This was a fun late-night ZIA attempt.  ZIA stands for "zentangle inspired art," and in this case--in case you don't see it at first--you are looking at a crown.

I took a video class with Midori Furuhashi, CZT.
You can find her on Facebook or @midorifuruhashi on Instagram.
She wowed me by teaching simultaneously in both Japanese and English.  Oh, to have language skills like hers! 
There were a lot of tangles in this piece that I rarely use, and that is what drew me to it.  It's actually too busy for me, but it was terrific practice in both tangling and shading.  It's traditionally done on a gray tile, but I discovered I didn't have one, so went with white which isn't as striking as the gray.  I had to make do.

                      THE MIDWAY POINT
This was the point where I finished the drawing only--pre-coloring, pre-shading.

Makes me stop and think when I look at the contrast between this and the finished tile above.

After all, what is life without shade as well as sun?  And life is better when it isn't just black and white--adding all the colors it comes in, no matter what, is our best chance for a full life and wisdom.

Phew.  I finally got this entire project redone and finished.  It's not my best work, but now at least I know what the trouble was--my helpful teacher pointed out that I need better quality small brushes.  (And lots more practice)  Yes!

Here is the initial stage, the underpainting before I used the smaller (problematic) brushes to add in  the tangle patterns.  Although I preferred the bee I painted yesterday, I had more control in this painting overall.  It's an improvement over yesterday's background wash and hexagons.  I'll take improvement!

When I got to the very end (adding tangles to the underpainting) and switched to small brushes to created detailed tangles, I noticed the points on the brushes were poor and the hairs would collapse--and spread--at the slightest pressure, resulting in sloppy lines.

But it's done (below), and wow did I learn a lot in creating it.  See yesterday's post for my initial problems.  Now that I know what went wrong, I think I'll be able to do better work in future.  I'm glad I experimented, and so glad I stuck with it long enough to try again.

There are two major take-aways: 
1) As usual, anything new takes substantial practice, and
2) Do not use cheapo materials--the right tools are worth every penny.

The start:  And, here we go again.  Another watercolor in a class with Sam Taylor/zenlapse (she has wonderful classes mixing Zentangle® with watercolor). 

Whoa, watercolor is so darned tricky!  Here I have prepped a 6x6" watercolor paper with her bee template, put a wash over the background, and done some coloring of the bee itself. 

Those are Fine-Tec metallic watercolors on the wings (silver) and the pollen baskets (gold) although as usual, they are so hard to show in a photograph.  The overall wash and other colors I just mixed from myregular cheapo Prang watercolors. 

If you really look you can see some hexagons drawn lightly in pencil and scattered randomly throughout the wash; unfortunately, as you'll see below, I did rather too-good a job erasing them so that the outlines wouldn't show in the final painting. 

Hah!  When it came to painting them, I couldn't see what I was doing.  And I still haven't mastered the trick of avoiding "hard lines" in a watercolor wash.  Watercolor has a big learning curve.  That's ok.  I'm determined.

Mid-stage:  I'm beginning to paint the hexagonal cells.  Because my light is on the left side, you can only see the gold and silver Fine-Tec there.  More hexagons to come.

Having done an over-zealous job of erasing, I'm having issues making my hexagons the right shape because I can't really see my guidelines.  Live and learn!  I'll keep going and post the outcome next.
                                         * * *
Er, um, no, I guess I won't.

The End:  The entire project went off the rails badly just a couple of hours later.  It went so far off that I ended up gently, slowly, and deliberately tearing it into several pieces (yes, I did indeed, a first for me), with the intention of keeping and  repurposing parts of them somehow into another art project.  I bet I can.

What went wrong?  When I began tangling onto the completed background using a watercolor brush, I lost control and completely wrecked the bee.  Oh, I was fond of that bee!  I tried to rescue it using a Micron, but that made it so much worse.

I was stung.  (pun intended)  However, as I mentioned earlier, I am determined.  I will re-do the entire project.  Perhaps I'll improve the next time.  I know I learned several useful things even though this attempt didn't work.  Hope springs eternal.

Dammit.  <g>

What should we do when there appears to be very little energy for "doing?"  Sometimes we have days like that.  I had one today.

Fortunately, I had two small Bijou (2"x2") tiles already prepped with Map Tangled backgrounds, so today I did them as experiments.  I had to make an effort to get going since I had no energy at all. 

The jury is out on whether I like the results all that much.  On this first tile I put the tangle Pepper (with a few orbs added) which I tarted up with Gold Jellyroll pen in between the black Micron PN strokes and also in the negative spaces.  I'm still contemplating this one.  But at least it got me drawing on a day when I felt...blah.  As we sometimes do, for no reason.  Just blah.  Not bad, not good.

How often do we notice these moments of complete neutrality?  I usually don't, unless a lot of them get strung together during a day--unusual, but it does happen once in awhile.  Should neutral always equal "blah?"  Many folks experience an occasional no-energy day.  

Perhaps I just needed a day to do nothing?  Or simply to contemplate neutrality?  There hasn't been much to feel neutral about in a long, long time (locally or globally).  Perhaps neutrality has been snoozing, and is now waking up again.  Is it actually neutrality, then, or could my over-stimulated nervous system from these last few traumatic years not recognize what it means to rest and restore itself?

Experiment #2,is also done on a pre-prepped Map Tangled background on another tiny tile.   Only this time, the prep included putting a silver metallic Fine Tec watercolor glaze over the regular pink-rose watercolor.  I used a purple Micron PN to do the tangle, which is Diva Dance--a tangle I love but always find quite baffling.  I need remedial Diva Dance lessons!

Diva Dance reminds me of neurons in the brain, quivering and firing.  And yet when I'm drawing, I'm usually totally absorbed and just not thinking.  Perhaps my own dancing neurons go into some type of trance when I draw.  A good thing, on days like this one.

A metallic shine is hard to capture on camera, and the deep rose color did not show truly here.  As is the case with the other small experiment above, I am still waiting to decide how I feel about the tile. 

In the end, it doesn't matter.  The practice itself--and "showing up" even on a day when I didn't have much energy--was my intention, not the final outcome. 

Show up.  Sit down.  Whatever comes up  is simply what is arising in this moment. Notice it.  No judgement. 

Exactly like  meditation.

After taking the class with Nancy Domnauer, during which we prepped and completed the tangling on three tiles (I only showed two of those), I spent just a few minutes the following day to produce the two UN-tangled tiles above.  I'm learning as I go.  People get obsessed with MapTangling, and I can absolutely see why.  It's a surprise every time; results are always unexpected and ever-changing.

Just like our day-to-day lives. 

But with MapTangling, results are likely to be beautiful every time, even if tangling on them can turn out to be tricky and challenging.  That's half the fun. 

Now, if I could only learn to be as calm in daily life when presented with a challenge as I am while doing this.

Here's a tiny tile I did just before bed last night.  It took about ten minutes.  This was done on a Bijou tile (2"x2") which I'd prepped a background on earlier in the day.  This is simply more linework from one of Jo Quincy's lovely soothing videos, just what I needed before trying to sleep after a wild couple of days in my life.  Once again I combined a video from Jo with my own "take" on it, by using MapTangling.  Ahhhhhhhhh.

To finish up, here's an iPhone-app "distressed" version.  I can never resist those iPhone apps.