debriefing the heart

I wasn't the sort of teenage girl to draw hearts on my pencil case. I've had a fair unease about that shape for most of my life. Mostly because it seems like a rubber-stamped cliche of love - far from what love really means to me. Love doesn't look the same for everyone, so how can we all use the same symbol to represent it?

But I decided to tackle my reluctance head-on, and join in with this years ValenTangle fortnight. I'll share my results in a moment - but first a tile for this weeks appropriately hearty Diva Challenge. I actually started this tile for Day 11 of ValenTangle - but it drifted some way from the prompt, and then it went a bit wrong, and then I tried to correct it by throwing a colour wash over it, and then some TranZending. And then I thought it looked a mess so I put it to one side and made a new tile for Day 11. But I've resurrected it today, tinkered and shaded and I'm willing to call it done.

This started as a band of Marguerite Samama's Love Fragment -
which has been featured throughout ValenTangle

And so to my experience of ValenTangle. I reflected often as I worked on each daily prompt, and I've come to a number of conclusions. Firstly that I love working regularly and intensely on a theme - I feel proud of the body of work that has resulted. Once I decided my limited colours and materials (I stuck with a cool blue as my only colour to keep in mind with my Winter Inklings project) I could let go of planning and expectation. I could immerse myself in Marguerite's profoundly inspiring prompts - each satisfying enough to get your teeth into, but with plenty of opportunity to flavour as you see fit. But at the same time I felt the downsides of working this way. I rarely join in anything with a regular commitment, and whilst I could have dipped in and out, once I'd made my commitment I stuck to it. Much like love, I'm faithful once I decide to take part. And there were times when I found the need to produce a tile every day a little draining, and there were times I craved creation unrelated to hearts. But darkness makes us appreciate light, lack of love makes us appreciate its presence. I'm now relishing the thought of being utterly directionless in my tangling - who knows where I'll go next.

A whole lotta love

I've shared these tiles in the ValenTangle Facebook group - but repeat them here as I know some of my readers don't do Facebook, and also it's nice to see them all grouped together.

Day 1 - exploring the Love Fragment.

Day 2 - Hearty Ratoon

Day 3 - a little tangling, a lot of space

Day 4 - make a 3Z mosaic

Day 5 - tangle an object

Day 6 - hearty Wholly Hollibaugh

Day 7 - the Love fragment in a hexagon

Day 8 - tangle the initials of your loved one/s

Day 9 - hearty Star-Ing

Day 10 - tangle your corners

Day 11 - tangled borders

Day 12 - hearty Yuma

Day 13 - Bijou in a grid tangle

Day 14 - tangle a puffy heart pillow

Over the course of 14 days I came to realise that the heart shape is just a shape, no more no less than any other – it has points, recesses and curves. It can behave in all manner of different ways and if you tangle it enough times all meaning, both good and bad, begins to recede. I don't think I'll be drawing hearts on my pencil case any day soon, but I definitely don't feel quite as allergic as I did, and I can imagine that by this time next year I might get the urge to join in with the next ValenTangle.

full to the brim

This week I've been talking to my blog friend Sarn about the benefits of looking back at our early tiles, to see what's changed, and to notice how far we've come. As I prepared this weeks blog post, in which I'm going to share my most recent sketchbook pages with you, I thought I'd glance back at my old sketchbooks too. And I was quite stunned by what I found.

I knew that I filled books far less rapidly than I used to - I've been working in my current book since 2016 - whereas I used to fill about one a year. Look at a snapshot - five pages taken from the start of the years I've been tangling. Look at how spaced out, small and tentative my tangling was where in those early days. On one hand my pages look cluttered and messy now, but also far more sure of themselves. In the early days I was trying as carefully as I could to copy down tangles exactly as the rules defined them. Every tangle I used I practised first. Now my sketchbook is a place to try out things I want to explore further, it's experimental.  I note down tangles as I discover or rediscover them, as I know it's impossible to try and hold them in mind alone now that I'm familiar with so many. My sketchbook becomes a prompt and inspiration in itself - I can open a page and find an idea to play with. Start with a blank tile and any random page and use only the tangles on it and suddenly another layer of decision-making has been removed. The evolution in my pages is startlingly apparent - I wonder how they'll change in another five years time?

Five pages from the start of my tangling years - 2014 through to 2018.
Ability to see close up detail doesn't matter here - the point is look at how my pages have changed!

I haven't shared recent sketchbook pages with you since last August, a time which seems a distant memory now. We were locked in the grip of a heatwave, whereas today every window is wearing thousands of raindrops.

Points of interest - revisiting Static and loving it.
A trio of treats from Helen Williams.
And noting down a couple of ingenious variations of my Kitl tangle
spotted on a recent IAST challenge.

Points of interest - the organic delight of Easy Mooka and Iza
Playing with Molygon and loving it more each time.
Sharp pleasures from Shiraz and A-Frame.

Points of interest - playing with my initial as a fragment.
XLNT makes a really exciting centrepiece.
IAST#269 introduced the idea of filling a field with diminishing tangles.
To play with at greater length - F2F.

Points of interest - new tricky official tangle, Ratoon.
A couple of Tomas Padros quirky treasures - Love Handles and Helix.
The delightful Sistar and Q-Mi deserve much more of my time.

I'm heading back now to the wonderful world of ValenTangle, where am finding myself less resistant to hearts with every passing day!  I'll share the results of my adventures in my next post!

a pleasing shade of discomfort

Sometimes the wisdoms that I learn from my Zentangle practice mirror those I hold true and close in the rest of my life. But sometimes they lead me in entirely different directions. In my day-to-day life I am not a risk taker - it doesn't suit me. I know my comfort zone - I nurture it, protect it from threat and cherish time spent there. But on the blank page in writing, or on a tile that's a place I'm willing to take the odd risk. There I'll chance trying something a little out of the comfortable. Because what's to lose really - only a little time and ink?

Ratoon - in black and blue - with aura, orbs and something like Fescu

So this week I'm taking some risks. The Diva invites us to play with new ZTHQ tangle Ratoon. It's been circulating for a while but the official stepout was only just released. Every time I've seen it I've loved it, and every time I thought about trying to tangle it I've talked myself out of it. These kind of knotted tangles often prove tricky for me. But I did it - not even practising in my sketchbook first! Just straight to the beautiful Fabriano paper. And while there are a few wobbles and a couple of moments where I thought I was losing control, I'm pleased with my first attempt, and even more that I've broken my fear of Ratoon.

If you're similarly wary I'd offer a few tips. Firstly allow plenty of space, at least when you're starting out, and make sure that the outer 'seeds' are placed a good distance from your inner ones. Slow down, breathe often, and turn the tile to whatever way feels most comfortable as you draw each line - I learned this the hard way when for much of the tile I couldn't see where I was aiming for with my lines!

Blue Molygon - with added hearts!

I'm also warming up in preparation for joining in with my first ever ValenTangle. Some of you may know that I have an aversion to drawing hearts - but this year seems the prime time to overcome that. It's just another shape after all! ValenTangle, now in its fourth year, is a two-week opportunity to tangle on the theme of hearts and love in all its guises. It's the brainchild of Dutch tangler extraordinaire Marguerite Samama. Yet again she's written a PDF filled with illustrated prompts sure to tickle your tangling tastebuds - and I was honoured to be invited to write a prompt for one of the days! There is no obligation to join in everyday, or to stick with any particular colour scheme (I'll be working in muted blues to tie in with my Winter Inklings project1). ValenTangle begins on February 1st, and continues through to the 14th. Come and join the dedicated Facebook group where people will be sharing their art, you can also find the prompt book there. If you're not a Facebook user but would like to join in drop me an email (theraggedray@gmail.com) and I'll send a PDF back to you!

ValenTangle 2019 on Facebook

 

listening to echoes

Mostly when I tangle I don't think – my mind pleasantly disconnected from anything other than the flow of ink across paper. But if I do think I think about the tangling, and sometimes I think about what I might say in my next blog post.

This week I thought about repetition. About how I find myself often saying the same things to different people within the tangle community. I don't think this repetition is a bad thing. I often rediscover and repeat the same things to myself on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. This is how they sink in, this is how we learn.

This week I shared the thought that taking part in tangle challenges should never feel like a chore, merely an invitation to inspiration, that we should always feel able to decline without a shadow of guilt. This isn't the first time I've said this, and it won't be the last.

I didn't feel inspired to respond to the invitations that the Diva put out in the first couple of weeks of the year. But this week I did. The opportunity to fill stripes was too good to resist.

Keeko and a Beadlines variation -
ragged in places like a beloved old cardigan

But then a funny thing happened, all of a sudden I felt like doing a tile for the previous week's challenge as well. I explored a new medium by trying out a form of reverse TranZending which I've been watching Anica develop and explore over the last few months.

A rare photo of the works in progress

I used a Posca white pen to lay down a base layer of Baton. The benefit of the Posca pen seems to be that it dries to a permanent finish – which means it doesn't clog your micron when you go over it many times, and it doesn't re-moisten and start to move about. I drew my tile on a Strathmore grey tile - newly recommended to me by tangle friend Jules after I'd admired one of her 'hairy' grey tiles. These come measuring 4x4 but I cut this one down to our more familiar 3.5 x 3.5.  I often tangle on grey toned pastel paper, but these tiles have a smoother surface which seemed better suited to this technique.

Bunzo, Mooka and Tipple - I love how shiny and dark this looks -
like seeing an underwater world trapped beneath ice

Guess what happened then! I fancied doing yet another Diva tile, one for the first challenge of the year. I don't have a spinner machine so I laid down some concentric circles using two shades of grey watercolour brush pen. When I blended these with a water brush a subtle purple started to appear - sometimes an unwelcome side-effect, on this occasion a welcome hint of colour.  Not that I'm missing colour, despite being firmly locked into the blacks and greys of my Winter Inklings project.

CC and a bit of Mintea - and lots of graphite -
ornate cloud banks on a misty day

I politely declined to join the party for the first two weeks of the Diva challenge year, but this week I had a ball doing all three. I feel sure that I wouldn't have created these tiles if I had forced myself last week or the week before. These tiles could only appear when they were ready, when I was ready - I just need to remember over and over again to listen to my instinct.

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?

these darkening days

For the past couple of years I have worked on a tangle project over the festive period. I've given myself limited materials and focus and have been pleasantly surprised by the results. I planned to do the same this year but things didn't turn out quite as hoped. In addition to my injured tangling arm I also had severe back pain which left me unable to do much beyond lying down, moving occasionally and tentatively, and trying to keep hold of the Christmas spirit while substituting a gin and tonic for a handful of painkillers!

Christmas and New Year wasn't what we planned or hoped for, but despite that I wouldn't say we had a bad time, we found gentle pleasures in unexpected places. And while my tangling wasn't quite what I planned, it wasn't a failure either.

I allowed myself only a handful of supplies - pen, pencil, tortillion,
plus a dark grey watercolour brush pen, and a water brush

True, I only produced two tiles in two weeks, working just a tiny amount each day, before needing to take a break. But the tangling still felt absorbing and helpful, and the results look pretty good too.

Tangles used – Divi, Diva Dance, Mooka and Twile

I've been playing with the scrap of an idea for a while - of working in a palette and style in keeping with the seasons. I'm not sure if I'll keep exclusively to that for a full three months, but it's something I want to revisit again and again, as I like the idea of having a body of work reflective of the time it was made.

Tangles used – Divi, Diva Dance and Bask-It

These two tiles start my Winter Inklings, as I think I'll call it. They are stark but striking, cool but somehow comforting. Broken branches and fractured ice, heavy woollen blankets too.

the five-panelled finish line

All began well with my attempt to tangle along with the Zentangle team's Twelve Days project.  I shared an unshaded sneak preview when I'd completed four days.  And then it all went wrong, and I hurt my arm.  But slowly and surely it's getting better.  Still a little weak but, wonder of wonders, I'm able to tangle again!  After a couple of days of warming up on Bijou tiles I returned to my Zigzangle alternative to the official spinner.

It may not spin but it wends back and forth in a most pleasing manner -
especially went winter lighting illuminates only every other panel!

In my opintion ZTHQ did a very clever thing this year by not introducing new tangles or new techniques.  But instead taking us hand in hand through a glorious retrospective of those old and dusty, true and tested tangles that we all learned in the beginning, and some of whom we probably now rarely use.  I'm loving reacquainting myself with Festune, Umble, Jonqual and Betweed as well as meeting new friends in the shape of Fracas and Quabog.

Some watercolour along the borders and an Eye-wa type string

I managed to fit most of the tangles from the project onto my Zigzangle - although it was a bit of a squeeze and a couple of the days (6 and 12 if you crave details!) had to spread themselves out across the entire length.  But it's affirmed my pleasure at working on these long and winding tiles.

And so that brings me to the end of my last blog post for the year.  I'll won't be spending much time at my computer for the next couple of weeks.  In the last few months I've fallen into a more steady rhythm with my posts and have enjoyed the momentum that gives me and I have lots of tangle posts pencilled in for next year.  So, whoever you are, where ever you read this - thank you for sharing this strange world of black ink and graphite with me.  Best wishes for your festive season and see you next year!