Conall

“ I am ready to make my own rules “

sagt Seattle’s Künstlerin Megan Prince in einem Interview. Da sind all diese verschiedenen Regeln, die dir von Anderen aufgezwungen werden, so dass du irgendwann glaubst, du musst es so machen, damit es für sie funktioniert. Und irgendwann bürdest Du dir dann diese Regeln selber auf. Vor allem in der Kunstschule war es so schwierig, weil jeder so suchend ist – rauszufinden was er oder sie glauben soll oder machen will – und dabeiso wertend sind untereinander. Du fühlst dich immer beurteilt. Aber jetzt ist es an der Zeit es so zu machen wie man es machen möchte!

Damit spricht Megan Prince mir aus dem Herzen und aus der Seele. Als ich mit 19 mit der Schule fertig war und in Hamburg an der „Hochschule für Bildenen Künste“ studieren wollte, war ich nach dem ersten Gespräch dort so eingeschüchtert, dass ich mich nicht getraut habe meine Mappe einzureichen. Wahrscheinlich aber auch gut, denn in dem Alter wäre ich dem werten und urteilen sicher nicht gewachsen gewesen. Dennoch habe ich oft noch jetzt, 20 Jahre später darüber nachgedacht vielleicht doch noch freie Kunst zu studieren – aber warum?

Für mich? Weil ICH das will? oder weil es mir aufzwinge? Weil es andere aufzwingen? Die Gesellschaft hierzulande wertet gerne auf Basis von Diplomen, Abschlüssen und Titeln. Hat man ein Diplom, eine fundierte, nachgewiesene und anerkannte Ausbildung, dann kann man auch was – dann ist man wer, staatlich anerkannt. Wow! Und auch ich denke immer wieder, ich muss mich diesen Regeln beugen, damit das anerkannt wird was ich tue. Anerkannt – von wem eigentlich? Und macht mich das besser, wenn ich diese Regeln befolge, die ich aufgezwungen bekomme? Nein, sicher nicht! Diese Regeln engen ein, lassen mich mit dem dem Strom, der Masse schwimmen und zwingen mich. mich in dem Radius der Regeln zu bewegen. Wie kann ich mich da kreativ entfalten?
Mich ausprobieren? Stolpern, Hinfallen, aufstehen, etwas Neues probieren. Experimtieren. Wachsen. Ich sein! Wohl gar nicht und darum: Ich bin soweit – ich mache meine eigenen Regeln. Eine wundervolle Affirmation, die ich mir ab nun zu Herzen nehmen werde!

Blindes Früchtchen. Zeichne eine Frucht mit verbundenen Augen! Blind? Ja! Die Frucht, nicht Du! Achso!

Mit Bleistift zeichnen war und ist eine Herausforderung für mich. Irgendwie werden Grafit und ich keine Freunde. Aber ab und zu ist es auch gut über den eigenen Schatten zu springen. Dafür habe ich auf das exakte Zeichnen von Licht und Schatten verzichtet. Meine neue Regel: Wer über Schatten springt, braucht keine Schatten zeichnen. Damit stehe ich sicher im Schatten der begabten Zeichner, dafür aber auf der Sonnenseite meiner Komfortzone.

“ The only thing worse than being blind is having seight but no vision „. Helen Keller

Leicht gefädelt. Wenn ein einfacher Baumwollfaden vollgesogen mit Farbe immer wieder auf dem Papier tanzt entsteht ein wunderbares wirr warr an Linien. Meist sehr organisch und kurvig und gerne ineinander verschlungen füllen sie das Blatt Papier mehr und mehr. Und wenn sie das Parkett, äh Papier, ordentlich gerockt haben dann einsteht eine kleine Geschichte entstehen aus all ihren Formationen.

Der Titel dieser Story:
Verliere nicht den Kopf wenn Du eine Konversation mit einer Fisch-Maus-Schnecke führst.

Striping – Monotangle

Good Morning, I am a little late with my post for the Weekly Diva Challenge #336, the weather was so sunny this weekend, so I decided to spend my time outside in nature. Well,  but at least I tangled. This week we were challenged to do a monotangle,  this means using only one tangle on the tile. The featured tangle is one of the official tangles from Zentangle HQ called Striping. I use Striping once in a while in my classes but I have to admit, I never use it in my own tiles, so great to use it as a monotangle. I already admired Margaret Bremner’s  Striping with a twist last year, so I decided to give it a try! It wasn’t that difficult as I thought and so I had a lot of fun tangling and twisting Striping, so I guess Striping will find its way also in my tiles now:)

So again, what an inspiring challenge!

Have a nice week, hopefully with lots of sunshine.

 

„Fragment D-1“

A Guest Post from Marguerite Samama CZT from Netherlands ( www.happytangling.com ). I already had the pleasure to meet Marguerite at a CZT Workshop hosted by Ellen Gozeling in the Netherlands – where I had a great time! So, this weeks challenge # 329 has everything to do with the Fragment D- 1 from the Primer by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas.

I love the idea how those fragment can be used, but I have to admit I sometimes use one of them as a border, but I haven’t really played with them in all their possibilities. But I guess I really should, since I love the geometry in tangling.

So my Tile is a mixture between the challenge #328 from last week, using Suzanne Fluhr‘ s lovely tangle „Aloah“ and the Fragment D-1. The reason is, I started the tile with Aloha last Saturday. But then was disturbed and didn’t finish. So using D-1 as a background for my Aloha-Tile seemed a great idea to me. Especially, because I love the contrast between floral and organic tangles and geometric pattern. Now Aloha is dancing on Fragment D-1, migth be a whimsical film title;) Thank you, Marguerite, for your post with the lovely pictures, I certainly I fell in love with your sweet dog:)

Thanks for stopping by and a lovely weekend to you.

Aloha, Simone

Weekly Challenge #319: „BEad INSPIRED“

This weeks Challenge #319 ist about the medicine program Beads of Courage, which helps kids with their story of chronic or life threatinig illnesses. The kids get those colored beads every time they have to go through a procedure or appointment or other special circumstances, so the beads tell their story of their medical journey. Each color of the beads stands for a different treatment or circumstance.

Laura „The Diva“ organized 5 years ago the first volunteer 5K Color Fun Run to support the programm and to raise money for the Beads of Courage programming in Saskatchewan. This year she ran the run with her whole family.

So, this week’s challenge is to BEad INSPIRED by Beads of Courage!  By the Color Run, or by whatever gives us Courage.

Laura has my full admiration, for all this things she does, like this Color Run, for her son and all the other kids that are in similar situations. So I dedicate my beads of courage to Laura, the Color Run and the whole program.

And because I couldn’t stopp tangling and didn‘t want to be limit by my tile 😉 I decided to tangle in my artjournal.

Diva_319_artjorunal

 

So have a beautiful and sunny week !

 

Weekly Challenge #316: String Theory – Stripes!

this weeks challenge #316 – we were asked to create our string using stripes with varying widths, without having to be uniform or even! anything is possible as long as it’s stripes. I decided to tangle on a zendala which I colored with watercolors before I draw my strings. I had a great time tangeling those stripes and as you can see, there are lots of stripes, even stripes in stripes, I couldn’t stopp doing those lines:)

2 Zentangle Basic Classes at L-Beach Festival

Last weekend I was invited to give two  Zentangle Basic Classes at a huge Festival at the Baltic Sea! It was a wonderful experience and there were so many ladies who wanted to take this classes. We had to get more and more tables in that room until there where no more space!

I had a great time and I guess everybody else had, too! The ladies were so creative, they tangled with me the basic patterns and couldn’t stopp enhancing them, with some ideas I gave them and lots of their own ideas. Actually the class was supposed to take 90 minutes, but because they had so many own ideas on their tangles we spend almost 3 hours tangling. That ist why I have not all tiles in my first mosaic, some ladies had to go pretty fast to dinner:)

The next day some ladies came back and took the class again:) That is why I made two different Basic classes. Friday Zentangle Basics „geometric“, whith static, rain, hollibaugh and cubine and on Staturday Basics „organic“ with crescent moon, mysteria, bales and pokeroot. One funny thing that happend to me, on Friday’s geometric tangle class I planned so draw the „Z“ string and for the organic class some rounded „e“ string. Well, I was talking about string at my geometric class and -tada – I drew the „e“ string I had planned for the organic class. So, when I told my students, that any string would work, I had to smile and somehow to sweat a little bit more. It is one thing to be unplanned at the kitchen table, than in a prepared class with 30 people. But I love those „oops“ they really help to get more and more confindence in teaching!:) And the end of my class I certainly told the ladies about my  unplanned string, I think that is always a great chance to really show the attendees that it works! So thanks to all the creative ladies for that great time.

Diva_316_mosaic2

Zentangle Basic Class „geometric“

Diva_316_mosaic1

Zentangle Basic Class „organic

 

Well, isn’t it a lot more drama to have a geometric string with organic tangles and an organic string with geometric tangles! It is magic:)

Thanks for visiting my blog! And have a sunny sunday!

 

…with pomegranate!

Weekly Challenge #312: „Coffee, Tea, or Me!“

I can’t believe I skipped so many challenges this year, some of them I tangled but didn’t post them. 2017 seems to be more like an offline und unplugged year for me:)

But since it is really April weather today and I am not digging in the garden, I decided to share my tile I tangled yesterday evening. This week’s challenge # 312 is to spill, dripp, blott some liquid on the tile like coffee, tea, wine, watery paint or like I did pomegranate. I really love to spill something liquid on my tile and then tangle, it helps like a string, and it is always such a surprise. I used some juice of a pomegranate which I made some vinaigrette from for the salad yesterday. I love that rich color and I was really surprised how this deep red color turned into a more purple color after drying on the tile. 

I started with the tangle „Vano“ from Hanneke Sieben, which I tangled for the first time and definitely not for the last, and then I couldn’t stopp going in circles. I remember that actually don’t love tangling circles at all, but I guess that is something really special in tangling, for some reason things can change suddenly. So I am surprised with my tile but also happy:)

So I will tangle on now!

Thanks for stopping by and have a nice sunday

impossible triangle.

Todays challenge is to try an optical illusion in our Zentangle drawing. Those drawings that trick your brain in to thinking something impossible is real. This is actually pretty difficult, so I made it easier for myself and decided to draw the impossible triangle. Today I am pretty tired, so my tangles got a little bit wonky.

 

 

Today is the start of the Chinese New Year and this year is the year of the Rooster. For that reason the prompt today is to make it a good year  with a Zentangle drawing inspired by the year of the rooster.

In a white room, with white curtains.

Today we are supposed to leave some white space in our Zentangle drawing. I love to do that. The first tiles I tangled had a lot of white space. I never filled the whole tile. By and by my tangle compositions got busier. I think  I am still trying out and  it depends on my mood. Today I used a tile which I had spilled on tea last year and decided to tangle only the stain and leave the rest of it white. And I really love it. I am still a supporter for white space:)

 

 

The Zentangle ceremony starts with making corner dots and a border. The border is drawn with a pencil, it is a guideline, you can use it and stay within or you just break the border. And because of the ever so lightly pencil stroke, the border gets invisible. It’s magic. But todays prompt is to make the border the star of the tile. So what can I say…I don’t like border 😉 But I tried. I used the tangle hypnotic for my border, and I used it the first time. Wow, I am actually not sure if it is called hypnotic because of its look or because you get hypnotized by drawing this tangle. It made me some kind of dizzy! But it is a fun tangle, I like it! Okay, not as a border, but in other contexts:) When I finished my tile, it looked so weird and „ugly“ to me that I think I kinda like it. However I had a good time tangling, and that is what it is about, right?!

 

Fill in Tangle

is Cyme, a tangle with lots of areas to tangle in. Todays prompt is to choose a tangle and fill the tangle with tangles and I filled my tangle Cyme with lots of different tangles. It was really fun and very mindful.

 

Remix: a piece of media which has been altered from its original state by adding, removing, and/or changing pieces of the item.

So todays challenge is to choose one Zentangle from the earlier days and remix it.

I decided to use the same tangles and change the composition, I choose one of my weekly diva challenge tile, the challenge # 277 was in July 2016 and is called „running round in circles“. Circles are for me most challenging, I have to remind that in Zentangle the circles are not supposed perfectly round. No perfectionism, please 🙂 Just be unperfect. letting go. Well, I try:)

 

 

Hefty Hack with tne new Official Tangle: Drawings“

It’s the Hefty Hack – technique! Materials you need: watersoluble markers like Tombows, a brush and water and also a plastic bag.

Now scribble some color on the plastic bag. Wet parts of your paper with your brush and then place the bag on the water with the color faced down. The colors react with the water. Now the bag can be lifted up and you have your gorgeous watercolor background. Let it completely dry and then tangle.

I used the new Tangle „Drawings“, which was introduced at last years ZenAgain workshop, because on this weeks challenge #299 the Diva asked us to use the new official tangle „Drawings“. You can see the stepouts here.

So I combined the Zenuari’s prompt with the diva’s challenge. The weird thing, if I wouldn’t know that I tangled this, I would believe someone else did, it is totally not the style I am used to tangle and I am not sure if I like it:) But however – isn’t that that the awesome thing about Zentangle – you never no the outcome – and sometimes it really surprises me. Moreover, what will it look like to me in a couple of weeks or month? Isn’t that absolutely fantastic.

So thanks you for visiting my blog and have a relaxed and beautiful Sunday evening