Calendar 4th-9th of December

I belive the red spots is pointing out December as the month of Christmas. Can´t help thinking in that direction. The patterns: Florz, Zenith, Icantoo (Hanny Nura), Icanthis, Bales var. Ing, Locar and Ipso (Jennifer Hohensteiner). About the last three days with Ing: After the seminar there was another gathering of CZT:s called Zenagain. I wasn´t there, but after that I saw some wonderful Ing variations and I kept those in mind since I wanted to give Ing a round with fragments this time. I loved to do that, using fragmens from the Zentangle Primer.

Working with the Primer

Exercise no 16 in the Primer was something extra! Go back to one tile I wasn´t happy with and redo it slowly. I went back to a tile done in August 2015 (early in my tangling journey). As I saw this tile again I got the feeling I had when I had done it. I know there are no misstakes in zentangle. But this tile made me feel like a failure!!! Here comes the journalpage with both tiles (scanned):

The difference is obvious, isn´t it!! Here comes the first tile (photo):

I find it so messy and so unsure. Yes it was the first time I tried Schway but I get a little nervous looking at this tile. Here is the one I made today:

I like this one much better.  This exercise was very interesting. Not only because I think I have improved. But because I can see that my confidence in myself has grown, I have calmed down and another thing is: I have got rid of the feeling I had looking at my first one, which was a bad feeling! And the point is, now I can accept the first one and also find things that are interesting in it! Yes, this exercise was healthy and fun, I will sure try this again!

Revisiting older tiles and refreshing them.

In the Zentangle Primer 1 there is a very exciting exercise no 15. There are no misstakes in zentangle. But there are tiles I have done, that I don´t smile when I look at.  The exercise is. Go back and pick two tiles that are not so satisfying. Then find out what is missing and go on with them and see what happens.

I picked these:

They are well drawn, I admit this. But something doesn´t make them special. The one to the right was done in October -16 and the one to the left in August -17. Both have the same problem, they look like they are not finished. Not enough Drama.  After taking this photo of them I went to work. I needed a little more shading and more black. Here is the result:

This one from 2017 definitely needed more shading! Then I blackened the corner above Abukas (Charlotte Carpentier) and in the Dreamcatcher (Daniel Lamothe). Then I added some more black details. The other patterns are Antidots (Anita Roby Lavery) and Tipple (Zt). Very little done but with a result I really appreciate!

This one from 2016 definitely needed more contrast and some small details to make it more interesting. I gave it more black, stipples and lines and some more shading. The patterns areTropicana (Kate Ahrens), Antique (Kathy Barringer), Ionic (Margaret Bremner) and Printemps (Zt). Now I do like it much more! Not much done but the difference is obvious!

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.

1st, 2nd and 3rd of october and Diva´s challenge 335

The suggestion for October was fragment D16 from the Zentangle Primer. A fun start which immediately made me think of Well, Well,Well, the latest published Kitchen Table Tangles in the Zentangle Mosaic-app. So that was an obvious continuation on the 2nd and the 3rd of October. It is such a nice tangleation of the original Zentangle Well! A lot of fun is to be created with this I belive!

This morning I went on with the Diva´s challenge no 335. Tint (Henrike Bratz) is the UMT for this month. I have tried it once and I loved to get back to it! It is a pretty tangle and a tangle that could be used in many ways, a Ribbon, a Frame or whatever!  I love it! Here is my entry:

I was thinking of using other tangles with it but as I went on, I realized that Tint wanted something else! A monotangle was the result!

1st, 2nd and 3rd of September

I started this month with Carole Ohls suggested fragment T4. I did it without checking Primer 1 and tried Carole´s version. It didn´t go my way so I checked the Primer and then I liked it better. Still this fragment was a challenge.

2nd: I wanted to play with Quabog (Zt), I had seen Sandy Kelley Jones do it and I thought it could work with the Diva´s challenge but I had to try it first. I liked it this way, like a sun spreading the warmth to us.
3rd: Printems and BtlJoos together and something I don´t know what it could be but inspired by the sunfeeling the day before. 

Diva´s challenge- Guest Post Marguerite Samama

As I said in yesterdays´s post, Marguerite Samama made the guestpost for the Diva this week. The focus is on fragment D1 from Zentangle Primer. It is such a fun challenge, it can lead to whatever! I love this because there is a lot of possibilities to get surprised! Here I tried this on a black tile:

Except D1 I used Wud (Joni Feddersen) and Snorr (Sandy Hunter. The string is Margaret Bremners "ropestring". It was such a joy to do this! Thank´s Marguerite for a relaxing challenge!

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!

Reticula - addictive!

This morning I watched a video by Melinda Barlow again. I was so excited, I made the entire page in my calendar from this. Take a look at the video first! Here is my entire page:

Watching Melinda´s explanation about the Reticula, I found out some points. The first one was that I should concentrate more on the reticulas rather than the fragments right now! The second point was, that I have been using some patterns as Reticulas quite a lot, without noticing what I have done. The third point is, this opens up even more possibilities with the Reticula-Fragment thinking!

Structures has always been interesting to me, especially in art. On this entire page I have done three Reticulas. They all eminate from patterns I love to do. The first one on 16th I got from Linda Barlow´s video and is a pattern called Glace. Or you can see, it also is an Oge-grid! 

Whow! Some days are better than others even if it is raining outdoors!

Paizel and the calendar

Paizel by Angie Vangalis is the focus-pattern in Square One right now. I have seen it before but not used it.

I filled in the spaces with Nekton as Angie did on her example and I like the way it changed the look of the pattern. Nekton is not a favourite pattern of mine but here I can see the qualities! Paizel is very meditative to draw and easy to learn. The other patterns that came by are Antidots (Anita Roby Lavery), She Leaf (Yu Ru Chen)and Tipple (Zt).

By the way, I love to work on tiles even more than before. The paper, Fabriano Tiepolo 290g (same as in original tiles) has such a lovely surface I can´t get enough of this.  

In the calendar I went on trying some different fragments in various ways. As I look at this page I find it quite messy and not what I wanted it to be but this is the way it went. I like the 14th most. Fragment T4 was the one that caused me trouble from the start. I think I will go for it another round and only use that one, now I left it this way because I didn´t belive this fragment liked me!

10th, 11th and 12th of May

This page i only use Fragments from the Zentangle Primer. I have thought about that for a while inspired by Simone Menzel´s work.

It was very fun and I only used one kind of Reticula, the one with squares. I started with one I have tried before, W7,  then I  went on with P6, M7, P5 and F2. M7 became a favourite! I think I will go on with this Fragment-Reticula-thing for a while it is so fun!

I talked a lot about Molygon in yesterday post. Today I tried it on a black tile and I got a tip from Sue Zanker, Australian tangler, to make them fatter.

Now I think I found a way to work with Molygon that I feel more comfortable with. This one was really relaxing to do and I like the way it talks to me.

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:

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). 

Repeating patterns and about strings

There are an infinite amount of tanglepatterns around. So many experiences to make, and so much to discover. To me that sometimes becomes stressful. I want to learn so many of them, that I might loose focus on why I am doing this every day tangling. The point is when you have learned 4-5-6 patterns by heart, there actually are many more. Tangleations and patterns with a lots of similarities. Right now I enjoy go back to basics and work with patterns I am familiar with. Of course I am inspired by the BOOK. But I have been thinking about this for some time now. 

This tile is special to me. I worked with string 202 (Nancy Eaton). I felt so much peace and relaxation just leaning back, choosing patterns I knew well by heart. They are: Shattuck, Jetties, Tipple, Hollibaug, Crescent moon and Printemps. I hope I will remember this further on; It is not the amount of patterns that matters, finding new ones or the patterns in themselves. It is the process, the repeating of them that gives relaxation and I am thankful being able to do this.

The string is special in zentangle. It is a guiding line lightly penciled by freehand on the tile. It is randomly drawn mostly. Not if it is the way I try all the strings at tanglepattern. com. But it works the same way. The string helps a lot not to plan. Just follow.

The book

Today it arrived! Zentangle Primer Vol. 1, or as it is called in German: Zentangle Grundkurs 1. So now I have taken my German dictionary out of the bookshelf and yes, I am reading it!

Of course I had to jump to the chapter about Reticula and Fragment at once. I have just started to read but it is interesting and I think it is worth the effort! I couldn´t just read I had to make a tile too where I picked two of the fragments and made a simple reticula to draw in:

I just picked them out as I saw them and did what I did. Not much to say about so far, I have to study the chapter more. But the book is beautiful and very inspiring. Now I have to go to my choir to reherse so this is all for now.