Today is day 2 of the 100 day project. I have started off printing on very old papers. I love the November 1878 issue of Demorest’s Monthly Magazine. I’m also printing on pages from an old dictionary and a geography book from 1901.
“The 100 Day Project is a free, global art project built around one simple idea: show up to your creative practice every day for 100 days. Anyone can participate! Subscribe to receive updates and daily creative prompts.”
Since I am doing a 365 day project this year I am absorbing the 100 day project into it. There is a sense of community that helps maintain enthusiasm for a longer project. I still have lots of ideas for my 365 day project and am going strong. I will do a blog post about February in the beginning of March. For today I just wanted to share my first 2 days of the 100 day project.
I am teaching a Zentangle class at the Art Hub in Cambridge, WI on Friday, March 20th. Register here. We will use the pattern called “C Knots” as the focal point for our piece. Here is an example
So this is my goal for 2026. It is an ambitious one but I’m going to be gentle with myself about it. It is aspirational but I got a great start in January!
I’m having lots of fun exploring the blocks I carved in December and older blocks as well. I have even carved a few new ones, some of them inspired by the Zentangle Fragments of Your Imagination January challenge. I love to use Zentangle patterns as inspiration for my blocks. This one is my favorite.
I used a block printed mandala using some of these Zentangle fragment blocks as the pattern for a screen printing class I took at Polka Press and here’s some napkins and tshirts that are the result!
I printed a cover for the paper bag art journal I used to capture my Carve December work.
Here are individual photos of some of my favorites.
Making art is a form of self care for me. I think it is also a form of resistance against evils such as fascism. I’m surrounding Minneapolis with Love & Love & Love. Let’s make something beautiful today.
What a year I had! April held two significant milestones. My art was published in a magazine for the first time! My pattern designs were published in the 6th Surface Pattern Design Guide published by UPPERCASE Magazine.
I also had a solo exhibition in April at the Art Hub in Cambridge. The reception was on Friday, April 4. I sold 4 pieces at the opening.
SOLD!
I taught a number of Zentangle and Art Journaling classes at the Art Hub and for my Unitarian Universalist congregation fundraiser.
For the first time, ever, I was a presenter at an online art festival, Block Printing Fest in October! It was very challenging and even more fun and rewarding.
I finished many small works of art and 2 very large ones. Spring Metta Mediation has been exhibited at UW Hospital and Diversity and Inclusion will be exhibited there in summer of 2026. I had art in a few galleries and exhibited other pieces at the hospital and various venues throughout the year.
In May I gave art fairs a last shot and confirmed that this is not for me. I was in the Madison Art Guild tent at the Middleton Art Walk.
I got a variety of notecards and other printed materials at 2 locations, the Art Hub in Cambridge, WI and the Madison Art Market at 5944 Odana Road in Madison, WI. Coming soon, Madison Art Market will have print on demand products with my art available on their website. I added a lot of new art to my print on demand page on Fine Art America. My art on puzzles was a particular favorite this year.
I also participated in a number of Instagram challenges and became obsessed with paper bag art journals to capture my results. I participated in Figment of Your Imagination in January and created a mandala using Zentangle fragments over the course of the month. The 100 day challenge has been a favorite of mine for years. It really allows me to explore something in depth. This year I had some health challenges and didn’t participate as regularly as I have in the past but I tried to make some art every day. It allowed me to complete the Spring Metta Meditation piece. I also participated in the Index Card a Day challenge in June and July and it led to the piece Diversity and Inclusion. It is a mandala that I cut up into index card shaped pieces and worked on them individually. October brings Print Inktober and I created my first paper bag book to capture all the fun Zentangle and block printed things I created that month. I closed off the year with my favorite challenge, Carve December. I carved more than 60 blocks and created another paper bag journal to document that journey.
I carved more than 60 blocks in December. The picture above is missing most of the words I carved. They are posted below. Carve December is an Instagram challenge that helps me in the darkest time of the year. It has been the best medicine for my seasonal affective disorder ever! I’m really excited for this first version of a new, big torus mandala that I designed over the course of the month (below).
I wasn’t happy with one of the new blocks and used an old favorite that I’m still working to redesign. Here’s a gallery of the blocks I carved and the photos I posted on Instagram.
I made another paper bag art journal to capture all the fun blocks I carved and to keep a record of them all together. Now that I have completed 5 years of this challenge I want to be a little more organized about the hundreds of blocks I have! I will post a video of the flip through on Instagram.
Wishing you peace, good health and happiness in the new year!
I love Carve December! It is an Instagram challenge started and hosted by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer of Balzer Designs. She provides prompts for each day of the month and people carve stamps (blocks) inspired by those prompts, or whatever. I have generally been one of the “whatever” carvers but this year I am following the prompts and having a lot of fun with it. I am curious if you can guess what the prompts might be based on what I carved. I would love it if you would leave a comment with your ideas.
I have made another paper bag art journal to capture all of the printed goodness.
I will be teaching classes at the Art Hub in Cambridge, Wisconsin again this coming winter. Come in out of the cold and have some fun. The new schedule will be available soon. Keep an eye out here and on Instagram for updates.
I’m going to be teaching a grid art journaling class on Saturday, February 7th from 1-4, a Zentangle class on Friday, March 20 from 6-8 and how to make paper bag art journals on Saturday, April 25 from 1-4. My last post has an overview of my paper bag journal that I made for all my October activities. I have already made one to get ready for Carve December! I’m really loving this kind of journal.
Last Saturday I had a great Zentangle class at the Art Hub. We explored the tangle pattern crescent moon and played with flower options to create our own unique variations. Here is the mosaic from the class.
I used a paper bag art journal to capture the essence of October. It was a jam packed month! I posted a video (reel) on Instagram that you can see here. I wanted to share some still photos as well with more information about the content of the photos.
The paper bags come from a meal subscription service I use called Isthmus Eats and I get 1-2 meals in them most weeks. All the ingredients come with a recipe and they are very tasty but sometimes challenging to make. It has been great to increase the variety in my regular meal rotation. In any case, I have a growing stack of these paper bags and I knew how I wanted to use them. You can see I decided to make a paper bag book with pockets! It got really chunky!
This first page layout includes a Zendala with the first Inktobertangle (Inktober Zentangles) patterns of festune, toodles, seedways and melvina by Zentangle, Inc (first 2), Carla Jooren and Nadine Roller, respectively. Click on the pattern name to go to the instructions on how to draw that Zentangle pattern. The orange print with the eyes is from the resource I made for my Block Printing Fest handout. The background is papers that I have gelli printed in October and that were laying on my work table.
The list of Inktober Tangles prompts is on the next page with a tan phi tile with some of the patterns. The tan tile includes Star Rite by Nina Dreher-Goddertz, Oyvia by Shie Naritomi, and Adriadna by Tomas Padros. When you flip that pocket over you can see the ogee variations I played with. On the right are 2 ogee blocks I printed during my Repeat Pattern Design Deep Dive class with Ali (@3DottedPenguins). I used the ogee shaped spaces to draw in the pattern Lilife by Barbara Steyer. I liked this pattern so much that I carved a little ogee stamp of it and played with it some more. This is layered over some woven gelli prints.
I continued to play with that little ogee stamp on a blue phi tile shaped piece of paper and a little scrap of the blue paper. The tile is on a background of “quilted” gelli printed papers and book pages. It includes the Inktober tangles cochombros by Tania Ferriol Joyer and Ole Ole by Reyes Galindo. The Zendala on the right side is one of my favorite Zentangle patterns, zenith by Zentangle, Inc. It has some similarities with delwhy, another favorite and one that I have carved a bunch of stamps of and I included 3 of the stamps on the Zendala. You can see the Block Printing Fest label and in this pocket I had some of the prints I used in my Block Printing Fest presentation. I put a copy of the handout from my presentation into another pocket. Here is a photo of the stuff from all of the pockets in the book. It includes some Artist Trading Cards I got from Mel Beach.
The page under that pocket includes a Zentangle tile with the patterns Mrth and Tripoli from Zentangle Inc, and Puffle by Sandy Hunter. I carved 2 little tripoli stamps (the triangles) and added some tangled triangles. The triangular Zentangle tile includes the patterns Ing from Zentangle Inc, letterish by Jody Genovese, and they both also include some other patterns that I use frequently.
The next page layout includes 2 ATCs left over from a batch that I created to trade with Mel Beach for the lovely chicken and lady liberty (seen above). Behind that pocket is a print in yellow green and blue inspired by the Block Printing Fest session with Sarah Matthews. There’s also a few of my stamps included here on more gelli prints.
I love how these Zentangled papers turned out! The big grey one includes Middleton by YuRu Chen, Kangular by Tomas Padros, and butria by Ute Andresen. The one on the right on blue paper includes owlpeek by Susan Yeo, Yeed by Midori Furuhashi, quandry by Zentangle Inc, and bownus by Angie Gittles. The page under the pocket is some block printing I did for my presentation for Block Printing Fest and from some block play that Ali Baedecker did during one of the zoom sessions.
As you can see, there was a lot of inspiration and art making in October! I want to thank Stephanie Jennifer for again organizing the collection of patterns for the month. She provides the links to the step outs for all the patterns and it makes it very fun and easy to participate.
I’m so excited to be able to share what was keeping me so busy in September!
If you’ve ever wanted to dive deeper into block printing, learn tips & tricks and make fun hands-on projects, or get a behind-the-scenes look at how other artists work — this is your moment.
👉 Block Printing Fest runs from Oct 28–30 and is completely free to attend live. 👉 There’s a mix of pre-recorded sessions (that you can watch anytime during the day) and live chats where you can connect with artists & attendees. 👉 And if you can’t make it to everything, the All-Access Pass gives you extended replay time + bonuses. I’ll be there teaching a session on using Zentangle fragments in block design, and honestly, the lineup is 🔥. Don’t wait – grab your free ticket now and come join us! Get your ticket here. I am an affiliate for the Block Printing Fest which means I might receive compensation at no extra cost to you.
Post it somewhere (the refrigerator works if you don’t do social media).
There are other October challenges that have grown up around Inktober and the 2 that I enjoy are PrintInktober and InktoberTangles. Print Inktober isn’t very active this year and it generally includes both gelli prints and block prints and I’m doing both. I’m really focusing on the Zentangle challenge. It is a lively and inspiring community on Instagram and I really enjoy it. I’m always amazed at how quickly my Zentangleing skills improve when I do it every day!
I am also exchanging some artist trading cards (ATCs) with Mel Beach who is the master of ATCs! Quilts are her love language and she is amazing at them. She shares her ATCs all around the world. I mostly only share with her. I have a few from other artists, but I haven’t gotten anything to organize them yet and I just have the energy to make art and post about it on Instagram. And sometimes I can teach or show it or mail a few ATCs to my Instagram friend. And I try to blog about what is going on at least once a month.
I’m so happy with how the Zentangled ATCs turned out! All of the stuff that I’m generating (that I’m not mailing to Mel) is going into a paper bag book that I created. It has lots of pockets and spaces to collage and put Zentangled goodies in.
Jeanette Clawson Art 