And finally it has arrived – my Extend your Enhancements! The sister guide to my handy shading guide, both now available to buy on my website, and they can be shipped all over the world*.
SO excited to bring this guide out, covering the traditional ones (Aura, Perfs, Sparkle, Rounding and Dew Drops) as well as ones influenced by other Tanglers creative ideas and new ‘what ifs’ I have come up with over the last 7 years. A collection of over 150 illustrations, suggestions, prompts and ideas to enhance your tangles, it’s a great pocket reference guide of ways to enhance your tangles. The original Shading guide has over 180 illustrations, suggestions, and motivations for shading – so the pair are jam packed with a very large amount of ideas!
* Note I can ship the Extendable guides anywhere are they travel as a letter. But also I now ship other products to Australia – and of course any downloadable lessons are available worldwide.
And to launch this guide, I have recorded a video lesson on just one of these enhancements the humble but very useful ‘Perfs’ – so if you are keen on following along creating your own beautiful reference tile of various perf enhancements, you can buy the “Performing Perfs” video lesson with its handout from my website.
The Kindness Institute and the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, launched a mindfulness month for August in 2022 and as I use Zentangle in a mindfulness way, I wanted to share the practice with others, so I have chosen 31 different tangles which I feel work particularly well with keeping your attention to the task in hand. Keeping your focus on nothing else but where your pen is travelling now, and they are up on my youtube channel. They are about 10 to 15 minutes long and each one I hope gives you a collection of tangles, guided along to improve your focus, demonstrated in a mindfulness approach, I encourage you to do just one a day for a month and form a habit.
Clicking on the image below will take you to the introduction video.
This year I teamed up with Debbie New, another CZT based in Singapore, to work on a monthly challenge based on drawing tiny fragments for the duration of January. This is a 31-day journey, created with four Fragment shapes – the Square, Round, Triangle and Seed. This prompt list will let you play with a collection of Fragments inspired by various tangles contributed from CZTs all over the world, and extra bonus Fragments to inspire you too.
A 21 page, full colour, printable PDF guide contains what you will need to join us. The prompts are listed with an visual example and sometimes links to a step-out to the original tangle that inspired it, or it lists the code from the Fragment pages of Zentangle® Primer book. There are also bonus Fragments and pages of suggested Strings and Reticula for you to use if you wish.
Click here to download the free, 21 page, full-colour, printable PDF.
You can join this challenge in so many different ways: Pick a large string and add to it every day; choose to draw a single tile using the daily fragment; add each fragment to a calendar entry; draw the prompts in sequence (or not); or swap one out to replace it with a fragment of your own imagination! Make this your challenge for the month with initial inspiration from us both! Free feel to tag your fragment artwork on social media with #FYIC2023 or #7F5RChallenge so that everyone can appreciate your art.
There are options of materials to work with on my website, my new Concertina Project Journals could well be an option! Make this your challenge for the month with initial inspiration from us both! Free feel to tag your fragment artwork on social media with #FYIC2023 or #7F5RChallenge
FAQs
Why is it called a “Challenge”? A Fragment of Your Imagination is where you are challenging yourself to draw a Fragment every day for a whole month.
What are the requirements to join A Fragment of Your Imagination Challenge? There are no requirements or rules. You can use any size of paper, type of pen or any other medium. You can tangle on a tile, in your sketchbook, and use any shape or size or colour. We have included suggested Reticulum and Strings to help you if you get stuck with ideas. You definitely do not need to be an artist or have any drawing experience.
When does A Fragment of Your Imagination Challenge begin? The Challenge begins on 1 January 2023 and ends on 31 January 2023.
What if I miss a day? There are no time limits with any of the 7F5R Challenges. You may combine various prompts into one larger art piece. Or you may even skip any prompts that do not appeal.
What if I don’t like a particular Fragment? Both Debbie and I would both encourage you to still try to create something with it. Pushing past your comfort zone and embracing new experiences – and having fun – are all a part of the spirit of all our tangle challenges. If you really dislike a Fragment and if it prevents you from enjoying yourself, by all means, please substitute it with other Fragments that you like. It is your art, after all, it should make you happy.
What happens after A Fragment of Your Imagination Challenge ends? Will there be another challenge in February? We do not currently have a daily challenge for the month of February. However, the 7F5R Challenge Facebook group CZT-admins host weekly, fortnightly and the Inktober Tangles Challenges in our Facebook group. 7F5R Challenge is also the official Facebook group for A Fragment of Your Imagination Challenge.
Is there an official hashtag for A Fragment of Your Imagination Challenge 2023? Yes. This year, we are using the hashtag: #FYIC2023
Thank you from Debbie and Ildica
As always, we both enjoy hearing from tanglers all over the world, and would happy to assist with any questions you might have, so feel free to write to Debbie at: or head to my own contact page or visit us on Instagram: Tangled.Pursuits and TangleatioNZ
If you appreciate our contributions to the tangling community, please consider supporting our work as a CZT via our gift donation sites: Debbie’s Ko-fi, or mine Buy-me-a-kiwi/tangleationz
In August 2022 I recorded a series of videos to celebrate ‘mindfulness month’ triggered by a project from The Kindness Institute and the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand. There are now a series of 31 free videos on Youtube to give you quiet moments of thought, acceptance and tangling penmanship. I have shared some tangles that I find the most mindful to draw, or done in a mindful way.
They are small 10-ish minute videos, so you just need to grab something to draw on, along with your favourite tangling pen, pencil and blending tool to join in. You can start when suits you, but I hope the short snippets are easy to put into your everyday for a 31 day period, and make it easy to help you build up a habit. A (small) commitment to yourself and your mental health, each day.
Above is my final collection of Hexagon tiles, although I still have my MonthDone Journal containing all the other samples I showed in the videos. Clicking on the photo will take you to the introduction video. It is never too late, or a wrong time to start.
In October I headed off visiting friends and family. First I caught up with the tangling team of 7F5R in Singapore – and how about this beautiful artwork as a welcome present! It was the start of a fabulous and busy weekend of sightseeing, tangling, studio visit, art shop stash shopping, a superb batik textile exhibition and out and about in Singapore; spending time together with friends. My bigger trip continued westward, and being able to spend time with immediate and extended family, as well as catching up with lots of friends in the UK. My Inktober tangling project is woefully behind the diary dates – but what the month did give me, was some tangling time alongside friends and family which I really appreciated.
Above is what I got up to with my mum! Side by side we did this pair of tiles, with help from a lesson by Debbie New based on ink blots – Great fun being able to tangle shoulder to shoulder with these mirrored tiles, pre-loaded with Lindy’s Magicals. I have no idea what hidden picture was within this, but I do know I was grateful for the opportunity, and we were entertained as we put pen to paper together. Great fun to bounce ideas and themes off each other to keep them as a pair.
Another way to tangle with a friend is through a swap or traveling tangle.
Starting a tile and then letting someone else finish it is a quirky way of recognising that you should trust your tangling capabilities (and the Zentangle Method). The experience of taking yourself outside your comfort zone of ‘only your own’ tangling, when you are faced with finishing off someone else’s start can feel daunting – but trust it. I will often add this ‘swap’ project as a bonus in some of my sets of lessons, or add tiles to outgoing orders of materials. It’s interesting to watch how the tiles expand in different ways and how they finish up. Definitely worth trying with a friend.
However you don’t need to be close by – you can always send one in the mail to a friend and get them to complete it – which I did with three beautiful tiles sent to me from the 7F5R team – Debbie New, (creator of CZTAE), Stephanie Jennifer (creator of Inktober Tangles) and Susan Yeo, before I caught up with them in person. So if you want to branch out and find some new tangling friends you can join Traveling Tangles – a FB group set up to do just that.
And continuing on the theme of friends, in my shop I have had to say goodbye to a friend – my cream paper has had supply issues that I just can’t resolve – so instead, say ‘hello’ to two new tiles – in green and blue tones. Available in my Artist tiles or the 8-point Star tiles These work well when using a traditional micron pen, graphite shading and white highlighting; or you have options go bolder – the blue tile was completed with moonlight pens, which work brilliantly on coloured papers (below I used the Earth Moonlight set). The Jewel and Earth Moonlight sets have a fine 06 nib (0.3mm) and as we don’t want a lot of colour decisions with tangling – a wee set can be just the ticket.
