Tangle Club Notes

Note: Most of the Tool links are to Amazon. I'm not affiliated with them nor do I proclaim that you should buy the item from there. The items are simply easiest for me to find on their site for the purposes of getting you to the exact tool we were discussing. Feel free to take that knowledge and check out other websites like Blick, or preferably shop local and head out to your favorite art store.

May 2023

Discussions and Enabling

There are still a few spots left for Tahoe Tangle Reunion retreat on June 15-17 in beautiful Truckee CA! I will be teaching along with Kim VanZyll, Romi Marks and Mo Lockey. There will be 6 classes with lunch and dinners included. If you are interested or want more info, click HERE.

My review of the Paintbrush Rinser in last months club is in, and it works great! It looks a little cheap and I didn't have great expectations, but I used it recently to prep my tiles with watercolor for a class. It was so easy to use and I did not have to keep running to the kitchen for a fresh glass of rinse water. Result: Buy it!

We talked a little about bookmaking and more about Celtic Knots. I recently got a refresher from one of our tanglers and now I'm all in. I may have been seen working some celtic knots while getting a pedicure recently...

While sharing recent works, we talked about a few tangles: Verbana, Plot, Playful Flower, Moon Tear, Medi-Eight. Arboreal was mentioned but I could not find step-outs, so I'm not sure I captured the name correctly.

Tools mentioned:

Matte Black Faber Pitt Graphite pencils saying they are soft and don’t shine as much.
4x4 magnetic frame from the Dollar Store. Apprentice tiles can be trimmed to fit them.
Retractable Fountain Pen - Tested by two of our tanglers who say they are great!
Archival Binder sleeves for CD’s work for Zendalas.
Archival binder sleeves for 3.5 tiles
Archival Binder sleeves for Bijou's
I also shared my new little printer, Poooli L1 pro. It's a thermal printer and you can buy sticker paper for it. I have already used it to print out break line suggestions for Celtic Knots for on the go work. So I can see myself printing out some hard to find tangle step-outs and sticking them in a book for a 'little' travel book.
An odd mention, but I happen to eat both of these yogurts, so I loved it. You can purchase lids for two really good Yogurts. La Fermiere (clay container) and Oui (glass container). I have also used the Oui containers for rinsing out brushes, but no more! (See last months link for the Paintbrush Rinser.)

Other links:

Nancy Dawes - ITeachTangling for the class, ‘A Knotted Adventure - 50 Knots in 50 Days’, which is $85 and has lots of handouts to help as well as prerecorded videos. Nancy has tangling and knot classes.
Local affairs -
- ’The MACC’ where one of our tanglers' art will be featured in a Members Show from July 10-16. All money from the sale goes to art teachers. It’s located in Rancho Cordova.
- The ‘Carmichael Cactus & Succulent Show & Sale’. Dates are 5/20-5/21, 9-4, at Carmichael Park.
- A Tulip ‘Cliff’ was visited recently called 'Crystal Hermitage’ and got very high reviews from our tangler. They are open until May 14th, so don’t dilly dally!

Analisa Bevan - our very own celebrity!!

She launched a YouTube channel to share her tangling with all of us.
She already has 249 subscribers and one of her videos has 10k views!
After you subscribe to the channel, watch all the videos so a sister can get PAID... and tell all your friends.

April 2023

Discussions and Enabling

Tahoe Tangle Reunion retreat is June 15-17 in beautiful Truckee CA! I will be teaching along with Kim VanZyll, Romi Marks and Mo Lockey. There will be 6 classes with lunch and dinners included. If you are interested or want more info, click HERE.

We talked about a few tangles: Boulder Builder and Dariso. I could not find ‘Dariso’ but I did find Daviso… is that what we talked about? Do I need hearing aids??

I talked about some classes I took:

Wyfore, Myfore from Stefanie van Leeuwen
Forgotten Places from Deb Prewitt
About Face - A Tangly Spin on Cubism from Sonya Yencer

That lead to a discussion about watercolor tools:

Schmincke Horadam Aquarell 24 set was purchased by taking advantage of Amazon’s ’Sign up for this credit card and we will give you $125’. Challenge accepted, and then of course said credit card will immediately be canceled. I win again!
Brushes were then discussed: Princeton Neptune Series, Princeton Velvetouch series, Silver Brush Black Velvet to name a few.
Paintbrush Rinser… a seemingly silly purchase that I hope pays off! No more running into the kitchen during classes to get fresh rinse water.
Peerless and Viviva Watercolor paper swatches
Caran d’Ache combo Gouache/Watercolor Studio paints
And a good place for all watercolor tools and materials is Art Tool Kit.

Another marvelous White Gel Pen is made my Misulove. It's a very nice addition to your pen collection (or is it pen hoard?).

The biggest, coolest, best feeling Dot Grid book you've every seen is Littfun Bullet Dog Grid Journal, 320 sheets of awesome.

A cool tip was shared for blending Watercolor Pencils - After using the pencils on your paper, put odorless paint thinner on a tortillon and lightly run across the colored pencil to blend it.

Another cool tip to get your art on a ceramic tile - Go to a place like ‘Color Me Mine’ where you can choose a tile and paint on your tangles, then they will fire it. You now have a lovely ceramic tile with your art on it!

We had a discussion on handmade books, where the technique of adding rivets to the spine was mentioned. This led to a few folks bringing out their rivet tools - Baby Crop-A-Dile, and Crop-A-Dile Big Bite!

Of course we talked about Celtic Knots and the following folks were mentioned: Nancy Dawes classes & David Nichols Celtic Playlist on Youtube.

There was another mention of Vintage Page Designs on FB by Ali Manning, and here is her website. This is the Hand Made Book club subscription person. Another mention was Sketchbook revival on Karen Abend’s website which is free!

March 2023

Discussions and Enabling

Watch out for information on the Tahoe Tangle Reunion retreat! I will be teaching along with Kim VanZyll, Romi Marks and Mo Lockey in Truckee. The dates are June 16-18, there will be 6 classes and all meals are included. I’ll send out more information, like price, when it’s settled. If you are thinking about going, let me know and I’ll put you down on the list. I have 4 definites and 3 maybes so far. I have 10 spots that I can reserve and any open spots after that will be open for the masses.

For info on all of Brian’s undertakings, please visit him at: symmetrychaos.com & on instagram at @ATCElkGrove. And watch his etsy shop for a drop of the Cross templates!

We talked about a few tangles: Braided Wheat, Ra-on and Tri-po.

Enabling links:

Handmade Book Club subscription. Vintage Page Designs on FB by Ali Manning, and here is her website.
’Tangle Journeys’ FB group, but I could not find it, so no link. :(
In this shocking update, one member flashed up a book that a specific member did not have yet! That’s right ‘A Treasury of Celtic Knots’ is probably already on its way to their house. But if it’s not….Amazon.

Tools mentioned:

Sailor pens and a JetPen eraser for colored pencils
Posca Pens were mentioned again, so here is the link to their Amazon store.
Pentel Hybrid Dual Metallic pen and Sakura Pen-Touch Paint Markers where a member used the Gold on their tile.
Matte Black Faber Pitt Graphite pencils
identi-pens for marking on glass, plastic and CD’s!

There was a big recommendation for fiveBelow stores where you can find canvas panels and stretch canvas for fantastic prices. That link is to an 8”x8” 4 pack of canvas panels for $3.25!

We also talked about the Re-Create store in Rocklin and Creative Re-use in Virginia area, and basically said to google 'art supply up cycle’ for a store like this in your area. Looking up the link for the Virginia store, I decided that we should all move there! Look what I found:

Scrap Creative Reuse, Richmond VA
757 Creative Reuse Center, Norfolk VA
Up Cycle Creative Reuse Center, Alexandria, VA

Amy Maricle was mentioned again along with her book, ‘Draw Yourself Calm’. Her techniques are much simpler than Zentangle, and I kind of like that for when I really want to disengage while drawing.

More to come.....