Oh, I am having way too much fun making these. I've made seven in the last two days.  Fortunately I'll be busy with other obligations the rest of the week and am forced to stop.

Here are the books with covers opened and spines exposed.  When fully opened, they're completely flat and should be very easy to tangle on.  I can't wait to try.

Someone online pointed out that these Bitty BookZ™ fit well in the old (no longer available) wooden box with the Zentangle® motto on the front.  I've never known what to do with this box but this answers the question.  I love it as a storage container.

And finally, this was some of the pre-book binding preparation mess.  All cleaned up now, thank goodness.

I'm not the only one obsessed with this, but wow, it took over my life this week!



"It is surely a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions."  --Robert Bly

Just what I need.  Another hobby.  Oh sure.

The only way I can justify this one is to say that I'm surprised at how well these things actually show off Zentangle® tiles.  Or would if I ever got good at making them.

Today's version was so badly bungled that I won't even go into the story, but it turned out sort of ok.  I made the most of what started out as a "right-royal mess," as my friend Vivienne used to say.

Not only that, but a bunch of cotton quilt scraps arrived in the mail from my kind friend Elaine J. Huffman.  Free! And mostly gorgeous batiks.  She is clearly enabling this addiction.  Thank you Elaine...I have 4 more books in the works already, thanks to your gift.  Clearly it pays to know a talented quilter.  See below.

On the left here is my hilariously inept first attempt at making a "Bitty BookZ™," a tiny book of Zentangle® tiles, invented by Chris Titus, CZT.  Trust me, these can be truly gorgeous.  But not this one!

Chris doesn't have a website so I can't link you to her beautiful work with her own Bitty BookZ™.

My aim was to learn the process today, nothing more.  The point was to build one prototype in which to make all the errors I was sure I would make, and then from here on I can actually create some nicer books.  I hope.

These Bitty BookZs are created with ten 3.5" tiles, so I started by picking out ten of my very earliest tiles from years ago when I was first learning to tangle.  These are tiles that show where I was when I was learning, and some of them are...shall we say...uninspired.  But it's always great to have my own early tiles to show students when I teach.  So I used almost all old tiles for the prototype.  See below to see the tiles in their new roles as pages in my finished book.

For some reason I was really apprehensive about trying this.  And I did make some hilarious errors.  For example, when I glued the paper on the front cover I got glue on the "right side," and then I had to do some tangling over it to cover up the worst of the mess.  It's still a mess in some of the blank spaces on the cover, just look.

But the cover paper on the back side was the worst mistake--I didn't look at it before applying glue, and discovered to my horror that I had glued all over the right side and therefore exposed the wrong side, which had commercial printing on it.  But...in true "There are no mistakes" Zentangle fashion, I tangled across the top to cover up the printing.  That's why there's an odd dark horizontal strip across the top of the back cover.

And then there was the cover-paper in general--I used card-stock for the covers.  Whoa, never again!  Too stiff.  What was I thinking?  Fortunately I have thin decorative papers and lots of fabric scraps for the next Bitty BookZs I make, which should render the entire process so much easier.

Live and learn.  All in all, I'm glad I worked up the nerve to try this on my own. 

"My mistakes are my life." --Samuel Beckett

I managed to avoid all the other things I was supposed to be doing today when I heard that my friend Cheryl Cianci, CZT, was offering her coffee-filter class again.  I only discovered this at the very last minute and raced out the door hoping to make it on time.  I had taken the class about 4-5 years ago but my experience of Cheryl is that there's always something new and it was utterly relaxing as usual.  She is the soul of kindness, and hugely talented.

Much gratitude to all who teach.

A compilation of random thoughts this fine spring morning.

1.  Aren't these buttons fun?  I found them online and loved them, probably because they remind me of various patterns used in Zentangle® and also of patterns used in Oriental Rugs.  I'm hoping to use them in some tangling projects.  And maybe one or two will inspire a rug.

They are a collection of tiny mandalas.

2.  I spotted this beauty yesterday on a walk.  Yowza!  A "button"/mandala created by Mother Nature herself, and what a beauty.  There has to be a tangle design (or a rug) in there somewhere.

The plant goes by the unglamorous name of Osteospermum, also known as "Flower Power White."  It stopped me in my tracks on my walk.  Just an amazing flower; it positively glowed.

3. This is a partially-done panel on the bottom (yes, the bottom) of a tan paper box.  I've been working on this for two weeks and the going has been slow because I don't have all that much time to tangle right now.  Below you can see the completed design.  It will probably take me another month to finish.

Alas, I couldn't quite get that photo above to come out straight-on, but you get the idea.

The same box, vertical photo.  I still couldn't get a straight-on image.

I don't have the box in front of me but I'm guessing that the dimensions are about 9" long, about 2" wide, and perhaps and inch-and-a-half tall, with a cover that flips open.  I have a button to sew on when I'm done with the tangling and will use that for a closure (not one of the buttons shown at the top of this post).


4. Spring has fully sprung here and today we're having stunningly beautiful weather; up until today there have been very few sunny days and plenty of soggy ones.

May all the lovely colors, sounds, and scents of spring fill your senses today. 

(At least in the Northern Hemisphere)

Before I retired, I often wore pins as a decoration when I went to my office.  But now that I spend my time in jeans and t-shirts, the pins are languishing.  Here is a pin I never wore, a cameo.  I love it (and used to have a much larger one which was far more lovely, but it was stolen during a break-in at my former residence) but I never wore it.  Not once.  I simply had it because it reminded me of some positive things from my childhood.  Since it was just languishing away, I re-purposed it onto a card with some tangling.  I may put it into a shadow-box frame.

This may or may not be a genuine cameo (there are plenty of plastic fakes out there) but it doesn't matter to me.  It has sentimental value.

In these troubled and challenging times, it's my deepest hope that all of us are supported by a network of unconditionally loving people in our lives.  I'm defining these "beloveds" as very dear friends, mentors, and special family. 

Unfortunately, we are not all lucky enough to be born into families with members who end up becoming beloved.  But in my family there were three people who fit this category. 

Today I took some time to re-frame the first of them, my beloved maternal grandmother, or Nana as I called her.  She died over 50 years ago, but I think of her and send her my love and thanks to her every single day.  She is never far from my mind.  Oh, how I loved that woman.  She taught me every good thing I have become, or hope to become.  Here she is.

The photo was taken in 1937 when she was about 60.  I have only two photographs of her because she absolutely hated having her picture taken.  As a young adult I was shocked to discover that she'd gone through our family photographs and cut her own face out of every one of them.  I never had the chance to ask her why she did this, and it puzzles me to this day. 

My understanding is that she was forced to quit school around age 12 in order to go to work, and later on she raised a large family single-handedly after her husband became extremely ill and was hospitalized for decades.  She had a lot of shame about her lack of formal schooling. 

And yet, she was the kindest, funniest, most loving and smartest person in my childhood, and created a strong family foundation for me.  She lived with us until her death when I was about 16.  Lucky me!  I got to spend every day with her for sixteen years. 

I never stop asking myself how I was fortunate enough to have her in my life. 

Rest well, Nana.  And thank you.

I have managed to grab a few minutes here and there for some creative work, which feels wonderful.  Not enough, however! 

Here are some of the things that have been accumulating.

On a totally other track, I am doing some punch needle embroidery and here is the progress on the piece so far.  The entire piece is about 9"x9" and you can see the start of it in my previous post.  It is very different than the one I did exactly a year ago (same piece, different colors and I did it in cotton last time; this is wool).

It feels so good to sneak in some creative work.  Makes all the difference to me...

My kind friend (and fellow Zentangle® enthusiast), Susie Ng from Thailand (check out her fabulous, imaginative artwork HERE), just sent me this photo below.  She took my single 3-Z tile from my February 22nd post, multiplied it, and manipulated it into this hexagonal mandala.  Thank you, Susie!  I'm assuming you used Photoshop, which I don't have.  Though I keep meaning to look into it.  What fun!

What a nice thing to do for a fellow tangler, Susie.  You gave me a big chuckle on an otherwise crazy day.  Now...I have to look into software that will allow me to do this.

In the style of one of my idols, Mori Yuzan, a Japanese artist who lived in the late 19th and early 20th century:

Yuzan's work has always been irresistible to me because of the linework.  Wave after wave.  and so many tangles (not that he would have thought of them that way).  Both of the above tiles are nearly copies - if not outright copies - of his spectacular work, which fortunately is now int he public domain.  So relaxing to draw these and hopefully learn a bit from him.

Both were done for Zenuari2019 day 14, "idol tangle."  I think I'll be doing a lot more idol tangles!

 Sure enough, I had the thing laminated this afternoon (see yesterday's post for an explanation of "the thing") and then with the help of an x-acto knife and 3 minutes of work, cut a center hole and installed the works. 

Voila, a completed Zentangle® Spinner.

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm thinking about wheels/mandalas, etc., of which this is only one.

The big one--the Full Moon--was shining in my bedroom window so brightly last night that I thought she was going to come right through the glass and join me.  So I'll be calling this my Full Moon Spinner.

Now if we could all just learn from the quote below...

“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.”
― Edgar Mitchell

This week's Solstice (yesterday) caused me to start thinking about wheels, as in the Wheel of the Year and how that wheel is turning once again.  I've had wheels on the brain.  For example, the Wheel in the tarot (see my previous post on the Wheel of Fortune card HERE), plus I just finished a Zentangle® project that had me creating a wheel, below.

The above wheel is going to grow up to be a "Spinner Board," once its spinner arm is inserted thru the hole in its center.  Before I do that, I'm thinking I will need to laminate and back the piece.  There are 55 different tangles on the piece, and I'm guessing it's about 9x9".  It was fun to do and took twelve days, tangling for about a half hour each day.  It's part of Zentangle's Project Pack 04 and all the relevant how-to videos are on YouTube.

In the process of doing this, my already messy desk grew completely out of control, so today I went on a massive cleaning binge.  It should be noted that, for me, a "massive cleaning binge" is equivalent to picking up one piece of paper from the floor.  I did not get the cleaning gene.  I was happily raised in Lower Slobbovia.

But today I swept my large desk clean and forced myself to sort through things and create a semblance of order.  It's quite shocking.  More work has to be done tomorrow but here is the progress so far.  (Wish me luck with maintenance...not a strength either)

Apparently the wheel turned into a Wheel of Progress for me.  At least for the next 24 hours.

Happy Solstice to all...

A few days ago, I shared a post called "Inspired By Others," in which I showed some work done a la Ernst Haeckel at our recent zenAgain2018 conference.  We didn't stop there, however, and today's post shows two very different artists whom we also explored.  Talk about crazy fun--this was a highlight of the conference for me.

Indeed, Keith Haring, one of Molly Hollibaugh's favorite artists when she was a child.  After wondering what, if anything, we could do with tangles and his work, Molly experimented and came up with this instruction at zenAgain2018, and below you see the tile I did as a result.  I was SO surprised - and delighted - by this choice of artists!

My own version of a Keith Haring-style tile.  Was this ever fun to do!  Done on a black Zendala tile with White Gellyroll pen #10.  Permission to break all the rules here, and just have a good time.

And if that alone wasn't enough, have a gander at the mosaic below.  Bear in mind that this is only  a partial photo of the whole mosaic.
Prepare to drool.

But wait--that's not all we did.

The next tile couldn't be more different.  (As is true for the "Ernst Haeckel-style" tile we did which I presented a few days ago)

Yes indeed, Master Klimt himself.  I couldn't do him justice--none of us could, really, but we all gave it our best shot and my tile's below, along with a partial picture of the group mosaic.

This is truly only a very small portion of the class mosaic, enlarged so that you can see the detail and the contrasts.

"What inspires me to paint? ...revisiting some old greats like Sargent, Homer, Whistler or local masters... thinking hard about a new approach or idea; or seeing a new painting on a friend's lounge room wall."
(Amanda Hyatt)

ERNST HAECKEL
was the inspiration for this:

At ZenAgain this week we experimented with tangling that was inspired by other people's work.  This sea creature above is inspired by the work of Ernst Haeckel, and was it ever fun to draw. 

Below is a mosaic of the class's work with this assignment.  We were each given some General's Chalk Pencils to use--we each received different colors and were required to work with whatever colors we got.  Once again, you can see that all of them were similar, and yet, each is distinctly different. 

This was only one small portion of a much larger table with these tiles displayed.

Maria Thomas, one of the founders of Zentangle®, has a remarkable poster with her own version of Haeckel's sea creature on a portion of it.  See her poster below.  I believe this is for sale but am not certain.  (UPDATE:  Yup, it's for sale at the Zentangle® website.)

And finally, below, is a photo of a book about Haeckel's beautiful work (the master himself).  There are many books available about him.

"All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Yes, this makes three blog posts in one day.  It's true.  Deal with it!  <g>

Ratoon is a new tangle from Molly Hollibaugh CZT (one of Maria Thomas's talented daughters) released earlier this week.  The title of the tangle actually comes from some research that Maria was doing to prepare for ZenAgain this week.  A "ratoon" is described thus:  "a new shoot or sprout springing from the base of a crop plant."  The theme of workshop was SEEDS--all the seeds from our art-ancestors that we use in creating art today, and all the seeds we are sowing as we do our own art and as we teach others.  You can see the seeds represented in the tangle above.

Just as those seeds have and will continue to sprout, so all art stands on the shoulders of all previous artists.  In making our art--even if it's bad art!--we honor them.  One of the many things I love about tangling is that I never know where something is going to go, how it will develop, and the highly calming effect of the process.  We all get the same instructions, and yet all our pieces, while obviously related, are so delightfully different.  I will put a partial mosaic of this tangle as an example of that below (partial because there were so many of us that I couldn't get the entire view).

Another Inktober2018 inspiration.  I had totally forgotten this one, and now I remember how much I loved it!  That's been a big benefit of this challenge--recalling and enjoying tangles I'd only ever done once.  This picture will serve to represent Inktober Day 28, but it's actually a picture I drew in 2015 and blogged about previously HERE.

The creator of this tangle says she named it Oybay because the orbs looked like pearls in an oy-ster and oysters live in the bay.  Just looking at this 2015 first try makes me itch to try it again today, and perhaps I will.

Inktober was very productive for me and even though I was so ill for so long in the middle of the month, it was easy and fun to keep up or do a few tangles in one day to catch up.  By now, coming off this intense illness, I had a fair amount of catching up to do.  I decided to work in my pre-strung journal, as I noted yesterday.  So far I'm not thrilled with working directly on the journal pages because it's hard to turn the entire journal (versus the ease of turning a tile and then pasting the tile into the journal).

So although I had a GREAT time doing these tangles, the page itself looks busier than I would like and some of these would have been nicer if I had been able to turn the journal more as I worked.  Nevertheless, I am done with Inktober2018 and just loved the experience.

Below is my version of a tangle called Pais, which is the Day 6 tangle in the Inktober2018 challenge.  I'm curious as to why I seem to be keeping up with this challenge when I rarely can with others.  Maybe because I'll be teaching a class soon and want to practice as much as I can, or maybe just because these tangles are "monotangles" (only one tangle requested per day, although there's no rule saying you cannot use as many as you wish).  At any rate, I'm having fun.

Yesterday was an odd day.  It's been a tough week politically (to say the least) and then I had a few additional major concerns about friends.  I just couldn't settle myself, no matter what I tried. 

Finally I dragged myself out of the house and went to see this wonderful art exhibit by Jen Luck Hale, below.  I had seen the publicity and knew that colors would help me cheer up.  And they did.  If you are anywhere near Western MA in the next month or so, don't miss this one.  It's not just "snowflake-y" cut paper, it's cut paper in great colors with nature as the theme.  Plants, birds, fish, insects...it's all there.  And oh, the colors!  What a talented artist she is.  From what I have read, she does NOT draw on the paper, but just "cuts by eyeing it."  Wow.  Read about her process HERE.  Details and a couple of photos below. 

Don't you feel better just looking at those colors?

This (below) is only a small portion of what is on display. 

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, I bought three t-shirts, each with a different design I absolutely adored.   Each one was like a mandala to me.

[Ok, so it was actually only 2 1/2 hours' drive from here and only about 20 years ago.  But I do love these t-shirts.]

Slowly but surely they are all starting to wear out. I got the idea to use the designs for a series of 3 punchneedle embroidery pieces (see the other two designs below), and have just completed the last of the trio.  The designer, Rob McLellan, gave his t-shirt designs titles, and the title of this one is "Elksong."  Many thanks to the folks at University Silkscreen for giving me permission to interpret these designs in my needlework.  I'm really happy to finally be able to share what I've been working on all summer.

Below are the two previous works in my series, Midnight Pony and Redwing Blackbird.  Rob McClellan was an artist who lived in Ohio in the late 20th century. He died in a car accident around 2005.  A fascinating man, he was adopted by the Cheyenne Tribe and much of his art reflects that.

I spent the day today in Elaine Huffman's studio, learning to make these button-like zendalas from the wonderful Chris Titus.  (Yes, Chris is the originator of the Zondom, the clear plastic sleeve to protect Zentangle® tiles.  I use these all the time.)

We spent most of the day making the backgrounds; I had to leave a tad early so I only got to tangle this one, but others were able to get a second one done.

Full disclosure:  Chris herself had made the backgrounds for all of these to make it easier for us, and we each did the same tangles on them.  Here is the group mosaic, with one wonderful exception:

They matched so well with Elaine's pink flamingo tablecloth, don't you think?

Definitely a hugely fun day.  Thanks to Chris and Elaine.

Wow, stunningly beautiful weather this last little while--sunny, warm (but not hot), and no humidity!  Today was lovely.  I drove to a friend's house for a rug hooking event, and we were able to work outside in her gorgeous backyard.  Perfect weather and no bugs!  We hooked on her patio while viewing her colorful garden and listening to the din from hungry baby birds and their parents in a birdhouse not more than 4 feet over our heads.  The birdy-parents came and went ceaselessly, trying to stuff food into the mouths of the kids.  And were those kids noisy and demanding!  Parenthood is never easy no matter who the parents are...

Here are some of the rugs I saw (of course I got permission for these pictures--thank you all!):

And now for something completely different...

Diana had just gotten back from babysitting for four days while family members took a short vacation to Aruba (something they had won!  What luck!).  They brought back this amazing object for her.  Even more amazing is the description of the artistic process that was used to create it--it may look painted, but it isn't.  See the photograph right underneath it describing how it was done.  I have never heard of this art before, but I love this little critter.  Isn't he (or she) a beauty?

Truly impressive.  I will have to google "mopa mopa," which I've never heard of before now.

I capped off the day by 1) treating myself to a wonderful documentary on David Hockney's 2012 and 2016 exhibitions of landscapes and portraits.  More visual delight! 

And then came home and finished a tense and good WWII-themed novel. 

All in all, a delightful summer day.  I am feeling fortunate indeed.

This is a quick post that falls squarely in my "Other People's Work" category.

Remember my blog post from 5/23/18 with the phenomenal mosaic that resulted when the entire class put its tiles together?  Review the picture here.  It's at the bottom of that post.

Well, my internet buddy Susie Ng from Thailand saw that photo and "couldn't resist" giving it a try herself.  (Thank heavens.)  So she recreated the original tile--putting her own unique spin on it--and then used Photoshop to create a mosaic, using her single tile as its basis.  Check out this result.  Fantastic!  I'm so thrilled that she couldn't resist.  We all benefit.

And--hold onto your hats--here is the mosaic she created from the above tile, using Photoshop.  I absolutely love this!

Susie is one of the most original and creative tanglers I've ever run across.  I read her blog avidly (find it here) and always learn something.  I frequently go back and study  her tangles to see how she has handled things I would like to learn.  We've struck up a bit of a penpal relationship too, and she's just the nicest person.  Don't miss her frequent postings in support of animals and animal rescues, often found at the very end of her blog posts.  They are alternately funny and incredibly compelling.  Enjoy.

Thanks to Susie for allowing me to post this.

My last two posts have been on the Zentangle® workshop I attended last weekend with Martha Huggins and Molly Hollibaugh leading.  All in all, we had over ten hours of drawing time.  That's a lot of tangling!  And oh, was it lovely.

In the previous posts, I've showed our first drawings and talked about why I liked the workshop.  Yet another thing I liked was that we worked with "oldies but goodies," some of the most familiar tangles.  Or early tangles that haven't had much attention recently.  I love to revisit older tangles and see them in new ways.

So to continue with my own results from the workshop, plus the fabulous "mosaics" (everyone's tiles collected and displayed together), here are some more things we worked on.  Today's post is not the end--there is at least one, if not two more posts about the weekend coming over the next couple of days.

Let's start with an old favorite, Bales, done on a Bijou tile (tiny tile) as a warmup:

And of course, once we had these done, we made a mosaic of them.  Have a look at the cool similarities and differences:

Next we did another Bijou tile with the tangle Well, which many people have trouble doing.  Frankly, I had forgotten all about this tangle and hadn't tried it in years.  Loved the reminder and doing it after all this time.

...and of course, we made our mosaic of that also:

But of course we couldn't leave it there.  Next we combined the two tangles onto one tile (Bales + Well = "Wales").  Oh, this was even more fun:

...and then of course the class mosaic:

This was the final tile we did at the workshop that ended yesterday.  I've referred to the Perfs (the official Tangle name) as "Pearls" in the title of today's post because they look that way to me.

Because the venue needed to ready the room for the next workshop, there was no time to do a class mosaic so I don't have a picture to show of what would undoubtedly have been a really magnificent collection of tiles.  I really enjoyed creating this one, and would like to play more with this particular string.  Thanks to Martha & Molly for a truly amazing experience.

When I got home last night it was smotheringly humid here, really unpleasant.  But overnight the weather shifted.  Here was Dave Hayes the Weather Nut's forecast this morning.  It cracked me up!
"THE 411 FOR THE 413: SUNNY, WARM, SWEET, NICE, AWESOME, PLEASANT, KILLER, GREAT, LOVELY, FABULOUS, MORE PLEASE, AND THANK YOU..."

He turned out to be 110% accurate.  Love him--so helpful.  It is absolutely exquisite out there.  I just took a long walk and spotted these phlox broadcasting their extraordinary color along the sidewalk.  Most phlox here are shriveling up now, but because these are in shade for much of the day they're still going.  In person, the color is nearly psychedelic, almost too much for the eyes.

This little beauty is a much smaller mosaic that the one I posted yesterday, but it is the same pattern I posted yesterday.  I took this shot of  "3-Z tiles" placed into a tiny four-person mosaic before everyone else at the workshop added their own tiles.  Even though it's small, I had trouble remembering which was mine, but I finally determined it's at the lower left.

This is an even better illustration than yesterday's of how we all heard the same instructions, and we all used the same materials, and yet each person produced a unique result.

Just back from a workshop led by Martha Huggins and Molly Hollibaugh of the Zentangle® family.  (If you are unfamiliar with Zentangle, click on that link and prepare to enjoy their well-done website loaded with art eye candy.)  I was very fortunate to attend with a good friend, and we got to spend the whole weekend doing art.  Such luxury!

I have many more photos to post but to start, here are examples of two tiles we did this morning.   After both my own tiles, I'll post the mosaic from the group.  Not familiar with this terminology?  Not to worry, here's what I mean:

"tile" = a small piece of paper that we draw on, and
"mosaic" = the collection created when a class puts all their tiles together.

The fun of the mosaic is that everyone has heard the same instructions, but look at the assembled collections of tiles below (mosaic) to see how individual each tile is.  And yet they go together wonderfully. 

Here are my own two tiles, and the class mosaics follow.

A lovely ride with new friends this morning to a rug hooking event at a church about an hour away.  Very well organized, and 165 people in attendance.  I only photographed a few rugs, but aren't these wonderful?

Good people, good food, good vendors.  What's not to love?  I even won a prize, and I never win stuff at these events.  All in all a very satisfying day.  We started out early in very cold weather and saw plenty of snow on the ground and gorgeous snow-laden trees.  Driving home, all the snow was gone.  Spring is on the way...if we can only hold out long enough!