Tanglefish
creative pursuits involving Zentangle® . . . welcome! visit www.zentangle.com to learn more
Monday, September 4, 2023
FOMO/NoFOMO!
Friday, December 9, 2022
Exploring New Waters
Monday, April 12, 2021
Stick With It; See It Through!
Sunday, March 21, 2021
Happy Flapping
To day, March 20, is the International Day of Happiness. Thanks to the United Nations for setting aside a day for this! Some people might need to be reminded or prompted.
narfello, floo, and gneiss |
So I found a tile to share that has an energetic corner...it was a quick, spontaneous composition that came into being as the second tile in a Zentangle® Foundations class I taught in January.
I should have been teaching today; I had a new ZIA class lined up at the local community college. I was really excited about this new concept for a class, but it did not attract the minimum of enrollments required, so it was cancelled. It's always a bummer when a class gets cancelled, yet there is also always a silver lining. Instead of pouring my time and attention into my class today, which would have been lovely, I got to sleep in, read a little while my husband slept in even later, and eventually we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast. This afternoon we got to work together for several hours in the yard on this beautiful day! It made me so happy!
Our yard has a long way to go before we will be satisfied with it. We have ideas, but tend to put other things first. Maybe this year we can get a little closer to our vision. Yardwork did not always make me happy, but the older I get, the more content I am to engage in the simple tasks of pulling weeds and picking up pinecones & sticks. Especially on a sunshiny day like today.
I decided that I wanted to write today, too. Writing makes me happy, and I haven't written here in a long time. I seem to write one post a year at this point. Maybe this year I will write more. Time will tell!
I started creating a new Facebook Group today. I have a local Facebook group for my tangle peeps here in East Tennessee, but I am getting ready to teach a broader audience. As I put together some class kits to send a Girl Scout Troop on the other side of the country, I realized that it did not make sense to add my local Facebook group name to the insert that I send with the kits, since the troop is not local. So I wondered what info I should add instead. It suddenly came to me: I should start a Facebook group as a companion to my blog. I'm on Facebook a lot more frequently, and it would help to keep me motivated to write here. It would be a way for me to connect with readers. Hopefully I will get more people interacting and responding to my posts. Maybe they (you!) could share any artwork they (you!) create in response to or influenced by what I write/create/share.
I am still in the very early stages, but I think I will call the group FanTanglefish. That has a nice ring to it! It might be FanTanglefish Tangleistic Pursuits, as "Tangleistic" is a term that I recently willed into being for another teaching opportunity that I accepted. I just finished a series of videos for a big CZT event, which is another source of happiness and joy. 😁💖I rather like my new word, tangleistic.
I have to include a tangled image, of course, though oddly I did not tangle today! Thus, in addition to the tile above, I also offer a photo from a class I taught earlier this year: a Zendala from a Valentine workshop. It features shattuck, betweed, and a tangle I call cl-bahhsonné.
Saturday, May 2, 2020
Twists & Turns; Returns & Reengaging
May 1, 2020 seems like a great day to re-engage. The world has changed since the last time I published a post here in Tanglefish. In my little corner of the world, our situation is far from "business as usual" but some things are returning. Some are seasonal, of course...plants are renewing their blooms and foliage. Some are societal...some businesses that had been closed for the pandemic are re-opening, as plans are in place to starts lifting restrictions. Some are personal. I am fostering renewed interest in various topics/pursuits during this season of social isolation. But renewed interest does guarantees action and results. So on this first day of May, I have decided to commit to engage in actions that further my interests and goals. So instead of thinking of writing posts, it's time for me to start writing them again.
I find it interesting that my last blog post shared my tangle within, which is reminiscent of a labyrinth path. Labyrinths are a renewed interest that I am pursuing, Did you know that May 2 is World Labyrinth Day? Thanks to CZT Sadelle Wiltshire for letting me know through her emailed newsletter that I received midweek...after I had actually taught a Zoom lesson to my 4th and 5th grade art students how to draw a classical labyrinth. Here's a link you can follow to learn more.
And here is a link to register, if you are interested, and you happen to read this in time.
There are many things that fascinate me about labyrinths. One aspect that I appreciate at this moment is that it twists and turns and defies logic as it takes you toward the center, then away from the center, and then you find yourself IN the center! Applying that concept to my life, my attention changes directions so frequently, yet I like to think that it can suddenly end up where it needs to be at any given moment.
I had some fun trying to develop a labyrinth path earlier this week...here is what I ended up with. It's rough, but I didn't create with the intention of sharing. I was just experimenting.
To acknowledge the beautiful changes in nature that are occurring right now, here are some photos from around my home taken earlier today. The peonies in my side courtyard have come and gone (the roses right next to them are now exploding) and the peonies in my front yard that will be bursting open sometime this month. I counted 19 buds!
Monday, September 30, 2019
Inktober Eve! And my new-ish tangle: within
If you are a returning reader, WELCOME BACK!
I'm glad you are here.
I'm glad I am here, too.
If you are just here to see my new-ish tangle, within, inspired by Margaret Bremner, scroll on down to the bottom of the post. But then make me feel better by reading the rest and maybe even leaving a comment. LOL
Today is the last day of September, which means...tomorrow is officially Inktober!
So maybe I will use Inktober as a great excuse to resurrect Tanglefish. I have missed blogging, but the blog world is so full that I doubt that anyone missed me. My last post, "PUF the Magic Tangle" from over a year ago, had only one comment. One mere comment, despite the fact that it was viewed over 1500 times, according to my statistics. And that one comment was total spam, not at all related to what I had written. I'd delete the bogus comment, but then you wouldn't have the opportunity to go read it for yourself for a laugh and an invitation to join my blogger pity party. LOL
But back to Inktober!!! Are YOU ready??? I'm not, but I hope to be soon. ;-) Workin' on it!
CZT Stephanie Jennifer of Singapore is one author of an Inktober Tangles list...here is a link to her Inktober 2019 blog post.
CZT Alice Dean Hendon of Maine, who runs the amazing tangle-y Facebook group called Tangle All Around, is also an enthusiastic promoter of Inktober (and so much else!). Her Inktober Tangles list includes not only a tangle suggestion (the first word on her list) but also the "Official" Inktober work prompt from Jake Parker, the creator of Inktober.
Click here to access one of Alice's Facebook Tangle All Around posts that talks about Inktober.
and,
Click here to access another post in which she clarifies.
Oh, yes, and though it is not Zentangle-specific, I must include a link to the official Inktober website!
Each list (Alice's and Stephanie's) is fabulous, and I like to use both lists to inspire my drawing throughout the month of October.
Full disclosure: I have never made it all the way through Inktober drawing every day. But that's okay! The point is to get you drawing MORE.
And I will add to that the goal of SHARING more. I need to increase both. I don't draw as much as I'd like, and I rarely make the time to share what I do. So...here I am, putting it out there. I have goals. Time to progress toward them.
One of my goals is to do a better job of sharing all the tangles I have come up with over the years. There are gobs of them. Not many are published. Those that are published don't get much attention; they seem to fly under the tangle radar systems. But I do get so very excited when I see other tanglers using them in their art. So if you share work with any of my tangles, I'd be thrilled if you'd let me know!
One of my Zentangle inspirations is Margaret Bremner, CZT™, of the Enthusiastic Artist blog. Last summer Margaret shared an artwork on Facebook that had a feature in it that enthralled me immediately. It was a round medallion that drew me in and held me captive, in a good way! An amazing way. I could not stop staring at it, enjoying it, exploring the lines. It led me to create a new tangle that Margaret embraced, much to my very great joy. My tangle is a simplified arrangement of strokes inspired by that one element, that fascinating medallion, in her work. I named this new tangle "within" because it is contained within an enclosed orb. It is a single path, reminiscent of a labyrinth. Labyrinths have fascinated me for years. I won't go into labyrinths here, but if you are familiar with walking labyrinths and the practice of walking them in order to reflect and journey with one's thoughts, then you might also appreciate the name within from that aspect. Within also reminds me of the plastic adapter that was inserted within a 45 to play it on a record player, back in the days of vinyl.
Within can be used as a single unit or in clusters, as shown on the right. There are many ways to embellish it.
Within, inspired by Margaret Bremner. |
And thus concludes my first post of 2019!
Leave me a comment below to help encourage me to continue posting.
Happy Inktober to all, and to all a good pen!
Monday, June 4, 2018
PUF: the Magic Tangle
Happy June! We are not quite halfway through 2018 yet. The months are slipping by! Travel for various reasons has kept me busy. I've made it to Ohio every month this year so far leading up to June, and I am sure I will be heading up there at least once this month. I do enjoy my trips up I-75! If you stick around (i.e. subscribe to Tanglefish!), you will probably learn many of the reasons why.
But on to the topic of this blog post: puf by Carole Ohl, CTZ™, is a charming tangle. I was excited to see that it is the focus of this week's Diva Challenge (#364). Puf really does seem to be magical in that it transforms from basic bales, a grid-based tangle that tends to turn out rather flat in appearance, to a dimensional and somewhat organic outcome! The original grid gets lost in the lines; it's rather exciting to see it transform! Here's my finished tile:
At the bottom of this post, you can see some pics of the tile in process.
In this next paragraph it might seem at first as though I am veering off topic, but watch how I magically tie it in:
During one of my trips to Ohio this spring (this particular trip was for a FIRST Robotics Competition Regional Tournament with my son's team), I made a little phone call to Bead Stash, a bead store in Kettering, Ohio. I wanted to see if they had any Tangle-a-Day Calendars in stock. Yes, I know it sounds odd to call a bead store to ask about a Zentangle®-inspired calendar, but I knew what I was doing.
Oh JOY! The owner of the store answered the phone, and confirmed that she had one copy left in the store. So I drove about 40 minutes to pick up the calendar and meet the owner—none other than the creator of the Tangle-a-Day Calendar, Carole Ohl herself!!! The same CZT™ who came up with puf, as well as a bunch of other fabulous tangles such as featherfall, tuftid, floatfest, and inapod. You can see these and other tangles on her Open Seed blog.
What a great store! |
I was so happy to meet Carole!!! |
I stock up when I can! This keeps me happily caffeinated at home. |
My son and I in the Team 1466 pit. He is the team's "Pit King" I'm not quite sure why he has my old Ray Bans under his saftey goggles! |
Happy Tangling!
-Amy