Diane's and Carolien's Weekly Challenge # 19 NBV

I think Diane's and Caroliens challenge has quickly become one of my favorites. Sometimes I struggle with some letters but I am always really happy afterwards.

You can find this weeks Challenge # 19 N-B-V on their blog :)

Here is my result. I am super happy with that one. <3

B'Twined, Verdigogh and N'zeppl. All my favorite patterns. Perfect letters for me.

Let's see how I will be able to tangle when school starts officially on Monday. I can not wait!

AirPort time is quality time

Airports became my second home in the recent years. I have been flying so much between Germany and Finland , I could do this in my sleep. I am always prepared against boredom. Pens, books, paper, tiles, I have it all with my. Also my good old faithful moleskin.

So here is my airport tangle. I am addicted to Purk at the moment :) 

The shading will be done at home as I left my shading tool with my mom. 

When people ask what I am drawing and why, they usually smirk at me like I am out of my mind. It's pretty what I do but they could never, blah blah. We tangles know this is not true :) 

So as I told my mom to just give it a try, she actually did.

She actually really got into it and I found her drawing this morning. 

For her first tried I think they are great. We started with tangles from Beate Winklers book. She loved it. So I had to leave a couple of pens, tiles and a book behind but I am glad that I have infected someone :) <3 

Weekly Challenge #230 - Guest Blogger Erin Olson, CZT

Weekly Challenge #230 - Guest Blogger Erin Olson, CZT

Weekly Challenge #230: "Let’s all be ZenDivaDala"

I knew Erin's blog The Bright Owl already for a while but did not dare to make a zendala yet. Mostly because I am not sure how to copy the templates on tiles. Maybe I should just get thicker paper and try printing on it. Anyway. I was happy that Erin was the guest blogger. I had quite a fight with the printer at my parents place and very thin, grayish paper, but it still worked. I re-drew the string/template and yeah, below you see the result with what I came up. :) 

I got myself new Sanguine pens from Faber Castell. I decided to skip the shading today. :D  I kind of like the result, as it is quite different from what I usually do, but hei, it was fun. :)

Below you see a picture of my favorite Zentangle book, Das grosse Zentangle Buch by Beate Winkler. Even if the book is in German, we all know that we don't really need text for the tangles. The pictures are beautiful, the patterns very clear and it is made with so much love. It is definitely the best entangle book for me, personally. 

I also got myself the new pens and a new Moleskin, my must have. It#s my favorite notebook to tangle in. What do you use? A notebook, tiles or plain paper?

 

Diane's and Caroliens's challenge #18 B-E-Z

B-e-z.... Yeah... I had a hard time picking out patterns. Besides Etcher. I have always been fascinated by Etcher but I rarely dare to do it. If you mess the shading up that is it and I have never been great at shading.

I picked Etcher, Bunzo and Zinger. I love love love Zinger. I am not too happy with my tile but I don't think I give it a second try . Any ideas how to save it? ;) 

I also made a couple of other tiles, just for the fun if it :) 

These I like a lot better :) 

Just for fun

I am on holidays at my family's place in Germany. Tomorrow will be kind of my nightmare, an exhibition called Gamecom... One of the biggest in the world. Awesome for someone who is scared of crowds... What don't I all do for the hubbie...

I did some tangling on the train. Just for fun :) 

 

I really love Purk. It became one of my favourite patterns. I always felt unable to do it and recently something in my brain snapped and now it's super easy. I am still amazed but the same happened with Quandary, my nightmare pattern... Now I can't stop using it. N'zeppel is one of my fall back to patterns . Do you have any patterns you always tend to use because they are safe and familiar? :) 

It's a String thing #104

Tuesday , the good news day has passed by again and this time it was time for a celebration! Happy two years anniversary to Adele and It's a string thing :)

I found the string in the shape of two candles actually really challenging.

The patterns this time were Drupe (I need to check the spelling as I am once again at the airport), Prestwood and a third one, Meringue. I chose to work with all of them. :) I finished the shading at a coffee place at the airport so it looks a bit funny but I am happy with it. 

 

Maybe some more black? :) 

"That's New to Me!" Weekly Challenge Challenge Week #31

I am really productive today. I like taking these challenges. Suzy Mosh has this Challenge I am trying now for the first time, called "This is new to Me". Sometimes I am scared to use new tangles or am stuck with the ones I am familiar with. This week the random letter was "J". The only J-Tangle I use is Jetties.

All the Tangles on my tile are new to me. I am not really sure if it is enough to use one new Tangle with a certain letter and the rest can be random or if all the tangles have to be new ones starting with the same letter.

Anyway. The tiles I used were:

• Jumu
• Jemz
• Joy
• Jilli

None of them are really my favorites, I think. Jilli could be something I might use more often. I love these wavy kinds of patterns. 

Am I happy with this? Naw. Mostly because I am not sure what I was supposed to do and none of the patterns were familiar or even ones I enjoyed. So, I think it is really important for me to have some kind of comfort zone.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it a bit. I am off tomorrow to Germany. :)

Diane and Caroliens Weekly Challenge #17: Tangle with S-P-V

Oh and what great fun that was! Be sure to check out the challenge here.

We were to use patterns starting with the letters S-P-V.

S for snaylz trayl, I added this one last, as a filler and ended up liking it. I got myself new Derwent graphic pencils and shading is oh so sudden so much fun :D My second pattern was Scallops. The easiest pattern always cause me the most problems. I somehow just could not get it right.

P was for Purk, one of my favorites.

V for VERDIGOGH

I am SO happy with this one. I tried to keep it very simple and focus on the shading. I think it worked out, what do you think? :)

Joeys Weekly Tangle Challenge #72

This time we were supposed to do a monotangle starting with the letter "I", Inapod for Joey's Weekly Tangle Challenge #72. I always liked that tangle. It was so fun. I am not sure if I can count this as a monotangle as I arranged them in the form of Quandary, which has always given me trouble but I thought it might fit nicely plus I practiced keeping blank space. Though it looked different from what I imagined, I am quite happy with it :)

I also show you where I have been tangling :) 

I am the Diva Weekly Challenge #229 Guest Blogger Sandy Hunter, CZT

Yesterday Sandy Hunter, someone I admire very much, gave us a new challenge, "+-" .
I often find myself having the same problem, filling my tile or ZIA with as much stuff as possible. It seems that I really dislike free, blank space.I feel like I did not finish the tile or it looks too empty. So leaving a blank, white space is something I need to practice more often.

I decided to tangle around the letter "S". I am not totally happy with my tile. I don't have the peace and quiet to tangle right now, with my family from Germany visiting. But today I took a few moments to breathe and relax. The more I look at the tile the more I get to actually like it. Appreciating the tile I have just made. This time I really noticed what difference shading can do. :)

Let me know what you think :)

It's a String Thing # 103

I am really really waiting for the challenges. This week we were to use the patterns Meer, mi2 and MrE :)

meer and Mr E I have never used and Mi2 I always found super beautiful but tricky :) 

 I hope you like my tile . We are on the way to Santa's village and I actually drew it in the car, hence the shaky lines. Still I like this one a lot. Mr E caused me more trouble than Mi2 :P somehow I always struggle with the fun patterns. 

Anyway...

Here a couple of impressions from the trip...

I see a pattern growing from this image. I just need some time and quiet ^^ 

Diva Challenge # 228

Today I am on the road to Norway at the moment. Today we should reach the Nordkapp but now we Are still in Sodankylä. I drew my challenge tile for the Diva Challenge # 228 last night. Guest blogger Cari Sultanik chose an amazing topic. I really loved the topic "Organic tile. A big thank you to the amazing guest blogger for choosing my favorite kind of topic :)

I used Auraknot, a pattern I never liked to draw but wanted to try it. I also challenged myself with a bit of Quandary. We will never become friends :D The tile is not perfect as I only have a micron and a pen to shade :) here it is :) 

As much as I love structured patterns, organic ones give me more freedom. I usually draw without a string. I sometimes feel that a string limits me. I like to see where the patterns leas me, not the string.

I hope you like it :)

Weekly Challenge #16: Tangle with U-N-I by Carolien and Diane

I feel in love with challenges as they usually make me use new tangles and others that I am not comfortable with or scared to use. So I discovered the challenges by Diane and Carolien. 

This week it was number 16 with the challenge to use tangles starting with the letters U-N-I. Uni means actually "dream" in Finnish, by the way. :) My tile is not dreamy at all but I am so happy with it. I always liked the tangle Intwine. The challenge for me was to make it in a circle. I always had trouble with that but I am happy with the result.

Does anyone know the feeling, that when you do a tangle, you make ten of the same strokes, but number eleven goes wrong. You start thinking what you have been doing and suddenly do it wrong. That often happens to me. So you might notice the mistake in my Intwine, but we all know that mistakes are allowed in Zentangle. :)

For N I used my all time favorite, N´zeppel. I always loved this tangle, you dan find it in most of my non- challenge tangles.

The last letter, U, meant Umble to me. I have always been curious about it and now I dared to do it. I made a couple of mistakes. Same pattern as above, but I think I covered it up.

Now time to show the tile :)

What do you think?

I changed the colors a bit for umble, but other than that I am for once really proud of what I made, especially considered that I did it at work :)

Anyway, have a great weekend!

The Diva Challenge #227

As the Diva takes her well earned vacations, guest blogger Lee Darter challenged us  this week with the topic "Circus" for the challenge number 227 . My first thoughts were "ok...?". Then I checked the patterns and actually they looked fabulous!

Tropicana I have done before and I love the easiness of this pattern. You can make it in a straight line, wavy, crossing over and under. It reminds me on old Italy, actually, I imagine Florence, Rome, fancy Roman buildings.

Cack, I was not so sure about this one. It looked to me like one of these patterns I can do nothing with. Circles. Not my things. But actually it turned out fun. Maybe this won't be a tangle I use in every tile, but maybe we will see these fun little balls again. :)

The third pattern was a choice between Fescu, Flord and Linq. Tough one. I like all of them, but as I am someone who can not stand empty space, I choose Flord as it is a great filler. I admit I am a bit scared of Linq.

Anyway, this is what I came up with

I am actually happy. Maybe this is missing a bit of depth and finesse, but I am getting there. I think I need to do some more shading around the Cacks. But i think I will leave it the way it is for the time being and pick it up one day again.

I hope you like it at least a bit.

Cheerio!

It's A String Thing 102

Here we are, my first post showing off some tiles! *whoop whoop* Not that anyone is reading this blog, yet, but ...

So a while ago I found out about Adele Bruno's page Tickled To Tangle and her weekly Tuesday It's a String Thing Challenge. I already did number 100 and 101. So the day before yesterday it was time for 102, my third entry. I felt first quite shy about posting my work as I still like to compare myself to others, well, "like" is the wrong word, I actually really dislike that habit of mine. My style is different from others and most of the time I like it. Other times I feel like a five year old, quite childish in my drawing. Though since I started with zentangle I have improved in every way. I allow myself to make mistakes, like a crocked line or a mistake in a pattern. Old me would have thrown the paper away and ripped it in the air.

So anyway, here are my tries for this weeks challenge. Yes, tries. I did one with colour and one in black and white. I had a vision of a blue-greenish string with my Inktense pens, but that somehow did not look at all what I have envisioned so I started adding more colour. I kind of like the way it turned out.

The patterns used where

Frost Flower
graancirkel and
SeZ.

In all honesty, neither are my favorite patterns. Frost Flower and I kind of became friends along the way. SeZ, in all it's simplicity really challenged me. I often find it that the most easy patterns are the most difficult ones for me.  But giving up that is not me. I still decided to got for a black and white version and this I actually really, really like. Not an all time favorite but one I like a lot.
According to my boyfriend the colourful one looks like a "Brain with Tomatoes and Cabbage", which I think is a compliment. So if I ever become famous, that one will be worth a million ;)

I hope you enjoy what you see.

Cheerios!

How it all began

My journey into Zentangle began roughly a year ago and what can I say, I am still into it, very much so, which is not always a guarantee with me. I might get interest in something very quickly and get bored with it. But it feels like I found my true calling. In the next days I'll try to work a bit on a proper blog entry. Why is Zentangle so important to me and show some of the results and my latest works.

I want to concentrate on:

- Daily/weekly challenges- 

Book reviews- 

focusing on becoming a CZT next year- 

post and learn about new tangles

The last years have not been the easiest in my thirty years of existence. Ups and downs on the job front, burn outs, frustration, a suicide in the family, accepting that depression is and will be a part of who I am and so on. Especially the stress at work back then took its toll on me.
I heard about zentangle online, but never really took a closer look at it. I always used to love to draw when I was younger but I often felt that my creativity and inspiration got lost somewhere along the road of becoming an adult.
At some point I just gave Zentangle a try. Mistakes are allowed? You don't need to be perfect? "Awesome", I told myself. That is just what you mean. I think I owe a lot to Rick and Maria, the founders of the Zentangle method. Did they save my life? Maybe not, but they gave me back a part of my sanity, thought me that it is ok to make mistakes and work with them. A tangle is not perfect? Screw it and work with it. I am loving it. Over the past year I tried out lots of books, paper, pens and tangles. I don't even want to know the amount I spend on materials, but that is ok. I finally have a hobby that makes me happy.
I find that ZIA, Zentangle Inspired Art, works the best for me. I like to work with the original tiles, but I always lust for something bigger. I like to work with a string, but I find that it sometimes limits me. Freestyle is more my thing. And that is ok. I also learned to love to use color. Sometimes I still prefer black and white, sometimes the renaissance tiles and sometimes it has to be colorful. VERY colorful. Just the black tile and the white gelly roller are not my best friends yet.
The newsletter from Zentangle announced today, that Finland got its first official CZT. It stung a bit, that is something I wanted to become, but hei, someone was faster than me and maybe I can even take a class if she lives nearby. I still plan on taking the seminar next year. I am not sure if I want to teach, but I want to learn. I am hoping that I can use zentangle with studying to become a practical nurse. I start school for that next month and yes, I am nervous, but I am also bursting with ideas, on how I can combine a job at a psychiatric ward or with the elderly with zentangle. I want to give back a bit of what I have gotten out of it.
Mostly, I just do it for myself. I calm down, I get focused, my brain shuts down and focuses on "anything is possible, one stroke at a time".
I feel like my surrounding always looks funny at me. Oh, she draws these weird kinds of patterns, why? Nobody really dares to give it a try. "No, I can not draw". Of course you can. I today "taught" my husband's uncle and cousin and even if it scared them a bit, they got the hang of it. I don't care if others get it or not, I know what it means to me, a whole lot!