Materials Used
The notebook I use is a 160gsm dot-grid notebook from Archer and Olive, size A5. New customers can save 15% with my referral link:
Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome to my channel.
Today I’m going to be doing a Tangled Talk episode combining Zentangle pattern Panzee with my March Bullet Journal setup.
I had good intentions for February in regards to completing more Zentangles on my weekly spreads, but life happened.
I did manage to fill this page with some random doodles using my metallic Gelly rolls, and I did a couple of mini studies of Melissa Sansom’s pattern Panzee before tackling my pages for March.
Before I start, let me just dig the cat hair out of my paint. [Clears throat.]
Today’s video features some cute sticky note pads, some pretty washi tape, and Awkward Club Podcast swag from my friend Bobbi. Bobbi and I have been internet friends for, I dunno, like a decade now? Anyway you should check out her channel and her podcast. Links are in the description.
Also in the description? You guessed it. Links to the supplies I’ll be using today. And there are quite a few, because I didn’t have the good sense to sort that s*** out before I pressed the record button.
To absolutely no one’s surprise my rose gold metallic watercolor is what I’m going to use to start things off.
I did some light sketching with pencil, first but that was just to help me arrange the overall layout. You’ll see as I get to the Zentangle part, that sketching the pattern really wasn’t necessary.
So one of the reasons that my February Zentangle videos didn’t get made as I had hoped is because my husband and I got our first dose of the covid-19 vaccine.
We are both high-riskers, so I think the vaccine hit us a little harder than the average person. For me specifically, the fatigue hit me like a ton of bricks. I deal with fatigue on the daily anyway just because of cancer. But this was giving me flashbacks to when I was on radiation, and I was too tired to even roll over in bed.
That said, I am freaking thrilled to have my first dose. The worst of the side effects only lasted a couple of days. And knowing that I will have my second dose in a couple weeks relieves some of my anxiety there.
I mean, I have always been careful, but you can’t always tell if the people around you have any common sense…if you know what I mean?
So March 10 is when we’re slated to get our second shots. I’m telling you now that you should anticpate my video posting to be a little haphazard this month again.
In other news, there’s a new Chapter of my serial memoir up on my website for those of you who are my Patrons. If you didn’t get the email notification for Chapter 22, titled “Larry, Moe, and Curly” from Patreon, the link above will take you to the Table of Contents.
Back to the drawing though. Panzee is a really nice floral Zentangle pattern, and because you make it by drawing random freeform petal shapes over and over, it just kind of happens for me without having to try too hard. It does admittedly look a little flat when it’s just the line work, by as with most Zentangles the magic happens when you start shading, or in my case here adding color.
I chose a metallic green Gelly roll for the lines of my calendar, to give things a Spring vibe. I don’t know about you all, but I couldn’t be more ready for Spring to get here. Especially after that last cold snap and all the snow.
Now, I’m switching to colored pencils, like I did for the circle of hearts in the other video. I’ve got a light, medium, and dark shade to help me get some shadow and dimension on the petals.
I don’t know much about color theory, but I do know what I like. And I think going with a red that has a little more orange for the darkest color gives the flowers a little more interest than just going with different shades of the same color. After I put down a base layer of the ligtest pink, I just keep switching between the colors until I like what I see, putting the darkest color where I’d add graphite if I was doing this in just black and white.
Anyway, this week my parents are coming to Urbana for a brief and responsibly masked and distanced birthday celebration. I turn 41 on the 4th, and my mom has promised they are bringing cake. 🙂 Fun birthday fact for you: my husband is a twin, and his twin brother’s wife and I also share a birthday. I don’t think she watches these videos, but just in case she stumbles across this one, Happy birthday Roselle!
For my birthday gift to myself this year, I enrolled in an online Zentangle class. I imagine I’ll display the Zentangle I make during that class on my desk and it will show up in a future video, so I’m not gonna spill all the beans on that just yet. But I first learned of the teacher and this specific class on Instagram, and I am really excited to take part in it.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. I mentioned it on the blog, but I don’t think I’ve said anything here yet. I applied for a Zentangle scholarship to particpate in the upcoming Certified Zentangle Teacher training that’s happening in May.
Zentangle HQ is going to be doing virtual training again because of the pandemic, and being disabled I kind of need that option if I’m ever going to do the training. I feel like it might be now or never, so I applied.
I wouldn’t even know that Zentangle HQ had scholarships for CZT’s if someone hadn’t mentioned that to me in the comments of a previous video. So thank you Mary Ann for the heads up!
Of course applying for the scholarship doesn’t mean I’ll be awarded a scholarship, and that’s fine. However it pans out I’ll still be here doing my thing on YouTube.
I’m throwing in a couple of orbs here for the heck of it, leaving a little white dot for the sparkle effect, and then going over the ink with another metallic Gelly Roll pen at the end.
For the green of the leaves, I colored one half with colored pencils and then went back to that green Gelly Roll I used previously, because I feel like if I use a very specific kind of pen just once it looks like a mistake–you know, even if I like it. But then when I use it again, it’s just like I’m reminding myself, “that choice, that specific medium was absolutely intentional.”
And on that note, I’d better drop this rose gold somewhere else or I’ve broken my own rule.
Ok, so we throw in some days of the week and do a little numbering, and voila! You’ve got yourself a little calendar. I use the YouTube, Instagram, and Blog, panel on the right side there to track how many posts and videos I publish during the month.
As I’ve stated before my Bullet Journal is more about remembering ideas with a crap short-term memory and celebrating what I actually accomplish than it is setting myself up to fail by overscheduling and junk. I’m not knocking those can do more, but living the chronic life has been a masterclass in accepting the things I cannot change.
And speaking of accepting things I cannot change. Here’s a brief Izzy Intermission. Izzermission? Maybe? I don’t know what to call this segment of my videos, but feel free to throw suggestions at me in the comments after you take a second to laugh at the fact she has a post-it note stuck to her forehead.
Next up is my tracker page. It’s pretty basic. I’m trying to drink more water, although it’s hard because water makes me want to puke. I can’t explain it, really. Just chemo screwed up some things for me, and that’s just how it is. Teeth I’m trying to to be very diligent about oral care because–fun fact–cancer treatment wrecks the inside of your mouth. I guess it’s all that throwing up. I really don’t know.
I also have critically low vitamin D, so I’ll be track my days soaking up the rays. And then there’s the HSN&T tracker. That’s literally to remind me to stretch by doing head, shoulders, knees, and toes and I guess I wasn’t realizing that “knees” begins with the letter “K”? I don’t know. I’ve literally had brain cells irradiated, so I’m giving myself a pass on this one.
The next page is for my mood tracker. Get ready, because I’m about draw one flower for each day of the month. And then I’ll color those in according to the key at the bottom. Lots of other bullet journalers are more specific with their keys and use four or five options to represent various emotions. In my case I’m just tracking weather I feel happy, normal, or like total crap. A couple of the meds I take can have an impact on mental health, so I’m just looking for big picture patterns and not trying to diagnose anything specific or tweak any dosages right now.
So the cool thing about drawing this specific pattern for a page like this is that it’s really easy to do. In fact after I got a couple of rows down, I felt like I could just blaze right through the line art for these. Even the bad ones looked pretty decent in the end, especially when placed next to each other and repeating the pattern over and over. Doing it like that helped me develop a sort of muscle memory for the pattern. I think I’ll be doing pages like this again in the future, if only for the drawing practice.
There’s quite a bit of pink in this March setup again. I surprised myself with that a little, because I already used similar colors last month and I am not really known for my love of pink. In fact, true story, when I was a teenager, I went with my parents to look at an open house once. And this house, oh my gosh, it was covered in pink. I mean every room was pink. The living room, the kitchen, the bedrooms and bathrooms. And as we were getting in the car to leave, I was like, “That house is hideous. There’s so much pink in there I want to puke.” But I guess it’s one thing having a couple of pink bullet journal themes and another to cover every surface of your house with it.
For the last two pages in this video, I’m doing weekly spreads. I’ll be honest I was getting really tired here, and Izzy came back to distract me, and in the end I was just like, “Washi tape will save me.” These weeklies are a lot smaller than January and February ones, and I’ve put Saturday and Sunday together in one section on this setup. That’s because I’m anticipating being busy and tired for the first half, maybe, of the month–possibly even out for the count with the vaccine effects, and I whatever I decide to focus on, I’ll be doing my best to keep the task lists manageable.
[soft music]
And here’s the flip through. There are many Bullet Journals and many videos out there, but this one is mine and I’m proud of it. Thanks for coming to my Tangled Talk, and I’ll catch you all in the next one.
