still like it. Then I went on making Dewd on a black ATC-tile:

Couldn´t resist having some Tipple in the middle. This one is very different from the first tile depending on the surface and on which tools I used; gellypen and white charcoalpencil. Since this wasn´t enough I tried it in my journal with tan surface:

Also quite different approach! I only used gellypen, white charcoalpencil and graphite. Yes Inapod is there too. I think I am a little bit addicted to Dewd by now. Definitely a tangle to go to when stuck!

Inktober 7 and DC371

Since I follow the inktober prompts made by Stephanie Jennifer in my calendar I have not made them on tiles so much. But I got the chance to do Onion Drops as monotangles following the Diva´s Challenge! there are a lot of fun challenges to be found on the web and I have decided to limit myself following only two of them. Sometimes I do one or two other challenges too, but I don´t want to  have that haunting feeling of catching upp challenges. I am the diva´s challenge and IAST are high priority when it comes to challenges though. Laura had made a video where she demonstrates onion drops (a little different from what I have learned it) drawing it with a dip-pen. So I wanted to do my first one with a favourite fountainpen (Mont Blanc) of mine on a litte Bijou-tile:

The color of my ink is very deep burgundy and I love this color! Then I made one more on a regular tile with my micron:

Onion Drops (Shasta Garcia) is a very relaxing pattern, it just goes on and on and every space can be filled or surrounded with it. I think this pattern already has jumped into my box of go-to tangles! 
Here you find the step-outs.

Calendar 22nd-24th of October and some other things going on.

First about my calendar. As I have been visiting lovely Östhammar and "Ordfestivalen", my time for the calendar wasn´t to much. Returning to it trying to catch up I felt a little bit bored for the first time. Why? Thinking about this I realized that it has to do with routine. To keep up the calendar I think I need the routine; each morning spend some time doing my "day". As I couldn´t do this for a couple of days I lost the motivation a little. But I am back. Yesterday I made the three last days and decided to make it very simple, just doing Dingbatz:

As I had done my three Dingbatz (doesn´t take long to do) I felt like Meer needed to go on a little bit more. I felt like this was ok and yes I could find a satisfaction to make this again. So todays calendarpage I was back into my morning-preparation for the day! 

This blog is not supposed to be about journaling. But I have always liked the thing with journaling. Now I have taken my first steps on the journaling-road and it is great fun. So I want to share my first experiences with you! 

The upper pic, I glued my inspiration (Papertissue!) on the left page. On the below pic you can see my #inktober - #pinktober stuff. The colored paper glued here is made by a friend of mine who makes a lot of Eco-prints!

To the last goodie for today! I finished a travelling tangle from my friend Sue Zanker yesterday. The surface of this tile is made with the shaving-foame technique and now I learned how it should be! The surface was so smooth and gentle to work on! I think I want to try this technique further on because of her lovely result. But I have to get me some odourless shaving foam instead of the one I got from the grocery last try. That one smelled terribly and I couldn´t stand it!  Here is our collaboration:

This is Sue´s lovely start!

And here is my final result. I really enjoyed this! Sue had started with a tangle called Wibble and I went on with C-rependity (Veena Arun), Ginili (Randi Wynne-Perry) and some Fescues. As I tangled on I wanted to get the Wibble more in focus so I added Gold and some watercolor. I loved to do this! Thank´s Sue for the experience! 

31st of May and Dreamdex

I aimed to produce some Dingbatz this month. But no planning in Zentangle! The last day of May is today and here is one:

I love the idea. I have done some but they are done in notebooks, on a program for something or as I am sitting listening to something I can´t concentrate on. They are not documented. I belive this is a good thing with Dingbatz. They don´t have to be anything else than a note somewhere! That doesn´t mean I don´t appreciate them.   I do love them a lot! And in May I have drawn them all with my Lamy pen!

The focustangle in Square One is Dreamdex by Debbie New. I don´t know why I had to struggle with it. The shapes are familiar. It is easy to learn. But I wasn´t satisfied with the sketches I made in my sketchbook. I like to draw it but something wasn´t what I wanted it to be. I decided I had to focus more on the pattern, so here comes a monotangle or almost a monotangle, since I couldn´t reject Beadlines (Margaret Bremner) coming in.

I am satisfied where this went. Now I think I know what was wrong. I felt a little locked in the pattern at first, but as I found out I really loved the negative form I saw I could break the pattern into other parts, which I loved! Maybe it is that fragmentfeeling....

Daily tangles and Diva´s challenge 317

I have been away, visiting my Dad far north of Sweden. I have been tangling ok, though no posts. A nice thing happened; my Dad has been through a surgery and his lifemate is of course concerned and worried about his health and recovery. When she saw me tangeling she wanted to try it. I taught her a couple of basic patterns an she liked it very much! I belive she found a way to relax and leave her anxiousness for a moment! Here are my tiles from the visit (drawn with my Lamy pen):

No 1: Showgirl (Vicki Bassett) meets Signalz (Bev Ripps)

No 2: Signalz, Paizel (Angie Vangalis), Sandswirl (Karry Heun), Antidots (Anita Roby-Lavery), Papz (mine) and Tipple.

No 3: Papz, Signalz and So Deceiving (Jutta Gladnigg). As I did this one I found out that Linda Farmer has published my pattern Papz on her site, tanglepatterns.com. So happy she did!

 No 4: Signalz monotangle.

As I arrived safely at home I found out about the challenge no 317 from the Diva! This was a quite different challenge! Before retirering I was a teacher and one task I used among children and adults was this: I gave them a piece of a photography and told them to use whatever they wanted but make that piece a part of their own painting/drawing. Now the Diva wanted us to use a photo for tangling. Here is mine:

I used a recycled tile (from an old watercolorpainting) again and cut out a part from a photo I took maybe two years ago. Then I tangled it using: Dreamdex (Debbie New), Fassett (Lynn Shelton Mead), Tri-Bee (Beate Winkler), Flux, Tipple and Flukes. First I didn´t know what this would be like but working on it (not giving it up) I really liked it! It was different but fun!

Reticula and Fragments in my calendar

This entire post is about Reticula and Fragments. In my calendar I have tried to focus more on the Reticulas and less on the fragments. The Reticula is the net which keeps everything together. First I tried 6 different Reticulas only, but then my curiosity won and I had to try them all with different Fragments. I worked with my Lamy-pen most of the time, not the micron. Here is the result:

16th-18th of May I did publish in an earlier post but I want to publish them together with the last three days because it is obvious when you look both pictures  what it means to use different Reticulas! The fragments are all from Zentangle Primer, but the Reticulas are from patterns I know well.

19th-24th of May came in a row. I had much fun doing this as I like surprises! It might look like a mess sometimes but there is a structure to follow! 

More Reticula and Fragment done with fountainpen

My fountainpen Lamy and I are old friends. I love to write poems with it, I have done a lot of sketches and drawings with it. I have tangled with it a lot in my sketchbooks. Now I wanted to try it on a tile (Fabriano Tiepolo) as I saw the results of Lynn Shelton Mead! 

The nib of my pen is a little bit broader than on Micron O,1. But I like how easily the ink flows over the surface. It is a different feeling and the pen is better in my hand than Micron. This is not the last tile I´ve done with my fountainpen!!!

I have tried to focus on the Reticula for some days now. The Reticula Glace (In Melinda Barlow´s video) is so fascinating. I tried it here with Fragment L25. It is simple but I like it a lot!

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! 

16th and 17th of January and some Romanancy

 

Patterns on the 16th: Tropicana (Kate Ahrens), Lollywimple (Sandy Hunter, Schlingl (Ela Rieger), Yincut (Zt) and Tipple (Zt)

Patterns on the 17th: Tropicana, Schlingl, Puf (Carole Ohl) Florz (Zt) and Striping (Zt)

Yesterday I had to try Maria Thomas inspiring pattern Romanancy! It was so fun, since it was a play with perspective, point of view. I started in my sketchbook as I usually do, drawing a pattern new to me. I will use this further on I belive!

In the sketchbook I used my Lamy fountainpen, so the lines are a little thicker, but the pen glides so smoothly on that surface.I think one of the patterns is Ragz (Christina Vandervlist), the other one is definitely a fragment. 

On the tile there are a lot of lines. Also the patterns Orbs de la Dee (Anneke van Dam) a Beadline (Margaret Bremner) and Tipple.

Fassett II

I am not finished with Fassett! The more I play with it, the more it is talking to me. I started in my sketchbook with my fountainpen today.

I tried string 185, but as I worked Fasset just took over the whole space and the string completely disappeared. But it is there. I tried Lynn Shelton Mead´s suggestions upon how to draw it, but as usual Fassett lives it´s own life! After this I tried the same string on a tile:

This time I outlined the string, to be sure not to lose it. String 185 is shared by Annette Plaga-Lodde and I find it very beautiful to work with. Fassett took another shape and another direction. That is so magical with this pattern, you never know where it takes you! Oh I love this!

Travelling strings

Home again. I have been focusing on my personal challenge: The strings from tanglepattern.com. I find it relaxing and challenging to work on strings that are not my decision. I know there are lots of tanglers that don´t bother about strings or they find them to limiting. So far I will stick to the basic thing with strings. The string for me is not a limit. It is a guidance. I don´t feel stuck. It is like having a start for free. When someone else has made up the string it is the start of the tangling moment in a special way. As I have been on the bus to and from Stockholm, here comes some wobbling lines too!

string 147 by Judyellen Palumbo: Starcrossed (Jenna Black), Printemps, Paradox and Tipple. Starcrossed is a new tangle and it is absolutely a tangle I will come back to! This one I made on the bus with my Lamy fountainpen and in my sketchbook.  

String 148 by Barbara Finwall: This one I made after the funeral of my friend, which was the reason for my trip to Stockholm this time. When I was alone in the night I had to do something to get some relief from all the feelings during the day before I could go to sleep. Tangling was the way to sorten things out and doing so I also could feel grateful that I have had the opportunity to know my friend for so many years. Patterns: Viaduct (Wayne Harlow), LO´s (mine), Ing and Tipple

String 149:A funny string from Grace McIntyre. I didn´t know where to start. But then I decided to go for Ing once more. Ing is the Diva´s challenge this week. I then added Lots a dots (Carole Ohl), Partay (Margaret Bremner) and Florz. Also from my sketchbook, drawn with Lamy fountainpen and micron.

String 150 by Adele Bruno: Most of this tile was finished on the bus. I wanted to draw on a tile, not in my sketchbook. It was more difficult to do this, but using a book under it helped a little. I finished it back home when I added the Cheesecloth (Suzanne McNeill) in the background. As a frame I used Heart Devided (Helen Williams) and the big hearts are Heartstring (Helen Williams) with a Beadline (Margaret Bremner) across it.