Oops!

No mistakes.
A fundamental lesson of our Zentangle Method.
I experienced this recently in my artwork on two different occasions.
I have some Moleskine journals that I bought to keep in my purse so that I'm always prepared for a tangling opportunity! One of them was calling my name: "Jennifer? Why haven't you used me lately?" I decided it was a good opportunity for some randomly generated strings and tangles, which I had done a few years back as a way of practicing all the Zentangle originals.
I started with some colored pens, another tool that seems to frequently collect dust.

I picked up a black pen, and immediately regretted it. The Moleskine paper is so thin, you can see through it. (If you look carefully, it even happens with the colored pencils.) After trying a few different pens, I thought, "What if I just use my pencil?" The process was so relaxing, and I was fairly pleased with the results.

On the left, I was transitioning. I used my pencil to restate the bleed-through.

Even pencil shows through these pages, but it didn't bother me as much!

My second "No mistakes" moment came when I was drawing a postcard for our local swap. I lost my direction while tangling "Stella". Oops. Hmmm. After finishing the rest of the card, I picked up my black Sakura brush pen and inked the area with the "mistakes". Hmm. I could still see the mistakes!!

Panic ensued, but only momentarily! I remembered that I had some pens that a dear student gifted me, that are the blackest black I've ever found. Sure enough, they were blacker than the Sakura pens. I used them to draw "Sandswirl", and really loved the texture of the black on black. When I had finished, I added a clear sparkly dot in each swirl. Black on black. Who knew?

Can you see the underlying mistakes? I can, but I like it!

To quote Carolyn Dube, OOPS stands for Outstanding Opportunities Presenting Suddenly!

Thanks to these "mistakes", I've explored two new-to-me techniques, and discovered joy in them!

What "mistakes" have brought joy to your life?

How to make your own Zentangle journal

With several new classes, I've been busy prepping lesson plans. I wonder if this is really necessary, or just a carry-over from my previous life as a middle school French teacher, where you never knew when an administrator would show up to observe and ask for a lesson plan. I can't imagine that Rick and Maria would ever do that, although I would be so happy if they did! There's a part of me that really enjoys the planning and the archiving--new binders! I feel relaxed knowing that I've put everything together in a logical sequence for my students, and made note of how long things will take. I believe it's therapeutic, albeit time-consuming!

Here are some tiles from the last 2 weeks:

Inspired by Eni Oken's "Drawing Antique Lace"

For my November postcard swap

Demo tile for my "String Theory" class

New handmade journal cover

I do like using small journals for my daily practice. Once you have hundreds of tiles, it's nice to have a tidy way of organizing them. I make journals that are the size of a Zentangle tile. Using that familiar 3.5 inch square format is so comfortable, and with a limited number of pages, the journal is easy to turn, comfortable on my hand and wrist. I thought some of you might be interested in how I make them.

First, I cut my cover. I use a thicker paper or cardboard, cut to 7 5/8 in x 3 1/2 in. (19.5 cm x 8.8 cm)

Then, I cut my paper to 7 1/4 in x 3 1/2 inches. (18.8 cm x 8.8 cm). 

I decorate the cover before assembling the book, but if you're impatient to see the book, skip this step and decorate later!

I score the cover and paper where I want the fold. This just makes everything close more nicely.

Now I sew them together. I use a large needle and about 30 inches of dental floss (75 cm).  Using just your needle, make 3 evenly spaced small holes in the paper and cover. (One hole in the middle, and one hole halfway between that one and each edge of the paper. Clip your pages to the cover so that they stay together while you sew.  Now thread your needle, but do not knot the thread. 

• Beginning with the middle hole, pass the needle and thread from the inside to the outside, leaving about 2 inches of thread inside. 
• From the outside, pass the needle and thread to the inside, through one of the side holes. 
• From the inside, pass the needle and thread to the outside, through the other side hole. 
• From the outside, pass the needle and thread back through the center hole. Make a knot with your thread and the "tail" that you left earlier.

Make sure you pull everything taut as you go.

I have sewn these with my sewing machine. Some papers tend to tear this way, but I reenforce the journal with washi tape.

I hope this is clear. I had planned to refer you to an online article I used, but it's no longer available. Let me know if you have questions or problems.

Do you make your own journals? What's your technique?

Happy Halloween!

It's hard to believe, but in less than 2 hours it will be November 1st. Here in Chapel Hill, we are in the middle of a severe storm which cut short our children's Halloween fun. Our neighborhood managed to have its traditional parade, followed by the trick or treating from house to house. By 6:45, the  wind and lightning made it feel really scary, and everyone went back home. 

As the windspeed increased, my eyes were focused on the Monarch butterflies that I so love. I used my best telepathic skills to warn them to take shelter from the coming storm. This year I've seen the most ever. I hope that's a good sign for these delicate creatures that cross two continents every year in their migration. They bring me so much joy!

With Halloween we tanglers celebrate the final day of InkTober. I started this challenge in my hand-made journal, missed a few days, and started again on a recycled cereal box. I enjoyed working in a larger format and seeing it all come together. Thank you, Stephanie Jennifer, for giving us this year's list of tangles!

How was your October?

Zentangle and A Day of Care for Caregivers

It's almost November, National Family Caregivers Month. Our county's Department of Aging is offering a day of physical and emotional care and appreciation for those who are committed to caring for our folks who can no longer care for themselves. As part of the wellness activities, I'll be teaching an introduction to the Zentangle Method. Registration and respite care are free! (The deadline for respite care has been extended to November 2.)

Zendala Moments #09

We've had more rain this week, including this morning! I love hearing it and watching it, as you know if you read last week's lengthy ode to the rain!!! We've had some lovely autumn days, too, when I've enjoyed walks in the nearby forest. I took a previously unexplored path one day, and discovered this hidden gem.

My neighbor's maple tree has begun its lovely transformation of our sidewalk into a red carpet, and I feel like a queen!

Thank you, Annette, for another lovely Zendala Moments template for September. I did two versions of this. In the first, I followed the string, but in the second, Hollis, a new pattern for ZT headquarters, took over! (It reminds me of how some of the "weeds" in my garden mimic the surrounding plants and make it harder to remove them!) I tried to use the white to restore some structure to it all, but it's still a bit messy!!

Zendala Moments: Rain

"Flash drought." This term joins the list of global warming symptoms. When I saw it in a recent news article, I knew that I was experiencing it. My garden, our neigborhood, town and beautiful forest have been parched for many weeks, but, seeing the deadly drought that has had France in its grip for over a year, I barely paid attention to it. Then the crevasses in the red clay around my house seemed to widen and deepen, almost overnight. I remembered all the rain we had had earlier this year with a wet winter, spring and summer, and very few of our usual blistering temperatures. It seemed impossible that I needed to water my new vegetable plants, but I knew I had to. Weeks of searching the weather forecast for any sign of rain finally gave way to a small cloud icon for today. Dare I hope?
The rain came this morning. Neighbors went outside to look at it, as if it were snow! The kids across the street built a rain fort, with chairs and umbrellas and small chairs to sit in while they watched. I decided to enjoy the rain from the shelter of our screened porch. Listening to the pit-pat of drops on the leaves of surrounding trees, I picked up the Zendala Moments #08 template and started to draw.

Happy birthday to my niece, Gala! A devoted high school English teacher, she deserves a little shout-out!

My October entry for our local postcard swap found me ready for leaf action! I haven't spotted any tangle-worthy leaves yet, so I stuck with my trusty stamp, a glaze pen, some watercolors and colored pencils.

And just an update to my last post. I just noticed that in addition to the InkTober prompts I posted, there are several other options. See a complete list here.

How's your autumn? 

Catching up: Project Pack 06 and Organic Borders

When I last posted, I shared some tiles I had done as part of my study of Margaret Bremner. Here are a couple more.

My Zendala Moments 07 post used a technique that was featured in the Project Pack 06, where white pages or tiles are stained with black ink. I altered that idea slightly by taking black and white squares, cutting them into irregular shapes and then putting them back together. This tile followed Maria's lesson, using ING and Printemps. Somehow, my tiles didn't quite fit together, so I placed a yellow paper behind them to highlight the "mistake", and remind me of Kintsugi, a tradition where Japanese artists mended broken pots with gold.

As I followed along with the Project Pack videos, I worked on an ensemble of 4 "spliced" black and white tiles. This was lots of fun!

Eni Oken's Organic Borders ebook gave me my next inspiration. This technique of creating borders much as you would create a floral bouquet is a little more challenging than the Zentangle cartouche technique, but still relaxing. 

I like this technique so much that I decided to create a sampler of my favorite elements on a Zentangle spinner template that I had.

Now, I'm gearing up for InkTober2019 and tangling on some lovely autumn leaves. (After a wet spring and summer, we've hit a dry spell. I wonder if there will be supple leaves to tangle?) I hope you'll check back to see what we come up with!

Zendala Moments 07 and a humble homage to Margaret Bremner

It seems another month has gone by, and kids are preparing to go back to school. My retired friends and I will be together celebrating another year of NOT going back to school, another endless summer :) The Tour de France ended a few weeks ago, after keeping me glued to the TV every afternoon for two hours. I calculated that I spent 40 hours watching it. (I missed a day!) Luckily, I was watching the abbreviated version. That's about all my back and hips could stand!

I tried to use this time "productively", that is, for tangling! In particular, I chose to do a study of Margaret Bremner's tangles and tiles. Her work has always fascinated me as unique in its starkness, with lots of black and white blocking, but rich in textures, too. I still don't understand it, as you can see by my description! I added 56 tangles to my collection, and then started studying her strings. I've made a new gratitude journal, which is "pre-strung" now, thanks to Margaret's inspiration!

Project Pack 06 videos are out, with their "No mistakes" lessons. The supplies center around 2-tone tiles, simulating the ink-stained pages of a journal. These take me back to Bremner's bold tiles, with lots of black areas. Together, they inspired my Zendala Moments 07 tile. You can see where I spliced the two pieces together. Not intentional, but, oh, well--no mistakes!

And finally, another cartouche:

My daughter and grand-dogter ;)

Love and peace!

Zendala Moments 06 (Reprise!)

After writing about the pen widths in my last post, I just had to have another go at Annette's lovely template!

Zendala Moments 06 and nib widths

This month's Zendala was inspired by the last day of Project Pack 1, where Molly tangled Crazy Huggins on a black tile. (I'm not sure why I had missed that lesson.) Recently feeling one of those urges to play with Crazy Huggins, I found her video. She used a Gelly Roll 10 and an 05, and the feel of the ink on the Apprentice tile is sumptuous. It's almost like brushing on paint, as you move slowly to give the ink time to flow. Very relaxing. 

Before shading

After shading

Wanting to remember to use different nib widths, I made some notes in my journal.

When the time came for the Zendala this month, I wanted that same feel. I took another Apprentice tile and my Moonlight Gelly Rolls. I used a soapstone to soften everything.

Using those wide nibs feels like carving the tile. Now, if I could only find 05 Moonlights for contrast!

My fat nib kick continued!

A clean coffee filter, Koi brush pens and metallic Gelly Rolls

Glaze pen under Koi brush pen

Back to the Micron 01, I went to the opposite extreme! 

Do you have a preferred pen width? Have you experimented with different nibs?

Klimt inspired ribbons and Zendala Moments 05

Two months since my last post! Lots of tangling (and gardening, of course!) has kept me away from the computer and the blog. Time to catch up!

Nancy Domnauer (linedotcalm.com) recently introduced me to a fascinating technique through an excellent online class, Klimt Ribbons. Introduced at last year's ZenAgain conference with Rick and Maria, it involves using bits of the beautiful patterned backgrounds in Gustav Klimt's work to create tiles. Ribbons for the string, and fragments for the fill, lots of bright colors and gold ink--it's a rabbit hole if there ever was one!!!

My first tile

As you can see, I wanted more and more color! I used Koi water color brush pens, with the gold metallic Gelly Roll on top.

Three weeks later, I was fortunate to take another online Klimt class with CZT Tracey Nicholson. In this class, the string took on a more mosaic look.

This time I used Prismacolors.

My Zendala Moments 05 tile had a little Klimt effect!

These tiles don't use a lot of defined tangle patterns, per se, but for me, the colors and 10 nib on the gold pen get me in the Zen zone!

Have you tried this technique?

Thanks for stopping by!