Valentineweek with Divas challenge and Zenuari 2019 Swap

Hearts hearts everywhere. I am not doing a lot of hearts. I have never done, except when I was a teenager. But I can´t avoid them either. I eat them:

I have also drawn some this year. But I didn´t follow the Valentangle 2019, like I did 2018, since I have been busy with other things in life. Painting f.ex. But I have something to post anyhow! Lucky for me there was a Zenuari Swap on the 27th and I asked if Susan Kelley Pundt wanted to do the swap with me and last week I got a happy mail from her!

The before-pics!

I started with the hearty one! Susan had begun with
La Bel (Sue Jacobs) and Funsin (Ru Yu Chen) and I
continued with Hearty  (Livia Chua).

Susan´s start was Ubiko (Cyndi Knapp) and
Zari (Veena Arun) and I finished with
Denma (Anoeska Waardenburg) in combination
with Sez.

There were some hearts from me this Valentine too! I give Susan an extra hug because of this! And an extra hug because her tangling forces me to work with color on the tiles. I do love that, she is pushing me out of my comfort zone!

I am the Diva´s challenge no. 385 also was about Valentine. So I made this as an opportunity to try Dolly Bolen´s new Valentinetangle

"Vintage Heart":

I needed a border so I picked Lo Lo (Hsin-Ya Hsu). Now my hearts will rest for a while!

Two swaps and The Diva´s challenge 382

Every swap (traveling tangles) is a happy moment. And every swap is so different. I have been lucky having two swaps recently. The first one came all the way from China! May May Chui sent me these beautiful starters:

Blue Toodles with some Tipple on a zendala!Whow!

And then a green amazing gem with Flux, Diva Dance, Static and Printemps....

I finished these and was happy to find the right blue among my colorpencils! Here are my finished tiles:

I don´t use much color in my own tangling so this was like having a party!  I added Dorsal (mine), Fassett (Lynn Shelton Mead and Mooka.

Then the green gem... How to match this very expressiv and beautiful gem? I had fun doing this, adding Cubine, Printemps, Bales variation and Crescentmoon variation.

Then the next swap with Daria Heidendael from the Netherlands. We first met at the Designmuseum in Providence before the seminar started! Here are her starters:

I do  love black tiles! And here with beautiful Tripoli!

Next one is one more gem! And now drawn in greyscale! I almost forgot to take the beforepic, you can see the little line I started with on the right side of the gem! But then I stopped and took this pic!

Here are my finishes:

I went on with Diva Dance , Quandary and Indyrella. Yes I tried my goldpen on this one too!

This one was so delicate to start with. I was anxious to ruin the whole thing. But then I started to think about Rick and Maria. I heard their voices in my head about "no worries, just one stroke at the time" and "no mistakes"! We learned the Crescentmoon variation at the seminar and also how to use Florz in a different way, so I just went on with this and the whole tile came alive.  This was a moment of magic!

Diva Challenge no 382. Laura asked for stripes as string. That is fun to do and a chance to use bordertangles... 

My string

Zenith in the middle with Meer, Shattuck, Marasu and Fanclub in the corners. I liked to do this and they are all tangles I know so well, I don´t have to think what to do next. Thank you Laura, even if I don´t do every challenge, I do enjoy every one I do!

Happy mail - Happy tangling.

December was of course a busy month for me as for most other people I know. But to get a happy mail in my mailbox is such a wonderful experience and a chance to relax during the busiest and darkest time of the year. This is what I got from Debra Castaldi one day when the light was reduced to a couple of hours (Before Solstice).

 

 It might be a little difficult to see the lovely string penciled on this tile due to the photo I took under my lamp on my workingplace in my studio.  But if you enlarge it you might get hang of it! 

I liked this string a lot so I wanted to go with it very closely and I loved the way it took me! Debra had started with Rixties and Springkle so i added more of these and then som Tipple, Florz and a fragment from Zentangle Primer.

Next start from Debra was Diva Dance Rock´N Roll. I have seen Debra do this pattern several times and I really like it! Her lines are so precise and just to look at it is calming! 

So I went on with my Mac ´n cheese:Dewd and Tipple! Then more of Diva Dance but this time I think it is Foxtrot! Purk and Striping also wanted to play. Yes this was a nice experience and I loved to finish both these tiles! Thank you Debra!

After a while had another great and joyful moment when I saw what Debra had done with my starters!

The first started one was on the ecoprinted tile I made in the fall 2017. 

 The gold she added was a perfect match! I loved that. And how she made the Diva Dance again!!! 

Next start was on a tan (rennaissance) tile

Look at this! I love the way she repeated Pokeroot and Antidots on a bed of Verve! It looks so happy! An then the brown-black Knightsbridge in the background!

The traveling tangles project goes on and I am looking forward to do more of this during 2019. It is inspiring and it connects people from all over the world in a way that is very special.

Traveling tangles - next chapter.

Quite long ago I was participating in Stephanie Jennifer´s project "Traveling Tangles". I enjoyed it then. It was a great way to get friends all over this globe. Then I got too busy to keep it up so I stopped doing this. At the CZT32 Seminar and after, I got new CZT friends. Friends that I don´t want to lose.  I used the idea with traveling tangles but this time I sent them to people I had met. For a start just a couple of them, all new friends of mine. I prepared 2 starters to each of them and posted them. After a while the first "Happy mail" arrived in my own mailbox and a couple of days another one! Here is my first post about a completed Happy mail!

Here is my mail to Katrina Thiebaut. One black tile and one recycled watercolor-tile. And this is the exciting outcome from her:

The tiles she finished so carefully fills me with great joy! I could not have imagined this! I love it!

Here are Katrinas mail to me:

Two lovely starters to go ahead with. Here is my first finish:

Have you seen the boarder! Letters all around! I am so fascinated of this one! 
Then I hesitated - How to give Anita Katrina a hairstyle matching this beautiful lady??? I had to send her to the hairdresser for a while and when she got back to me she looked like this:

She told me she was happy with her new hair so I did send a pic of her to Katrina and guess what! Katrina had another lady at her side, that must be a cousin of Anita Katrina, since she had got a similar
hairstyle recently!

Well, you find a lot of these beautiful people that belong to the Zen Kin family here. 

I had not done anything like this before and would probably not have done it if I had not got this happy mail from Katrina. I am so happy to get this new experience, thank you Katrina!

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! 

Happy mail from Australia!

Australia is on the other side of the globe. So far away! But Travelling Tangles brings people together! About a month ago Sue Zanker and I found out it was about a year ago we met on Fb in the Travelling Tangles Project. So we decided to give it one more round! I haven´t been doing this for quite a long time now, being busy with a lot of other things.  In the end of last week I got my happy mail! Whow, it was like Christmas Eve in September!

Three wonderful starters. And a card with beautifully written words on, Calligraphy by Sue!! I have it on my wall. Calligraphy, Lettering is so inspiring, but as I haven´t done much of that myself, I do appreciate what other people are able to do in this special artform. 

Well which one of the candies should I start with! I chose the one with the gem and Spoken. Here is the beforepic:

It isn´t a very sharp pic but that´s the one I got since I was too eager to start on the tile, I didn´t check it out! Here is the result of the collaboration:

Sue´s gem is so beautifully done in purple. You can see a little "straw" glimmering inside it. As I drew my tangles;Shattuck, Eke, Mooka (all Zt) some pearls and LO´s (my own), I could not resist trying to add some pink too. I usually don´t use pink very much but here it had to come. i guess it is because of Sue, I think she once told me she love pink. So much joy and fun in this Sue, thank you for giving me the opportunity! 

12th of February and one travelling tangle!

One more page finished!I love this calendar!

I went on with F Q2 and R A2, Florz (Zt), Crescentmoon (Zt) and Web (Suzanne McNeill). Then Zimba popped up again and also Beadlines (Margaret Bremner). From now on I write F for Fragment and R for Reticula and the letters and numbers coming with it refers to fragments and reticula in Zentangle Primer. I liked the way it all turned out.

Then I went on finishing one of Sue Zanker´s beautiful starters for me! Forgot the beforepic, but I took a groupie as soon as I opened my Happy Mail, so everything is to be seen!

Sue started this black tile with Relly-Telly-One (Karin Klang-Meier) and I answered with Tipple and 2 patterns of Helen Williams: Heartline and Heart Offset. Heart Offset is a new tangle to me  and I liked to play with it. Here you find the entire Happy Mail from my friend Sue in Australia:

6th of February

The page ended up like this:

I had to just go on with Oof. I love that tangle, but I haven´t used it so much. It is a High Focus tangle. So one big Oops appeared. Didn´t know what to do with it at first, but then remembered what I learned in Beckah Krahula´s book long ago about Bronx Cherry! I haven´t used that one at all when Oopsis appear, but this time it was the right thing to do. It was fun, so I added two more! To make the page become a unit, I added one more Loop (Amelie Liao) and Diva Dance. I am happy about the outcome and grateful that Oops came my way!

I haven´t mentioned anything about travelling tangles lately. I love that concept, but right now I am working on my exhibition in the end of March, so I am not into that right now. But in the beginning of January I got two happy mails, very unexpected! The first came from Sue Zanker and about two weeks later one more from Sue Bailey. I do love surprises and both letters were so nice and lovely made for me that I sure will finish the tiles. I have done one of Sue Zanker´s and today one of Sue Bailey´s. 

The first from Sue Zanker was with Molygon (Zt):

My finish with Aquafleur (Zt), `Nzeppel (Zt) and Tipple (Zt):

The one I finished today from Sue Bailey is the one down to the left:

She had written on the back that the start was a Maori twist or crossover symbolising bonding and friendship!

I filled the twist with my own Dorsal and used Fassett (Lynn Mead) as a background. 

These two lovely ladies from Australia gave me happy mail without asking anything back. I didn´t feel any presure to do this it was just simple joy. Thank´s to you both I have some treasures hidden in my box to finish later on!

Tonight I wanted to give Neuron (Beth Snodderly) one more round. The pattern is simple to do, but it is not easy to use it as a tangle. i need to practice! Here with Lollywimple (Sandy Hunter), Schiefer (Simone Bischof) and Fescu (Zt)and string 235 (my own):

That´s all for today!Sleep well and tangle on!

Travelling Tangles from Joey

Last week I got happy mail from Joey and now I have finished her beautiful starts! 

This one with Pearly (Sandra) and Bublz (Lori Byerly) was so light and airy and I wanted to keep it that way, but how could I?

This is where it went. Well the airyness is not the same, Cubine made it otherwise. I added som more Bublz, Tipple and a spiders Web (Suzanne McNeill).

Next tile Joey had started with a pattern new to me: Oybay (Antonine Koval). I love to learn new patterns and this one I will have more fun with!  

I added more Obay, Phicops (B-Rad), Caviar (Lori Howe), Tipple and Mooka. I had a lot of fun doing this and one special thing is that Phicops appeared again into my mind! I haven´t used this tangle for a long time, but now it came back to me. It is a lovely tangle worth knowing by heart!