the still point

Just one piece to share with you this week – but it's a whopper by my standards! I always prefer to work small, but on this rare occasion I decided a bigger area might suit my need.

In the summer of 2018 I was talking about a paper product I'd seen but not tried - Magnani Acquerello round blocks.  Hard to find or massively overpriced in the UK, a generous and kind tangle friend, Jules, offered to send me a few sheets to try. It took till now to give the first one a road test, but it's a great paper - a little thirsty, smooth but with enough tooth to slow me down and take hold of the graphite.

Link to buy in the US via Amazon.
And at long last, a viable UK seller!

They come in two sizes, and I used the smaller one. It's about an inch and a half larger than the official Zendala tile which doesn't sound like much but feels like a lot of extra tangling space!

Just like the days make a week make a month make a year -
so a tile grows, slowly but surely, a little at a time.

I wanted this tile to represent the cusp between two seasons, that point where autumn segues into winter. I worked slowly over the course of a week, laying down my string, my colour (Peerless watercolours), some tangles to define the space, autumn tangles in one section, winter in another.  I considered shading using colour, but decided that smooth blended graphite was the way to go.

A dance of two seasons.
Defining the space - Marasu, Miff, Beadlines and Doodah.
In the Autumn section - Hollis, Gelijoy, Mooka Easy, Tamisolo.
In the Winter section - Arukas, Flukes, Hemp and Fassett.
And right at the middle, Uncorked by Adele Bruno (my very first tangle friend and mentor).

There's lots of different tangles on this tile, more than I would usually put together on a single piece – but the limited colour and shading and the repeat of those black perfs with their tiny white highlights helped unify and simplify the finished piece.

As the last leaves fall and darken in our puddles, autumn waves goodbye.  Winter lingers on the threshold waiting to be invited in. It can't be stopped whether you welcome it or not, but I plan on making friends with it through the next few weeks with my final seasonal Inklings.

it ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it

Despite how it might sound, this isn't a post where I gripe about my failings and expect you to compliment me in return!  It's just an opportunity for me to talk about the highs and lows of a tangling week.

We can't love every tile we draw.  There are going to be some that we want to frame and hang on a wall, that we want to introduce to our family, or tuck under our pillow at night to decorate our dreams.  There will be many that we feel okay about, but don't really remember much beyond the moment we signed and dated them and set them to one side.  And there will be some that we don't like much at all.  That we want to disown, or dissolve into mere atoms of paper and graphite and ink.  I always encourage tanglers who feel they've made a dud tile to keep it, don't throw it away, because it marks a moment and through that it still has something to tell them. 

Mooka, Cubine, Dex and Crescent Moon -
great tangles but this wasn't a winning combination.

On Wednesday I made a tile I really don't like.  It could have been wonderful - I started with a beautiful Zentangle round tile and pencilled in Annette's Zendala Moments #4 string (I'm playing catch up with these).  And it went wildly off-key from there.  In hindsight I wasn't in the right frame of mind to tangle.  I had pain in my teeth and my hip (both now fully resolved) and while sometimes tangling distracts me from cares and discomfort, sometimes it doesn't.  I tangled through the pain but minute by minute my tile started to decline - my line work was sloppy, I packed too much in and I started to feel really negative about the tile.  I packed up my supplies and only returned to the tile today.  I couldn't do much to save it - and I was sorely tempted not to share it, but I think it's important to share our tangling tragedies as well as our triumphs.  We all have days like that, tiles like that - I bet even Rick and Maria knock out a tile from tile to time that they look at with wobbly mouths and swiftly feed to Bijou!

All Stars (Tomàs Padrós) takes a bit of concentraion to set up the initial grid -
but once that is done you can go crazy with your choice of fill
and then watch it come to life and the shading stage!

The great thing about Zentangle is that there is always another chance, another tile, more ink, a sharpened pencil.  And what a difference a day makes!  Yesterday I played with two tangles by the masterful Tomàs Padrós.  These tangles were both new to me and both a fair bit more complicated than any I used on the round tile.  But they worked like a dream.  And even when I made a couple of mistakes - lines where they shouldn't have been, or lines that came out thick and wobbly I was quickly able to work those into my design.  I don't have much more to say about these tiles - they speak elegantly enough for themselves.

Taiga (Tomàs Padrós) is a mesmerising tangle with a familiar formation that
cleverly transforms into the look of tall winter trees - or can remain
entirely abstract if you wish.  A slip turned into the invitation to cut out
sections to enhance the appearance of a paper-cut forest!

By my definition my Spring themed tangling is coming to a finish at the end of May.  My pinks and yellows and greens are becoming more vibrant as summer edges nearer.  It's a cusp week next week, so time for something a little different, but then I'll move into Summer tangling mode.  There were quite a few springy ideas I never got to try - but there's always next year, and mostly I'm just proud of sticking to my project and even embracing the use of pink!

as the song says

There's a lyric in a song I've long loved that says 'All the things I detest I will almost like' (Somebody - Depeche Mode).

Some months ago I'd have found it inconceivable that I'd be contentedly working in shades of pink and yellow for the past six weeks!  I actively dislike pink, unless it's a very hot cerise, and while yellow is okay, and quite beautiful in natural settings, it's a bit too bright and lively for the way I like to work.  But the more time I spend with these colours, the more I get to know them, understand them, refine what works well with them and what doesn't.

Marguerite Samama's Persian Mosaic original concept invites us to tangle with a cobalt pen, but is infinitely variable too.  Earlier this year I gave it the winter look and now these two 3Z tiles are showing off their spring style!

In bloom - Dayzee-Mae, Auraleah and Flux
Watercoloured tiles, shaded with pink pencil and graphite

A rare work in progress image -
most of the line work is done,
and I'm starting to colour and shade

Quite a few of the backgrounds I've used recently have been made using the hefty hack technique.  Whereby you lay down some watercolour from a pen, spritz it with some water and then pick it up using your tile.  The interesting thing is the results differ every time, and not only because of the random spread and mix of the colour but because the paper you use seems to influence the spread and absorption.  On the 3Z above - I used the same pens, two yellows and one pink, but the colours mostly blended to a peachy yellow.  On the Zendala tile below the colours stayed more differentiated and created a wonderful design reminiscent of raspberry ripple icecream!

I used this tasty looking tile for the background to my piece for Annette's Zendala Moments #3 prompt.  I've not tangled many Zendalas over the years - in fact this tile bring my grand total to only 11!  I've no idea why really, perhaps just because their extra size makes them more of a commitment, or perhaps because I'm naturally drawn to the straight sides of the square tiles.  But every time I tangle one I love the process and the result.  The pleasure of picking a few favourite tangles and methodically working my way around the tile, the rhythm and repetition are mesmerising.

A whirling dervish -
Diva Dance, Bunzo, Kaboom plus tassles!

I love how this Zendala turned out.  I went darker and darker with the shading, without ever muting that lively background.  I also added some tassles to further enhance that sense of movement.  It makes me think of genies escaping from confinement in bottles and lamps, magic cushions and hats spinning their way across deserts in Scheherazade's tales.

I'll be moving on soon, adding another shade to my spring palette, and while pink and yellow will never become my favourite colours I'm far less afraid of them than I used to be.

say hello, wave goodbye

Last week I said goodbye to the winter instalment of my seasonal Inklings project. When I started this I knew it would be challenging - while I have very few concerns with managing the colours of winter and autumn, spring and summer are not my natural palettes. To me spring is the time when colours return - tentatively, just a touch here and there, pale suggestions of colour slowly intensifying as the months creep by.  Tender greens and warmer blues, but especially yellows and pinks - my least comfortable colours. But what's the point in challenging yourself if you only stick with what is comfortable?!

The following three tiles allowed me to dip my toe into spring. Each has one foot still in winter, but a burst of colour breaking through.

My fellow tanglers inspire me each and every day, in small, large and sometimes unexpected ways. My first tile is testament to that. Among her many delights, Anica has recently been sharing some tiles where she mounts a Bijou of one colour in the middle of another coloured regular sized tile. She then tangles, seamlessly blending the two together. I wanted to give this a try. Elsewhere, in a conversation with Alice, mistress of colour, we were talking about whether yellow tissue paper is more reluctant to give up its colour, when used in the tissue dying technique. I did a couple of tests on scraps of watercolour paper and found by luck more than skill that it worked! A two inch square tinted yellow and pink just begged to be used in an an Anica style tile.  It's actually mounted on a white tile which I then mostly coloured grey, the same grey I used on my winter tiles. I don't think my integration of the two parts is even close to seamless, but the process was great fun and one I'll revisit.

A window onto spring -

Nik in the corners, and Krokus in the middle

Back in January I broke the rules when joining in with Annette's first invitation to enjoy a Zendala Moment.  A few weeks ago she shared a second installment and this time I transferred the string faithfully to a Zentangle original round tile.  As soon as I saw those squares with their petal shapes I knew I wanted them be cut through to show what lies beneath. Again a tile started to come together that showed the cusp where one season slides into the next. Seeing as I'd already started with yellow and pink I continued, with coloured pencil on my ribbons.  The thing I love most about tangling Zendalas is that glorious repetition, moving from one section to the next, little adjustments to one part repeated in the others.  This piece started very pale, wispy almost - I liked its delicacy but it began to feel uncharacteristic of my style.  I went back and darkened some of the auras, and suddenly I could recognise myself again.

Pretty in pink and yellow -

mostly just Baton, with a few Fescu

My last tile began in the dark depths of December. I was playing around with F2F (short for Fringe 2 Fringe) - a tangle unleashed from the brilliant mind and hand of Tomàs Padrós.  I had an idea of using F2F to form a kind of snowflake.  I confess that I started out with quite a few pencil lines to divide my space evenly.  And then I sort of stopped, put the barely started tile to one side and mostly forgot about it. Occasionally I picked it up and wondered whether to start it again. And then this week I did. I completed the middle section which now looks more like a papery spinner than a snowflake. I added some pink and yellow watercolour in the corners, and once dry added a little Printemps. It's a strange tile, but I've always liked strange things!

Ready for takeoff -

F2F and Printemps

Last week I said I was a little wary about reconnecting with colour, but having spent the week dabbling with my two most feared colours I feel a little braver about the weeks and months ahead.

making and breaking

Contrary to popular belief January is not named after the two-faced Roman god Janus. However I believe the month invites us to take a glance at the year we've just left behind, as well as the one opening out ahead of us. I don't make New Year resolutions, however in recent years I've written myself a short manifesto – a list of aims and hopes for the months to come. And every January I look back and see how much of what I aimed for a year ago I've actually achieved. It's interesting to see where I've succeeded, where I've failed, and where the aim no longer seems so important. It helps me to chart the things that stay true as well as those that change. I split my manifesto into different sections relating to different areas of importance in my life – and of course I have a section for Zentangle. I might list new techniques I want to try, old techniques I want to revisit, new tangles I want to step-out and share with the community. There were eight things on my Zentangle list last year and I achieved five. There are 10 on my list this year, and I'll have to wait till next January to see how many I managed to do! But it's not about merely ticking off achievements for me – it's about thinking about my practice, engaging with it, developing it and keeping it alive and inspiring.

As part of this reflective patch I thought I would look back over all the tiles I tangled last year. I decided to pick out 12 of my favourites and share them here - as much to remind myself where I'd been as to show you. Favourite sometimes means a tile that I really like the look of, sometimes one that was a delight to tangle, sometimes one that has particular significance or memory attached to it.  Different colours, different shapes of tile, different styles and a fair dose of classic black-and-white Zentangle magic. I wonder what a similar collage of your year would look like?

2018 - a year in 12 tiles
a strange kind of tarot - reading tiles instead of cards - decoding the past not predicting the future -
 examining what did happen rather than what might

Turning my attention from the past to the future, Adele Bruno recently invited us to start our String Thing adventures with a string based on the number 19. I didn't get my tile finished in time to send to her (a theme I'm continuing from last year!) but I thought it would fit well here as I talk about the year to come.  Do have a look at all the tiles that others created using the same string.

IAST #274 - featuring Centipede and Lex

Annette, curator of the wonderful Mosaik Project that I regularly talk about here, recently launched a new endeavour - Zendala Moments. She is not classing it as a challenge so much as an invitation to explore the fun that can be had when working on pre–strung Zendalas. She provides a template and then allows us to post links with our results. She plans to host monthly Moments – a great addition to fill the gap left by the Bright Owl.

Zendala Moments #1 - weighted Printemps and aura

As soon as I saw the string I knew I wanted to use a weighted Printemps technique that I'd seen fellow UK tangler Jo Quincey use a number of times to great effect in recent weeks. I also felt instinctively drawn to a regular sized square tile - which of course Annette's templates were not designed to fit. No problem - I just cut the template in half, flipped the halves, and transferred the design to my tile. Pleasant hours ensued, lost to the calm of repetition, of rounding each and every corner, of dark, of light - of getting sucked out of the morning and all the large and small worries that circled me, and down into each and every spiral. I drifted at times, but the pen always pulled me back. Again and again and again.  The end result is not how we expect a Zendala to look - but if we can't break the rules here then where?

mad dog days

It's been weeks since my last tangled confession.  Our overheated summer has continued. Every so often we get a day or two when the temperature dips, and hopes rise, only for the mercury to start creeping up again.  Our garden is parched - lawn browned to straw, the soil solid and cracked.  Curls of bark and more than the usual number of leaves tumble from our eucalyptus.

The bark was rough beneath my pen, the leaf almost waterproofed.  Mooka and Printemps will travel with these remnants as they go with the green waste for recycling.

I feel heavy and sluggish and dried out.  Even my ideas are starting to wither.  I've not tangled much.  I've finished some swap tiles sent to me by others, somehow that's felt easier, as if they've already broken the barrier of the blank page.  And the handful of tiles I've drawn on my own have taken a long time to emerge. I've added little bits over the course of weeks - not my usual way of working - but at least something to mark the period, to share with you.

Bursts of red against the blue - Ying, Hollibaugh and Printemps

It's a String Thing #252, which I didn't finish on time -
just the warm and wonderful Deeday.

I tried something new... inspired by a conversation with Michele Wynne about her hesitation to working on pre-strung Zendala tiles.  I wondered what would happen if I partially ignored the pre-strung lines, or used them in a non-symmetrical way.  I think the result is less pleasing than I had hoped, but it was interesting to do - something rather liberating about the feeling of breaking the 'rules'.  I'm sure I'll try it again sometime.

I tissue-dyed the tile before tangling with hexagonal Aquafleur, Elirob, Scrawls, Fassett and Printemps

Since starting to write this post we've had a welcome break in the weather.  Last Friday afternoon - a little thunder, a flash of lightning and then a most gentle rain.  We stood outside and let it fall on us, greeted like we've never seen it before.  On Sunday it poured all day, and in the early hours of Tuesday morning I woke to hear yet more rain overflowing from our neighbours gutters.  The lawn is starting its return to green. But this is respite, not cure - the forecast says the heat will return by the end of this week. 

coming around again

I've carried the idea for my Diva Challenge tile all week.  I knew I wanted to take a simple tangle and aura it in different ways.  Which is what I did with Flux on this unstrung Zendala tile.  I knew I wanted to colour the sections between.  And all that went much as hoped -  but then it came to the shading, the part I often enjoy the most - and then I got stuck.  I find shading auras tricky.  And shading Flux can either be very time-consuming (if you shade each leaf) or a bit basic if you just run a line down the middle.  I went with the latter approach, but wonder if it's lacking something?

But sometimes the most important thing Zentangle gives me is learning to live with imperfections.  Inadequacies.  Of time, ability, energy.  It reminds me that even with short supply of any or all of those you can still make something and hold it in your hand at the end of a week and say 'I made this'!

Flux - aura - repeat! 

I haven't always had time, ability or energy to draw a tile for Adele's weekly It's a String Thing Challenge recently - but I've managed to catch up on those I've missed on the limited space of a Bijou tile.  I've played with different colours and shading techniques - some I like more than others.

Top row - IAST #232, #233 and #236 
Bottom Row - IAST #240, #241 and 242

Do you find your art seems to come in ebbs and flows? I have patches where I'm really feeling it, in tune with the materials, brimming with ideas and loving the results.  And then I hit a patch where nothing seems to come good.  And looking back you think that the work you were doing months or years ago looks better than what you're producing now?  But then another day you can see the progress you are making, the skill and confidence that is steadily growing.  Do you feel that and think it's just you - it's not - it's me too!

anatomy of an idea

This week's Square One Facebook group focus tangle is the lovely Oke by Michele Beauchamp.

I started playing with this tangle in my sketchbook (you can see it in the bottom left corner of this very cluttered / inspired page) and soon stumbled on an idea I liked.  I'm a little scared showing a full on sketchbook page in a public place - it feels a bit like having one's underwear on show!  But I thought it might be interesting, so you can see how bits of ideas that begin randomly, or jump from one tangle to the next, come together into one piece.

I tangled a quarter circle version in the basic beauty of black and white to meet the group posting criteria.

But I felt there was a bit further I could go so set to work on a Zendala using the same kind of design, with a few added feathery type Fescu and some flourishes.

There are few rare things happening on this tile - for one I rarely use these beautiful but precious official tiles.  Seconding I rarely draw gems, but this tile called for them, and I used not one but seven!  I also took longer that usual on this tile, coming back to it over the course of a couple of days.

It was a joy to draw and I'm very pleased with the final result.  We are having a few days of bright and sunny summer weather here, but by the looks of this tile my heart is already half way to autumn.

kiss the graphite goodbye

I didn't fancy doing a full globular grid, as suggested by the Diva for this week's challenge.  So I just worked with the central cross-section part.

The only tangle I'd chosen before hand was Wallbucket by Sandra Strait (which I spotted on a recent via to Ina Sonnenmoser's new tangle resource site Pattern-Collections.com).  I wanted this for the middle section and I think it looks great. 

And then I just let my pen do whatever it wanted.  The arched sections took Betweed very well.  Some non-specific arches provided a base for a few Flux and then I did a Verve-type border. 

I've got into a habit lately of taken before and after images between finishing the line work and shading.  I almost always prefer the shaded version, but today I didn't.  It looked a bit messy.  But perhaps because I'd coloured some sections with a grey watercolour brush pen before I started the detail work there was enough contrast to not need additional shading quite so vitally. 

Anyway, there it is. 

in bloom

And then in other bursts of broken minutes I did another Zendala - Bright Owl's #107.

I used X-ess, Mr. E and Tearce.  And if the Owl's recent tangle, Mushnik, were to flower - it might well look like this!

hidden stars

Sometimes my days don't allow a reasonable piece of time to settle to truly mindful tangling. 

But there are usually at least a few minutes here and there to put Micron to paper and fill in a section of a Zendala. 

So that's what I did.

With Baton and Antidots and the Bright Owl's #106 Zendala.

we have lift off

For this week's guest-hosted Diva Challenge, the lovely Bright Owl asked us to have fun with one of her Zendala templates. 

I only discovered the pleasure of Zendalas and Erin's weekly challenges shortly before she took a break - but now she's back and I want to get back into doing them.  They offer a subtly different experience than other types of tangling.

I used the graphite transfer technique to copy the template onto a standard (9cm x 9cm) sized tile and it worked way better than I expected!  This would also offer a great chance to alter or omit any lines you don't fancy using.

And then I went in with my Micron - popping Sandy Hunter's delicious new Papermint tangle into the circular sections, and then a sort of Ticking variant into the leaf shapes and then a few bits of Beadlines and some tufts and dots and shading and there you have it! 

It looks like it's about to fly away, and I feel a fair bit lighter than I did when I started it! 

hundreds and thousands

Last Sunday I was idly tangling in the sun.  And I found myself drawing a few strings of tiny beads.  I find I often reach for the tangle Beadlines when I'm stuck with a way to bring two areas together. 

Come Monday, the Diva introduces her bead based challenge and tells us about Beads of Courage.  I'd never heard of the idea before and presumed it was just a US thing - then on the tv that night, I see a girl with her own string of such beads.

It took me till today to work out how I wanted to take on the challenge - and then it fell into place.  I'd printed out two copies of the Bright Owl Zendala #94, one for that challenge and one as a spare - and suddenly I could see all those faint printed lines as strings for my tiny Sunday beads.  In uncharacteristic bright and warm colours, my partner pointed out that some even look like bees!

The finished Zendala reminds me of summer's long gone - of tied-dyed dresses and drinking cider from bendy plastic pint glasses.  Of hayfever and live music lost to the sky.  And wearing far more beads than is strictly necessary.