 After yesterday's crazy busy-ness I thought I'd post something super-simple today. This is the tangle Dragonair, which is part of the Inktober 2020 challenge and is completely new to me. In fact, this is my first attempt, dashed off on a lavender-colored post-it note to see if I could figure it out. I did this before putting it into the journal page before yesterday's post, but today I added the white chalk pencil and graphite. A new favorite.
 This is my "Inktober 2020" challenge page so far. 23 out of 31 days are on here (I'm one day ahead of the date today). My goodness, isn't that a busy page! Yikes. But the Inktober challenge is meant to be an annual sampling of a wide variety of tangles, so unless I do each one on its own tile, it's always going to be an "eye-crossing" visual experience. And this one is certainly no exception. The process is really fun, though. I get to sample things I might not have considered otherwise. A few of these have become new loves; a few really left me cold. A few that I've always had trouble drawing just smoothed right out and were easy. And a few that I know very well somehow turned into hot messes on the page as I ran into unexpected trouble with them! Sort of like the experience of a daily meditation practice. Or to quote Forrest Gump, "...you never know what you're going to get." Meanwhile, our fall foliage season is rapidly winding down, but for some reason, this sugar maple didn't get that memo and is just getting started. Sooooo pretty.  Late-to-the-party sugar maple. So glad it took its own time.  A page from my tangle journal--the first 11 days of "Inktober 2020." I hope to fill up this page further, while still leaving enough white space. Here are tangles from the first 11 days of Inktober 2020, using only a black Micron 01 and graphite. I will likely need a second page to complete the 31 days without making things look horribly overcrowded. This page is already far too busy but I don't care--the experience is such fun. Most of these tangles are new to me, so this is really more in order of a "scratch sheet," for practice, rather than anything finished. Inktober is a terrific way to get back in the game. I've got a long way to go but I have to say that this kind of practice is a big help--and anyway, my primary motivation is always the relaxation that comes along with tangling, rather than the results. Finally my schedule is starting to clear, so get ready for some "bad tangling." I'm amazingly out of practice but happy to be starting up again, and here are the so-so results. Why am I posting these? Because they are true. This is where I am now. Just as in daily meditation, I am essentially beginning again. We all do this hundreds of times every day, with many issues, without realizing it. A meditation practice is cultivated over time, time each day. And with Zentangle®, just like with meditation, lack of practice will show. But in essence, WHO CARES? There are no meditation police, and there are no Zentangle police either. Julia Child's motto (The French Chef on PBS for so many years) applies here: "Who's going to know?" she chortles in her fabulous high-pitched voice, as she picks up the raw chicken she just dropped on the floor as she's being filmed and goes on preparing to cook it. As she pointed out, the oven would take care of any germs. I have always loved this moment of her show. She was always beginning again, with humor and enthusiasm.** Someone undoubtedly ate that cooked chicken, and no one got sick or died. So FINALLY--yay!!!!--I am getting to begin again after months of not being able to tangle. Here is what that looks like.  It's "Inktober" again, so tanglers are embarking on a daily draw. This is an experiment with the tangle Flux, drawn on a tan tile. No pen used, only General's Chalk Pencils in olive green, white, and a scoche of blue. I was curious about what would happen without the hard line from a pen, using a lot of blending. This is the result. I nicknamed this one, "It's only a dream," and went to sleep shortly after finishing it. Sure enough, I had vivid dreams all night long, and they were just as vague and ethereal as my tangling before bed. Here's the Inktober link for tanglers (meaning, this is specific to tangling). Inktober has a number of genres--sketching, writing, etc. There is a prompt for every day during the month of October every year. I'm following the one for tanglers, but you may want to google some of the other genres if it interests you. ** According to Snopes, that episode was slightly-but-not-very different from what I remember: "She was cutting the poultry up (which, as I recall, was a chicken), and it slid off the table onto the floor. She picked it up and said either, 'We’ll pretend that didn’t happen,' or 'Just pretend you didn’t see that.”' She continued cutting the chicken up."  To continue:
Sure enough, the rust in my hand shows up even more here. Once I sat down this morning I couldn't stop tangling. Although it's only the 2nd day of October, I have tangles from the prompts for Days 1-5 on this page so far. If I keep on, the page could turn into a hot mess, but hey. I'll keep on anyway. The ONLY tangle here that I knew before this morning was Flux (upper border). Every other tangle was completely new for me. Oops, I take that back--I know and love Pepper (day 5). But Anthem (day 3), Jackstripes (day 2) and Unbirthday (day 4) are all tangles I've never heard of before. These are all first-attempts. You can also see some pencil-drawn string lines on the page; we'll see if I do anything with those. As my idol Julia would say, "Just pretend you didn't see that." |
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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