 On cream-colored cardstock. Micron 05, 01, colored pencils, gold pencil, graphite, gold and white gellyrolls. Tangles are Mooka, Zengem, Orbs, Tipple. Modified from a video from Annie Taylor CZT. I posted my first try at this tile two days ago here. Today I was wanting to make a card to accompany a gift certificate for a friend and decided to use the same tile design. I'm pleased with this and hope the recipient likes it. I made some minor changes in the design. See an earlier stage of this project below:  Just getting started on the coloring, after creating most but not all of the linework. "Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America." (Amy Chua) That's one reason I don't mind doing the same thing several times over. I know I learn best that way. Can you get more simple than this? I don't think so. This must be the equivalent of doing musical scales each day.   I'm using Bijou tiles here (only 2" square) to practice one basic tangle a day. Except I'm way behind and these each only take a few minutes to do, so I've been doing about 2-4 tiles a day to catch up. This is part of a 365 tangle challenge, and I appreciate that the intention is to keep it very simple each day all year.
Good advice, whether in drawing or in meditation. Practice-practice-practice is one great first tip, and the next: don't over-complicate things. Review the basics frequently. Take time to breathe. No need to rush or push. All of these things are true for both art and true in meditation. Art and meditation are deeply interconnected, in my view.  Completed piece. A ZenGem in the center, Mooka, orbs. Using Black Micron 05, Derwent Inktense Pencils, Prismacolor pencils, White Chalk pencil and White Gellyroll.
This mandala was easy to draw this morning because one of the talented artists I'd taken a class with some time ago, Annie Taylor of the Arty Zen website, emailed a private video free to all her former students as a thanks. It was a how-to of this piece, so I gave it a try. Very fun. You can see the progression above, from the linework through the finished piece. I like this mandala pattern and can see using it for other things. Will be trying it again. Thank you, Annie. It's always wonderful to get a surprise gift. And as I'm catching up on my back-to-basics 365 Tangle challenge, here are a few more super-basic tangles from early January. The wind is howling outdoors; how lovely to stay inside and draw.  Toodles on the left, Marasu on the right. Toodles always makes me laugh when I draw it. Just graphite and Micron 05 on Bijou (2" square) tiles.  For Tangle 365 art challenge. Micron 05 black and graphite on Bijou white tiles (2" square). Tangles: Mooka, Printmps, Bales, This is really back to basics. There's an art challenge going on that focuses on just one tangle each day in January. Really basic. No pressure. Of course I didn't get started on time but it'll be easy to catch up. Each tile is only 2" square. We began with some of the first tangles any beginner learns. A fun and stress-less project which will continue all year. When I look back at my early start with Zentangle®, I remember that there were only about 106 "official" tangles at the time. Unbelievable. Of course as soon as Rick & Maria began teaching, all their students were encouraged to come up with their own tangles, and everyone did so with a vengeance. Now there are thousands of them. And none, not one, are originals, because humans have been drawing patterns since the Dawn of Time, and so everything we use has been "invented" many times before. The only difference is that R&M named each tangle and created easy 6-steps-or-less instructions for each one so that anyone anywhere could learn to do this. And the rest is history. Meanwhile, this (below) is the reason I've hardly been tangling. I've been working on this rug (photo is a peep at a corner of it) but ran out of a couple of spot-dyed colors and have to wait about two more weeks to get just a teensy bit more of the fabric or the border will end up not matching. And I was on a roll! But not paying attention to my stash. Live and learn.  Rug-in-progress  Tangles used: Punzel, N'Zeppel, Tripoli, and random lines. Graphite, Black & Brown Micron 01s, colored pencils on a cardstock cut tile. There are so many surprises in life. This was certainly one of them. Zentangle® can be counted on for providing surprises on a regular basis. You never know where you're going to end up once you begin. After yesterday's post I thought I would try another mandala but this time I would attempt to place the more complicated Punzel tangle in the round. Success! However, I ended up with something that reminds me of Brutalist-style architecture, my least favorite style of all time. You could say this got the job done, but although I technically succeeded I'm not in love. Which leads me to wonder: what would this look like if I ran it through an iPhone app? Let's see:  Goldfish in a pond with rocks visible through the water?  Leeches debriding a wound here? Not a pleasant association!  Ah. My favorite by far. This somehow, for some reason, reminds me of a turtle, even though it clearly isn't one. I do love turtles. In part of Mary Oliver's Poem, "The Turtle," she says: ...Crawling up the high hill, luminous under the sand that has packed against her skin, she doesn’t dream she knows she is a part of the pond she lives in, the tall trees are her children, the birds that swim above her are tied to her by an unbreakable string. For the entire lovely poem, see New and Selected Poems: Volume One (Beacon Press) or go here. I think I like the iPhone variations better than the original in this case.
 Drawn on white cardstock, cut with a deckled edge. Blue and Black Micron 01, colored pencils, graphite. Tangles are Chaining, Shattuck, Umemi, Orbs. The temperature was zero Farenheit when I woke up and this afternoon has reached a blazing 11° F (that would be MINUS 11.6°Centigrade, correct?). I've been basking in the warmth by drawing a blue and black zendala that captures the winter colors. Wind outside is howling, and howled all through last night. Daylight is fading. Snow is on the way. Hot cocoa, anyone? White-Eyes
By Mary Oliver In winter all the singing is in the tops of the trees where the wind-bird with its white eyes shoves and pushes among the branches. Like any of us he wants to go to sleep, but he's restless-- he has an idea, and slowly it unfolds from under his beating wings as long as he stays awake. But his big, round music, after all, is too breathy to last. So, it's over. In the pine-crown he makes his nest, he's done all he can. I don't know the name of this bird, I only imagine his glittering beak tucked in a white wing while the clouds-- which he has summoned from the north-- which he has taught to be mild, and silent-- thicken, and begin to fall into the world below like stars, or the feathers of some unimaginable bird that loves us, that is asleep now, and silent-- that has turned itself into snow.  On grey zendalas, using general's pencil's sketch and wash pencil and white chalk pencil, sakura purple silver shadow gellyroll, white gellyroll. Too many tangles to name, unfortunately. Holy cow, this was a hard photo to take! Two of the mandalas would look great, the third would almost disappear; I'd try again, another two would look great and the other third would disappear. I was gnashing my teeth. This is the best I could do. This is part of a series of moon phase pieces. I have moon phases on the brain right now. I am hooking moons into my latest rug, and also working on these drawings which I began in late 2020. My heart is like the autumn moon
perfectly bright in the deep green pool nothing can compare with it you tell me how it can be explained --Han-Shan  Got up this morning thinking I'd do something on the back of that bookmark from the last post. I had dropped some watercolor on the back and was not best pleased when I noticed how the paper crinkled and--even after being flattened under some heavy books--wouldn't straighten out. So I set to work this morning intending to practice my Punzel tangle some more. Only-- I got distracted. Um, really distracted. So what you see here isn't even close to Punzel. Oops. When I realized how I'd messed it up, I thought about throwing out the entire thing. But I like the other side, so in the spirit of Zentangle®, ("There are no mistakes"), I kept going. Result: Looks like a cobra laying eggs in a flowerpatch, right? Or might it be peas ripening in some type of excessively weird peapod? Whatever. I like it anyway. (How many times do I find myself writing, "I like it anyway" on here? But it's always true. Time to go get this bookmark laminated, now that both sides are done.  Same exact drawing, run through an iPhone app. Always interested to see the difference. Tangles: "not-Punzel," and Sanibel with embellishment. Original photo above. I think this is the start of a bookmark. I'll see where it takes me.  Tangles: Punzel. With Henna Drum and Shattuck. On gray toned cardstock with a Rainbow Lead Pencil, Colored Chalk Pencils, Gray Micron 01, Black Micron Brush Pen, graphite. Perhaps it will go no farther. I'll let it sit a bit. But then I realized that it's my neighbor's birthday tomorrow, and since she is one of my favorite people in the world, I quickly made her a narrower version of the above bookmark and will bring it over with a card for her.  |
ABOUT ME I'm a textile artist (traditional rug hooking, punch needle rug hooking, and other textile arts), a long-time meditator, a certified meditation teacher and coach, and focused on learning about the interplay of art, creativity, and mindfulness every day. 
Certified, 2021
Certified Unified Mindfulness Coach Level I, 2024
Certified Zentangle® Teacher, 2013
Certified by AmyOxford.com at The Oxford Rug Hooking School, 2016
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Insight Meditation Society Oxford Rug Hooking School Zentangle: The Official Site Green Mountain Rug Hooking Massachusetts Tarot Society 
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