Couldn't we all use an "uneventful nice day" right about now?

Good heavens, days are rolling past so quickly and I've had no creative time due to the meditation course I'm taking (which finishes in late June).  My "inner creative natives" are getting extremely restless so I snuck this quick drawing in today in my sketchbook, but now need to go back to studying.

It's from Kelly Barone's new book, Drawing Botanicals.  Her book comes fully illustrated with step-by-step drawings, and each has a link to a video for drawing that particular flower.  There must be 150+ flowers (each linked to it's own short video) in the book. They go from A-Z, from African Daisy to Zinnia.  I am highly recommending it, and you'd be supporting a working artist.   Click on the link above to order a copy.  (And don't go by my quick sketch above--you can do even better, I'm sure!

It's amazing how quickly one's skills can deteriorate when one doesn't use them.  I used to be far better with the colored pencils than I am now--can't wait to be putting in regular practice again later this summer.  Kelly is a watercolor artist extraordinaire--you will really enjoy looking at her full website HERE.  I dream of someday creating the subtle beauty she produces--I love her work.

I paired the sketch above with my favorite springtime poem by Lilja Rogers:  "First a howling blizzard woke us; then the rains came down to soak us.  Now, before the eye can focus--Crocus."  Every year in the spring this poem makes me laugh.  May it have the same effect on you.  I fell in love with it the first time I read it, decades ago.  Reciting it is a spring ritual for me.

As you can see, this exhibit at The Clark is not built on the traditional, medieval-style tapestries one usually sees by Gobelin.  Instead it focuses on 20th century work.  I enjoyed this one both for the graphic design qualities and the words.  It even reminds me of a tarot card.  There was another one by the same designer but somehow I didn't get a photo of that.  I may have to go back.  (Not a problem.  I would love to go back.)

Yesterday I was at the Clark Institute in Williamstown, MA to see a mind-boggling exhibit of modern French tapestry from the Mobilier National in France.  I took lots of photos and thought I'd post one every day because they are truly remarkable.  If you are in the area and have a chance to go, go NOW before it closes in a bit less than a week.  I might just have to go again, and plenty of folks who've seen this exhibit have been twice.  They are just incredible, spanning the time between around 1940-ish (mostly just before or after the war) up to the 80s and I think even into this century.

Here is the first one, by Jean Lurcat, "The Forest."  Weaver unknown (a crime!), woven around 1950.  A closeup is also posted below.

Here is the promised closeup.  This tapestry is gigantic--so specs were given but I'm guessing it was around ten feet by 8 feet or so.  It covered an entire wall.  No small feat to do the weaving in one year, not to mention the pre-work of warping the loom, dyeing the wool yarns, etc.  A real stunner.  The more you look, the more you see.

Yesterday's post showed the linework for this.  I drew it from the first video in Sandhya Manne's video series, Magical Stars.  Click on her name for the link to her website and more information.  I modified the drawing very slightly and also added colored pencil to my watercolors.  I love using both media in one piece--it's one of my favorite ways to color things.

I'm keeping in mind the following quote here:

“Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy you will find your self.”                ― Austin Kleon. from Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

Thank you, Sandhya, for offering your work to the rest of us to use for practice and learning!  At this (temporary) point in time when I don't have time for my own art, learning from folks like you is a treasure.

Also, that Kleon book I referenced above is terrific.

This is a "Magical Stars" string (the star) using most of the tangles suggested by Sandhya Manne, CZT, from India in her Magical Stars Project from a couple of years ago. 

I drew it this afternoon and made some (very) minor modifications to what she did.  I plan to add color tomorrow.

If this project interests you, google "Magical Stars" on youtube.

I'm not a major fan of continually doing only what other people have already done, rather than doing my own original tangle work.  But it has its uses.  Working from videos are about all I can manage just now, and Sandhya is yet another truly talented Zentangle® teacher.  Given that I'm totally preoccupied with this 10-month, unrelated-to-art teacher training--very intense--I have had to let any kind of drawing go.  And so, I am more and more out of practice.  To keep my hand in, videos are temporarily the way for me to go.  I can watch, emulate, not expend too much brain power, and stay in practice.

It seems I'm always saying this.  "No time to draw."  When this course ends in July, I hope I have managed to do enough "copy-drawing" via video in this interim to begin work on my own art without being irretrievably rusty. 

Learning from other artists is always a smart way to sharpen skills and keep training.  So thank you, Sandhya, and all the other teachers whose videos I've been using.  I plan to do more of these.  (Now, let's see if I can pull this plan off!)

A woolly pot I made this morning.  I'll use it to hold scrap yarns and wool that I trim off when I'm punching or rug hooking.  It worked up fast and was hugely fun to make.  I've got other uses for these cuties also so will make more for sure.  Instructions and even a short video HERE.
Wool, quarter-inch wooden beads, Valdani thread, fusible interfacing, and a charm.

A chair pad I just punched.  It's "in progress," because I'll be taking a class later this week to learn a special edge binding technique.  Punching doesn't require a binding, but this technique is decorative and I'm curious to learn it.

The pattern is an old one from the Oxford Rug Hooking School; it's not my style and I always thought I'd flip it over and draw my own design on the back to punch, but I needed to produce "something round" really fast for this class, so I opted for quickly completing this and have something with an edge to work on during class.  It's on monks cloth, using a #9 Oxford Punch needle and an assortment of rug yarn scraps, some of which are from other rug projects and some of which (the dark brown) I dyed myself way back in 2016.

Whoops, a little side-step (away from showing the junk-journal-related work I did last Saturday) into the wonderful world of maptangling.  I got distracted by hearing about a new method of preparing the tiles for this, much easier and faster than my old methods, so took time out to do this one.

You can see the original tile after I prepped it but before I drew on it, below.

Every year I try to enroll in the online course called Sketchbook Revival.  So this year it's called Sketchbook Revival 2024.  It's run by Karen Abend and is lots of fun--unless you stress yourself out trying to keep up.  This year I noticed that an amazing Zentangle® teacher named Anica Gabrovec, a CZT from Croatia who goes by the name of ZenLinea online, was teaching.  The moment I saw her name I looked up her class and it was on one of my favorite drawing techniques, Maptangling.  She had a much faster technique than I've seen before for creating the map, and that's what I'll be using from now on.

Here's another page from the junk journal from last Saturday:

Honestly, this page doesn't do much for me.  It's just not that interesting. 

You can see some tissue-paper dyeing at the top edge and peeking out from the bottom; some of it is covered by torn wrapping paper I glued down in the center (and tangled on a bit), and the tangle around the edges is called Scrolz.  My response to this page is "meh." 

And yet, anything that gets me drawing and/or creating is bound to result in some form of serious contentment, even if the result is mediocre.  I'm always amazed at the way time spent on art improves my mood.

From the same workshop I mentioned in yesterday's post.  One of the things we did was to decorate a junk journal (defined as, "a handmade book filled with personal and recycled materials to store memories and ideas").  Our leader for this section of the workshop was Jill Dailey, a CZT from Connecticut.  She had made each of us a plain vanilla journal in advance (because of time constraints) and therefore we had the fun of just decorating them, not having to make one first.  (She sent each of us a video on how to make one for those of us who want to continue making them ourselves)

I used a decorative paper and that black-and-gold washi tape on the front of mine, and we did some very fun "bleeding tissue paper" dyeing on the edges and added the coordinating button.  I'll show some of the work we did in our journals in subsequent posts.  Jill was unbelievably generous with the amount of materials she put in our kits and even had boxes of extras for us to play in and take home.  Enormous fun.

I was tempted to title this, "This is what happens when you haven't picked up a pen in FOUR-plus months."  It's true, it's been that long for me.  I did some work with knots back in March (not much) but basically I haven't had any time for tangling since 2023 and wow am I rusty.   Combine that with poor lighting and you have a relatively hot mess but I know it will improve.

This is a new tangle introduced today for the International Day of Zentangle® (so the name of the tangle is "Idoz"  Pronounced eye'-dozz).  Rick and Maria, the founders of Zentangle, introduced it this morning in a webinar attended by several hundred tanglers from around the world.  Today is the day they are celebrating the 20th anniversary of Zentangle's start.

It was the perfect tangle for me to begin with after such a long layoff.  Can't wait to experiment and get back to all this.

The next day started off with this tile.

Here's the thing--Molly had pre-drawn a very odd string (string = an optional guideline done in pencil) on every student's tile.  Very odd. 

We were asked to tangle within the string, not outside of it.  OKaaaaaaaay...

Off we went. 

Once we were done, mine looked like this.

Very strange.

Lots of fun and very calming.

But still, weird.

I think we were all scratching our heads a bit, despite enjoying ourselves.

But then, we did the mosaic of tiles.  AHA!  Now it all made so much sense:

Hearts with a trick!  I love it.

The workshop with Molly & Martha was designed to emphasize what's known as tangle "enhancers."  This first one was the Tucker technique, where something appears to be almost hidden, tucked away under the paper.  I was familiar with it but hadn't tried it much.  If ever.  This was fun to do.  I think the grey pen section qualifies as another technique called "ghost tangles."

Below you can see the class "mosaic" of tiles.  Isn't it interesting how everyone draws their tangles differently, even with the same directions?  Drawing is a lot like handwriting--the same, but very different.  One of life's paradoxes.

Next we did a mandala of border tangles using both brown and black Microns, graphite, and white and pink General's chalk pencils.

We used ModPodge on top of the tile once it was done to seal it, but not over each of the borders, just some.

Tangles included a portion of Marasu, Jonqal, Shattuck (with sparkles), Bales with enthatching), Well (with weighted lines), and weighted Printemps (there's a narrow beaded border thrown in there twice, plus dots).  Lots of enhancers here!

Again, here is the mosaic of tiles for the border mandala.  So many differences, yet so much similarity.

In this incredibly troubled world, I was lucky enough to be able to take three days for travel and drawing. 

Nearly every second of that time, I was acutely aware of the many tragedies currently unfolding on our fragile blue planet, and acutely aware of the great privilege to be able to have the peace that drawing can provide.  Over all three days, I carried both worlds with me simultaneously.  I think we all did.  There were about 40 of us in attendance, with Martha Huggins and Molly Hollibaugh from Zentangle® as our teachers.  I'll post a few of the results over the next couple of days.

A "warm-up tile" from the first evening.

It can be nearly impossible to find a way to cope with life at times like this.  So many people I know are exhausted, angry, disillusioned, terrified, and feeling helpless.  I cannot and do not ignore that nor any of the existential threats we face at the moment.  Yet who can function with any measure of wisdom or compassion in such a state?  We must all try to take a moment whenever we can to recognize both the possibilities AND the limitations we face.  And then find a scrap of inner peace and sit with that until we can un-clench.

Any healthy thing that can give us that moment is precious.  Drawing is one thing that does it for me.  Music as well.  Speaking with friends.  Helping someone who needs help. 

In order to be functional, I need to do this in small moments throughout the day so that I won't get lost in discouragement.  We all need some way of doing this--desperately.  I am fortunate enough to be able to occasionally stop and just draw for a while.  I know that others on the planet who are being bombed or shot at do not have that luxury right now. 

I do it both for myself and for the people who don't have that option, in the hope that calming myself will enable me to think and act more clearly to support them in their time of need.

Kaira Jewel Lingo has just written a book called We Were Made for These Times, about how to survive and cope with the turmoil currently gripping the world.  You can listen to her by clicking on the link below, as she's interviewed by former ABC News Anchor Dan Harris.

May we all find shelter and safety
May we all find peace within and without
May we all be kind to ourselves and each other
May we all become whole.

This should clear up the mystery I posted about yesterday.  In yesterday's post you can see the punched upper part of one of these shoes before I sewed it to the sole, a task I did today.  This was such a fun project.  Of course, espadrilles are totally and completely flat--no arch support.  And I need that.  So although they fit I'll probably give them away.  But I did it.  It was a challenge, and I did it. 

And yes, they are resting on a chair cushion I punched (and designed) about 20 years ago.  Also done with rug wool and a #10 Oxford Punch Needle.

Although I could be writing about this for days, I will refrain and restrict myself to some (not all!) photos I took of this amazing exhibit at the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester Vermont this week.  Alas, it leaves Vermont on Sunday.

A friend asked me whether I'd seen it.  I didn't even know what she was talking about, so she filled me in and I researched what it was/why it was made and knew I had to go to see it.  I am so happy I did, and I urge you to as well.  To better understand what it is about, go to https://reddressembroidery.com/ and prepare to be very, very moved by what you see and read.

Meanwhile, here are more photos from the exhibit.

I hope you are interested enough to click on the URL I gave above and read about the intent of this amazing project.  Enjoy.  Many children also added their embroidery to the piece, including some little boys.  And as I mentioned above, around 7 to 9 of the 380 embroiderers were men.  The Red Dress is gradually being brought back to the 51 countries, to the people who worked on it, so that all may enjoy the completed piece.  Many of the women who've worked on it will get to try it on and be photgraphed in it.  I've seen some of the photos and they are incredibly empowering.

Here's a page from my sketchbook showing some practice at drawing flowers.  Kelly Barone of Whimsy by Kelly has a lovely free video series on FB on doing this.  I think she began it last year but I'm just able to focus on it now.  It was fun to try.

Below you can see all the stages, from line drawing to shading to this result directly below.

Oh my gosh.  The last time I got to draw was May 5th.  Way, WAY too long for me.  Last night I finally got back to it and it felt sooooo good.

I am definitely rusty, rusty, rusty.  This is overworked, and yet, I just loved every minute of doing it.  I couldn't stop after such a long time of no tangling, and that resulted in the overwork (and the lack of sleep since I didn't start the coloring until after 10 pm).  But it was worth every second for the pleasure it gave me.

Just the same sort of sigh-of-relief as when you finally get to scratch a bothersome itch.

The linework, before color was added, is on the right.

So what caused this long, long drought?  I'm teaching rug hooking in the midwest later this summer and I needed to produce multiple samples for the upcoming class.  That has been taking up all my time.  I will post the samples soon but now that they are done, I just want to get back to regular rug hooking, punching, and DRAWING. 

There will be another short delay while I finish prepping, traveling and teaching.  By September I hope to be back to a regular schedule of drawing and blogging.

In the meantime, meditation is keeping me sane and happy throughout this long summer. 

***
Meditation: Because some answers can only be found on the inner net.
                                                 – Shira Tamir

So here it is, with the colors added.  This was great fun to do.  The URL for the video is in yesterday's post, in case you want to try this yourself.

I'm using colors here I do not normally use--not sure what happened there.  I am not a "pink" person in normal circumstances but this is what came out.

Contrast it to yesterday's black & white version.

This is only the finished linework for a Zentangle®-inspired piece; I will be adding the color for it, hopefully later today or tomorrow.

If you'd like to try this yourself, it's called "Circus Star" and is free on The Tangled Yogi's YouTube channel.  She has an especially lovely meditation at the start of this one, using video footage from a morning walk she took near a lake in California.

Last Tuesday I was lucky enough to take a digital design workshop with Lucy Richard from Wooly Soul Strings, called "Sketchbook for Hookers."  (that would be RUG hookers, people, not the other kind.)

I've been wanting to learn digital art for years now but haven't had time, and I could tell that Lucy's workshop on the Sketchbook app (simpler than Procreate) would teach me the basic concepts. 

This was a fabulous workshop and very much a lesson in Beginner's Mind.  Talk about FLAILING AROUND.  It was a humbling and hilarious experience.  Fortunately Lucy is the soul of patience--I'm not kidding about this--and guided us through our bouts of flailing to success. 

Or, what constitutes "success" for an abject beginner.  Here's what i was able to produce.  Yes, it is indeed hideous.  But it's my hideous, and I'm proud of it.  I can only get better.  Right?

It helped to use a couple of mantras throughout:  "It's ok, I've never done this before," or "I'm just learning."

And so I'll practice.  Begin again, begin again, begin again.  Just like meditation.  I loved this workshop.  Thanks, Lucy!  The design possibilities are endless.

Indeed, it's been awhile. 

Another round of surgery for me (nothing life-threatening), much-needed but requiring a lengthy recovery.  And I'm not done yet.  What I mean to say is, I AM done with the surgery but not anywhere near done with the recovery.

However, I've recovered enough to produce one tangle.  Just one, but my first one in two months.  That long a pause is almost unheard of for me.  I had hoped to do a lot more drawing and tangling in recovery but it hasn't yet been possible. 

The good news:  Everything is going along well, just as predicted.  I may be slow but I'm beginning to be able to "art" again.  I've also been doing some punch needle embroidery but that's not at a stage where I can show it.  Soon, i hope!  I think I have about another 6-8 weeks of recovery to go and then I hope to be back to myself.

Really, I do have plenty of other jewelry than brooches, but there are indeed a lot of those.  So here is the next one.  I'm really enjoying these tiny drawings. 

Having said that, I actually never wore this brooch much--it wasn't a favorite and neither is my drawing of it (which takes liberties and includes the tangle Tipple) but that's ok since it is keeping me doing a little bit of drawing every day, which is the goal.

And here's the sterling silver version from which I did the drawing.

A good friend and I met in Vermont Tuesday afternoon for a textile tour (self-planned), the high point of which was a stop here.

Oh my!  I had not been back there in SIX YEARS.  Awful, because I absolutely love the place.  And there have been so many changes in the meantime.  It was fabulous to hang out with Amy, Heidi, and the others I hadn't met previously because they've all been hired since i was last able to visit.  Of course I bought some goodies for myself too, the last of which was this brightly colored hoodie.  It's warm and comfortable and I may never take it off.

Just an amazing class from Lynn Mead of The Tangled Mind today--a benefit for children in Ukraine.  I loved every minute of the class.

Lots of discussion about MC Escher (of course), but also excellent teaching and plenty of time to tangle.  Done on gray cardstock with a black Micron 05 and graphite pencil with some white chalk pencil for highlights.  This was very much in the "quick and dirty" mode.  Fun!