Journaling: Recycling!

I am constantly keeping my eyes open for papers, letters, labels and other stuff that I can recycle in my art (collages - mixedmedia paintings). Now as I got the chance to make a prompt in a FB-group I took my chance and made it all about recycling. I haven´t been tangling a lot on other materials so this was also a challenge for myself. My first page went like this:

I used watercolor, stamps and a crossword I tangled on. Since I don´t do crosswords very often I liked to do them this way instead! The tangles on this page are: Cat-Kin (Mimi Lempart), Sistar (Hanny Nura), CaligraV (Mary d´Angelo) nd fragment H5.

The second page:

Recycled material: A label from a coffee-packaging, a part from a golden envelope, a piece of marbeled paper I have kept for years and a piece of a thicker paper that had a beautiful brown color. the label I had to find another pen to tangle with and Sakura Soufflé worked fine.  The golden envelope is tangled with Sakura Identipen and white charcoal. I am not scrapbooking but once I found some borders for sale, very cheap and I thought I might be able to use it someplace....That is in the bottom of the page. It was a little difficult to take a photo of this page, it was quite glossy! The tangles used:Wud (Joni Feddersen), Tripoli, Pokeroot, Mooka, Sez, Tipple and Printemps.

The third page:

If the second page was about coffee, I had to use a label from my favourite wine! Which wasn´t easy to tangle on! Micron´s didn´t work too well. Gellypen were ok. But then I found out that I could use Acrylic-paint-pen and then tangle on the dried surface! I also added a tangled part of a page from a book I won´t read again. Here are a lot of tangles, some I have forgotten the name of but here comes a list of those I know: Mooka, Tipple, Diva Dance,Dewd, Ruutz (Eni Oken), Pop-Cloud (Carla du Prez), Laced (Elisabeth Martin), some Crescentmoon... The page from the book was tangled quite long ago but I didn´t know what to do with it until now.

Oh yes! I had a lot of fun doing this!

Icantoo and EAXY.

A pattern new to me is the focustangle in Square One. Hanny Nura was inspired by Icanthis (Zt) and deconstructed this pattern. Might be seen as a tangleation of Icanthis. 

My first tile. As I started to try it with auras, this just went on and took over the thing. But I liked the result, though it might be a little busy.

My second went like this also with auras but in another direction. Icantoo has settled down in my toolbox to stay. It is such a joyful pattern and I smile as I look at it. 

I also revisited a pattern I do like a lot: EAXY. I have a lot of tiles cut from old watercolors and I love to se what happens when I tangle on them. This time I remembered to take a before-pic of the tile!

A perfect string! And here is the final result:

EAXY (Nadine Roller) with Citrus (Suzanne McNeill). This watercolor-paper (I belive it is from Archer) is a little rough and not so easy to draw on with my pens. I had to work harder with the tourtillon. EAXY is so interesting to draw, I never get it even but this doesn´t bother me since it is such a forgiving pattern! As I have done this I see more ways to go with it.....

Gottago, my calendar and recycling

There are patterns and patterns. So many pops up all the time. Sometimes there will be a pattern that speaks more to me then others. I found one like that when I saw a post from Laura Byerly. I had seen Gottago (Lianne Woods) before but now I saw the posibilities! I had one more watercolorbackground from Gerd Vading that was waiting for this!

I almost forgot to take a before-pic, but here it is taken i not too good light!

I loved this little piece of a watercolor! 

And here is my last finished calendarpage:

Following the Summertangles18: Fiore (Jana Rogers), Trix (Lucy Farray) and Zonked (Barbara Finwall).

Today I recycled one more watercolor-tile:

Quare (Beth Snodderly), Squared Cadent (Margaret Bremner), Fassett (Lynn Shelton Mead), Shira (Marguerite Samama), Echoism (Zt) and Eke (Zt).
We have extreme temperature outdoors, +30C in the shadows, so I am lucky to have the coolest place in my studio!

1st-3rd of July and recycled watercolor

1st - 3rd of July. New month. New challenges. I wanted to try my new Tombow pen. When I added the water to get the watercoloreffect I realized the paper didn´t like this at all! The color was bleeding through the paper! But the result was pretty cool, though I got a wobbling surface! I used Crescentmoon, Arc Flower (JJ La Barbera), Fescu, My Swing (Simone Menzel) and finally Striping.

Today I couldn´t bare myself! I got a couple of recycled watercolor-tiles from Gerd Vading, my friend in Östhammar. It was such a lovely one, I almost forgot to take the before-pic! But I stopped myself before the surface had disappeared under my tangling!

I started off with Footlite (Carole Ohl), since this is a prompt for 4th of July offered by Jamie Johnson att Today´s Tangles.

Next pic is from before shading:

The patterns added are XYP and Jonqual both Zt. Since this was on a watercolorpaper-surface, I didn´t have any problems with the Tombow pens.

Finish:

There are no ups and downs in zentangle, but I liked it best this way I think. This was fun and thank´s to Gerd for offering such a great surface to work on!

I am the Diva´s challenge for Amanda Day - Earth Day

This challenge is all about recycling which I do as soon as I get the possibility to do! Watch Laura´s video here. Here is my work on a recycled wine-box:

I cut the tile simply with my siccors as Laura did.

Here is the result! The "sun" is Caracole (lily Moon Luna) filled with fragments and Tagh. The "sunbeams" are filled with Dorsal (mine). 

1st-3rd of April and Elatorium challenges

I am not often talking about weather. But during Eastern we have had days with bright warming sunshine and cold nights. The snow is now melting daytime and freezing by night. A promise about spring is in the air though we can walk on the hard surface of the snow covering the fields around here. I can see how this has affected my latest page in the calendar! I used Paradox as a string as well as a pattern, inspired by Margaret Bremner´s illustration for this month. Peace Petals (Sandy Kelley Jones) is the promise of spring coming. Then Crusade (Wayne Harlow) and Trisade-fragment (Tangleation of Crusade by Staub Korn) are breaking Ice and Shattuck is also coming with the springthing.

When I see my patterns used in challenges and/or by other tanglers I get so excited. I appreciate it very much, it is like connections with others get visible. I just love it. 2 challenges recently has been with my patterns Ezpei and Lenche. These are found in ELATORIUM at Fb. The first one was Ezpei together with Ruutz (Eni Oken) and Garlic Cloves (Jacquelien Bredenoord). You find it here. My entrance is made on a recycled watercolorpainting.

So satisfying to make something on old watercolor I don´t want to see any more!

Next challenge with Lenche, Wall Break (Tina Kirchhübel) and Olspin (YuRu Chen) you find here.

And here is mine:

Wall Break I first tried when Tina published the steps on Flickr and I did like it a lot so I was so happy Ela choose this pattern together with Lenche! Olspin was new to me but I like the playfulness of this one and I will get back to it for sure. Thank´s Ela for doing this! You also find the challenges at Elatorium were you also find the wonderful resourse Musterquelle!

19th-21st of March, Zen-Buttons and Diva´s challenge.

Revisiting patterns made me get back quite long ago. I found Niuroda (Tina Akua Hunziker). This is a wonderful tangle that thrilled me at the first sight and it still does! Niuroda took place on the entire page!

Things are happening very fast in Zen-world. Patterns pop up all the time, new ones and old ones you haven´t met before. Different and new techniques are also coming along. Right now  Zen-buttons are all over the place. Marguerite Samama is the one behind it. She made it up inspired by a Reticula found in Zentangle Primer 1. I have tried this easy and fun technique too. Here are som of my Buttons, all done on tiny little Bijou:

Mine are no perfect circles, I draw them on free hand and I like the imperfection. Well I guess the Zen-Buttons are the reason I found Niuroda again and hope she will stay with me a little longer this time!

I am the Diva´s challenge 356 is a little bit different this week. Laura asked us to use our names as string. This time I didn´t watch the Diva´s video before doing it... I used cardboard from a box I cut in pieces. Recycling! I love to do that! Here is my piece for the challenge:

I guess my name is hard to find here, but I DID use it as a string, I promise! I had some fun and there are a lot of patterns; Wholly Hollibaugh, Striping, Printemps, Diva Dance, Flux, Tipple, Cubine and lovely Verve (JJ Le Barbera).  

Duo-colored surface and rescue tile part 2

One more round to gowith the duo-colored surface, since there was one more tile left out of the first one! Here it is:

I realize I should have taken a before-pic before I cut the tile in parts with the tan tile. I didn´t. If the first one was fun to do, this one was even more! I used Fragment Y4 (from Zentangle Primer; very useful fragment), Eye-Wa (Zt), Florz(Zt) and Knightsbridge (Zt). It is so satisfying to rescue tiles and give them a new life! I also put the two tiles together to see if something happened here:

And yes they can match eachother. Not a perfect match maybe, but good enough! This is a wonderful technique, learned from the Project Pac 2, which was a part of #12DaysofZentangle! I´ll find out a way to use this working with my other collages.

Duo-colored surface and rescued tile.

 Ever since I did the 12 Days of Zentangle, Day 9 I have been thinking of trying the technique on a 8,9x8,9 tile. I saw Sandy Kelley Jones do it, using a tile she hade left just started and I thought I could use it to rescue a tile that went "wrong" from the start. Although I know there are no misstakes in Zentangle I have a small pile of tiles I abandoned since they didn´t go my way from the start. These tiles are a resource belive me! I never know where they will go as I start them over again! My first try on Eye-Wa, a Zentangle original pattern, didn´t go the way I wanted so I laid it in that abandoned pile. As I grabbed it this time, I also picked a tan tile and my scissors. 

And now here it comes transformed to something completely different:

But I wasn´t to happy about it, the tan part needed something more to get more contrast, so I went on like this:

I redrew  the Pookeroot in black, and that small difference made it I think! Except Eye-Wa and Pookeroot there is a bit of Florz too. Now I am finished and happy with my Rescued Tile!

Diva Dancing in Lisbon

Henrike Bratz, guestblogger on Diva´s challenge, recently visited Lisbon and was fascinated by the patterns she saw on tiles there. I haven´t been to Lisbon, but I have been to places where they have such beautiful tiles on the walls, on the floor, in the bathroom and other places. I know what she is talking about. One of the patterns she has deconstructed and called it The Lisbon fragment. Here is a pic of the pattern:

Museu Nacional do Azulejo, Lissabon

And when you clic here you come to her steps. She asked us to use Diva Dance together with her fragment and the theme is Diva dancing in Lisbon! A wonderful theme. Here comes my entry for this challenge:

Yes. I made it on one of my recycled watercolortiles. I choose this one because I thought of the light at night in a place were people dances somewhere at the Atlantic coast... Maybe Lisbon. Now I have to go back to my photos from Maroc and such places....

I am the Diva´s challenge; Guest Jessica Davies

From now and a couple of weeks Laura has invited guests to continue with the weekly challenge. First out is Jessica Davies with a challenge: Tangled hearts. This is my first entry:

I go on with my recycling of old watercolorpaintings. Can you see the heart? Of this particular piece I ought to have taken a before-pic! The reason is; I thought it was a very ugly piece! But I could see a little heart-shape in the middle and from that I could go on tangling! I used the patterns: Phroz (Lynn Shelton Mead), Fassett (Lynn Shelton Mead), LO´s (mine), Knase (Zt), Golden Tipple (Zt) and Zinger (Zt). The Zinger-part wasn´t Zinger from the start, just small bows to make a movement, but all of a sudden Zinger had to come out of that! The painting underneath worked well as a string. I am  happy to see the ugliness turned into this! It is like magic!

Diva´s challenge UMT 320: Dansk

I have met Dansk before but not tried it. At the first sight it is similar to a lot of other patterns done with auras. But as I tried it this time I found out it can be a quite useful pattern! I started doing it on a stone I found on our vacation up in the mountains!

The stone to the left is with Dansk, the one to the right is with Ziggle (Chase Messineo) and some golden Tipple (Zt).

Today I finished my tile on a tile from recycled watercolor-painting:

I used Dansk (Margaret Bremner), Wheelz (Joyce Block), Poke Root (Zt) and Poke Leaf (Zt). The string is the background watercolorpainting.

Striping the Diva´s challenge

Striping is a challenge I remember from last year. It isn´t about the pattern Striping, it is about using tangles in a striping way as I think about it. So here comes my entry this time:

Well yes, I took a before pic. Before shading and highlighting.

After shading and highlighting. This is made on a piece from an old watercolorpainting. Recycled Fabriano heavyweight watercolorpaper. I love this paper though I have to use thicker pens than on original tiles since the surface is quite different. I didn´t use the distress markers for the shading this time, I only went on with watercolor and graphite. The patterns are: Paizel (Angie Vangelis), Sula (Susan Kelley Pundt), Lealad (Lily Moon), Tattle (Milde Weiss), Nekton and Crescent Moon. I am still happy about the idea of recycling my old sins! 

IAST 194

I haven´t left the idea of combining recycling and tangling. I opened up a box where I kept some of my old, not satisfying watercolors, chose a couple of them and cut them up into tiles, 8,9 x 8,9 cm. I guess some of them will work fine, some not. But that is not the point! The point is this; to recycle old paintings which all are made on high quality paper, is so refreshing and satisfying! I won´t show any beforepics, since that´s not the point either. 

This tile I wanted to use for IAST 194 featuring Adele Bruno´s last tanglepattern Trella. You can read about it here in her blog.

I used it together with N´Zeppel and Flukes, both original zentangles.

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! 

One more for the Divas Amandaday-challenge

I love recycling. I use it very much in my art. So I wanted to make one more for Earth Day and for the Diva´s challenge this week. When I have done something that I don´t like at the moment, I don´t throw it away.  I keep it for further use. I have some watercolors kept in a pile and now I cut up one (on heavyweight watercolor-paper)  in tile-size and tangled on it! As it was a quite big watercolor-painting, I have a lot of tiles from this! Here is the first one:

The surface is not as smooth as on original tiles but it worked and I get a good feeling to remake an old watercolor-painting in this way!

The patterns are: 5C Aura (Ina Sonnenmoser), Andromeda (Lily Moon), Lealad (Lily Moon) and something that is the beginning of Amphora (Lily Moon).