The Crooked Dog

New tangle: Bali Breezeway

Back in the day when international holidays were possible, my daughter and I and two friends took off for ten days in Sanur, Bali. We rented a lovely pool villa. Sanur is often called “snore” by a particular breed of Australian as it is too quiet for then, but to us it was perfect.

It was a very relaxing holiday. We did little but rest, walk, eat and swim. However, I did manage to get to finish my Zentangling project using a Moleskine Japanese album, which I will write about in another post. The very last tangles in the project were inspired by the amazing fret and breezeblock work that is found all over Bali.

Bali Breezeway

This is Bali Breezeway. The tile on the left is the tile I drew on an ATC shortly after arriving back at our villa having taken the photo on the right-hand side.

I am not a CZT but I can’t find a similar tangle pattern. There are some similarities with Huggins I guess but it feels different enough that I am going to name it something separate.

I have also created the steps I use to draw this tangle. Please enjoy and let me know in the comments if you think I should submit it to Tanglepatterns.com

Step out for crookeddog_bali_breezway-Download

Yoga and Zentangle

For the last weekend of my leave, I was lucky enough to get a place on one of the fabulous Tasmanian Yoga and Art Retreats run by the fabulous Suzie Donkers.

I left for Melbourne around 6am and arrived in sunny Triabunna by mid-afternoon in time to meet my Retreat-mates and catch the ferry across to Maria Island.

What a magical wombat-filled place!

We settled in for two days of yoga, walking, and Zentangle lessons from one of my all time Zentangle CZTs, Michelle Beauchamp of Shellybeauch.blogspot.com fame.

The food, the teachings, the surroundings, the yoga, the food, the company and the island itself were all amazing. I came home renewed and with a restored faith in humanity.

Here are some of the tiles we did.

And this fabulous collection was an example of Michelle’s work.

I came away with new ideas and techniques after this weekend. I’m inspired to try a bit more sparkle and I might even think about some colour in the future. (Although part of me is still feeling very content with black sakura micron and pencil.)

Many Oms to everyone.

Taking leave

After a very long stint with not much time for a break, I managed to plan and take some leave for the last couple of weeks of February. I decided fairly early on to have a stay-cation and to use the opportunity to do some Zentangle inspired art. Having dusted off my tools, I proceeded to check out two of my favourite Zentangle sites: Linda Farmer’s Tangle Patterns and Michelle Beauchamp. It had been over 3 years…..

First post up on Michelle’s site let me know that there was a Yoga and Zentangle retreat coming up on an island off Tassie, on the last weekend of my leave and that Michelle would be teaching! I booked immediately.

In the meantime I got going on my holiday project which was to start a very long Zentangle in a Moleskine Japanese Album.

I bought the album over 3 years ago and have been putting off starting. You know, that brand new blank book that makes your perfectionist streak come to the fore and prevents you from making the first mark. These Japanese albums concertina out for oodles of pages and I chose the smaller 9x13cm album. It also comes in a large size, but I hate to think how long that would take to complete.

My goal is to finish the 30 panels as one very long Zentangle-inspired artwork.

I started work on in early February. Here’s a little time-lapse of where I got to before going on retreat.

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/260001804″>Moleskine Japanese Album 2018</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user82827429″>Crooked Dog</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>

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It’s been awhile

Decided to dust off my Zentangle supplies and give it a whirl…

Diva Challenge #143 – “UMT v.XXII – Cruze”

This is definitely a record. Three weeks of Diva Challenges in a row!

This week the Diva set a User Made Tangle and we were challenged to use “Cruze” by CZT Caren Mlot. It was definitely a challenging tangle. I need to practice way more.

I also kept tangling in my new mini-moleskine sketchbook this week. I got a LOT done. I’m really happy with how they all turned out.

Diva Challenge #142 – Danger Zone

So managed to do a Diva Challenge two weeks in a row. That’s a first for awhile. I had a bit of extra time doodling this week because I got to take a day out while minding a good friend’s munchkins while she labored with another. The resulting munchkin is a beautiful girl who I am really looking forward to seeing growing.

This week’s Diva Challenge is to move outside your comfort zone into dangerous areas. I decided to meet the challenge head on by trying to do some Mooka. Not really happy with how wobbly my lines go on this particular tangle. I just can’t seem to hold I nice steady hand. Or perhaps its just I’m trying too hard. Anyway – I had a nice practice and moved on.

In my new mini-moleskine I decided to pick tangles I had never drawn before. This is the result. I was pretty happy with it. I didn’t use a single one of my comfort tangles. But I did use Chaining which is one of those tangles I just can’t do. (Still can’t – as you can see). Think the “BB” was my favourite new tangle.

Diva Challenge #141 – DuoTangle – Fengle/Quandry

Found time to do a challenge this week which was nice. This week’s Diva Challenge is to do a duo tangle with Fengle and Quandry only. I have used one of these before but not the other. Can you tell which one I’ve never tried before? It’s pretty obvious in the first of these tiles. Oops. But carried on anyway because there is never a mistake with Zentangle.

In other news we are all on baby watch for my good friend over at Elmo. I’m sending her lots of labour vibes in the hope her baby arrives tomorrow which would be just the best present ever. 😉

And I’ve started working in my small Moleskine notebook and am really loving it. This is just a plain 9x14cm notebook and it’s working out just fine. Here are some completed works from this last fortnight.

Diva Challenge #137 – “Duotangle Knights over Tipple”

Finally! I got time to do the Diva’s challenge this week before the deadline. Probably because it’s school holidays and I’ve been taking things a bit slower this week.

I even managed two tiles.

The first one seemed really obvious and I haven’t looked at what other’s have done yet but I’ll bet someone else has done this too:

And the second one I did a string and went more traditional. It’s been awhile since I did a standard string on a tile and just do what ever turns out.

The rest of the week I was working on a bigger tangle in my Moleskine. Really liked how this one turned out. My inspirations were many but started with the Verdigogh on the left. In fact the bottom left Verdigogh stayed on the page by itself for a few days. It looked really nice. But then I just started looking out for plant-like tangles to add. I was particularly inspired by Virginia Burrows Creative Times blog on Tumbler and her flowers here. I don’t know what this tangle is called but I really like it a lot. (ETA 26/10/13 – I think it might be Henna Drum)

I’m nearly to the end of this Moleskine and I ordered a new pocket-sized Moleskine for my next book. It arrived from the great people at Notemaker.com.au this morning. If you’re in Australia and haven’t found them yet – well – maybe that’s a good thing. It will save your hip pocket.

Until next time.

I’m off to look at all the other challenge entries for this week.

Somewhat sidetracked

It’s been a while since I had any time to do any Zentangling. I finally finished a piece last night while I was studiously avoiding the very depressing Australian election coverage.

Anyway – here’s what I ended up with.

I was really inspired by a couple of tangles I saw on Pinterest during the week and also a graphic that whizzed past on SBS during the week.

The first tangle was called Big Zentangle over on a blog called Being So Well which unfortunately no longer exists. The artist was designing something big to go on her living room wall. She incorporates many elements that I really love.

The second tangle was probably more of a doodle by a Japanese artist called Miura Takao (aka Noah) who has a site, called Noah’s Art, full of interesting stuff.

Diva Challenge #125: Birdie Feet

This week’s Diva challenge was to use the UMT (Use My Tangle) tangle called Birdie by Owl Loving April.

I’m inspired often by the delicate patterns of feathers on birds. My favourite at the moment is probably guineafowl feathers. That play of white dots on a dark background.

Once upon a time I used to be an undergraduate zoologist and used to spend vast amounts of my spare time tromping around the nearby national park in the breaking dawn trapping small wee birds in mist nets (all fully licensed etc.) and banding their legs and taking their measurements and sending them off to the bird banding society.

I loved holding those birds, briefly and gently, and seeing that the amazing patterns their feathers made. It’s a whole other world: that boring brown bird that flits about in the bushes is actually magnificent in the hand.

Once I spent a whole year studying two species of thornbills in the ranges outside my hometown. These tiny birds are amongst the smallest species in Australia.

To this day I keep an eye out for their fluffy little brown shapes tweeping and chuckling in the scrub or high in the trees.

So thanks Owl Loving April and Laura (the Diva) for this weeks challenge. I enjoyed my little bird reminiscences.