Well.  It's almost done.  The hooking is done.  Next comes: 

1. fixing the holidays (for those of you who don't hook, a "holiday" is where you turn the rug over to the wrong side and spot places where there are no loops or where loops have pulled out; left uncorrected, these unhooked spots will weaken the rug). 
2. a few minor tweaks (fiddling with misbehaving loops).
3. zigzagging around the linen backing (which has been turned under here) 1.5" from the last row hooked, and then trimming off the excess linen foundation. 
4. creating a protective "bumper" of wool and cording to go around the rug, and stitching that on.
5. creating and attaching a label.
6. steaming the rug one final time before putting on the floor to walk on.

So there is still a considerable amount of finishing to do, but essentially the rug's in its final form now.  If memory serves me right, I began the rug in March, worked on it steadily until July, took the summer off, and resumed around mid- to end-of-September, until I pulled the last loop today.  All together, about six months of very steady work.

And you wonder why hand-hooked rugs are so expensive.  Every time you buy a cheapo hooked rug from China (and they are out there, plenty of them), you are disempowering an American or Canadian artist.  But it's not my intention to get on THAT soapbox today.

And now...the rewards:

So after all this hooking (not to mention the Big Yarn Dyeing Project over the last six days), I decided to self-indulge with some rewards.  My new freaky shoes (see the post from two days ago), one of which is visible in the rug photo above, were the start of an orgy of self-indulgence.

Just today my new dye spoons arrived from Gene Shepherd's online store.  These arrived with lightning speed.  I think I may even have ordered them on Thanksgiving, just last Thursday, and it's only Monday.  I love them.  They have so many advantages in this form, and I love that the measures go from 1/128th to 1 full teaspoon.

They were expensive, as all good dye spoons are, but I know the value of top-of-the-line tools, and these are definitely in that category.

There's more though.

Here are Carrie Paris's beautiful new Relative Tarot Cards, which you can find more about here.  I can't wait to begin using these.  (They are sold out temporarily but she'll be reprinting soon.)

While I am taking a short break from dyeing massive quantities of yarn for my new Moon & Clouds rug, I'll really enjoy working with Carrie's cards.  And of course, I will be working with tarot at the opening of the tarot rug show on Friday. 

Needing new walking shoes that were not clogs, I realized I didn't want to buy something boring.  I wanted to break out of my usual conservative wear.

I met that goal, with this new pair. 

Don'tcha think? 

Of course, the result may terrify you.  It did me.  At first. 

Then I decided to get over the terror and wear them, and now I quite like them. 

Not to mention how much they distract everyone I meet.

Just to be sure you realize the full effect, here is a larger photo of just one of the pair.  By showing only one shoe, I hope to avoid inducing a seizure in any viewer who may be extra sensitive to something so strobe-alicious.  You may want to wear sunglasses for this larger view.  NOTE:  I am not responsible for any side effects you may incur by looking at this photo.

Finally, on a somewhat calmer note...

There is a "gem craze" going on in the Zentangle® community at the moment.  Since I've been focused elsewhere (mainly on dyeing yarn for my upcoming rug), I've been ignoring it but today I completely hit a wall and could not tolerate dyeing even one more skein of yarn.  I just had to clean up the incredible mess and disorganization in my kitchen. 

So I did. 

And then I sat down and tried drawing gems.

After which I had a little iPhone fun with that same photo.

I am in yarn dyeing heaven.  Or hell.  Depending how I look at it.  Am not making my daily goal, and my house truly looks like a tornado has struck full-force.  But more about that later.  This is quick post just to record what I did for the Joey Challenge this week, the monotangle Yuma.

I have spirals on the brain this week, so wanted to use a spiral string. It's debatable whether I did a true form of Yuma here, but what the hey.  Here's a mirrored version, using the iPhone app:

Back to the yarn dyeing saga:  I only managed to get 3 skeins done again today.  And I won't really be able to see them until daylight tomorrow.  Next step:  stop until I've spent a couple of hours coloring sketches, and make a semi-final decision about which lighter colors to use.  Then, calculate how many of each color I will need, creating a map that will govern the rest of the process.  I think I've done enough testing.  Time to get down to business.

The Diva Challenge #245 this week is on Hollibaugh.  Oh, how I love this tangle.  I know there will be some fabulous renditions of it, so please click on that link and treat yourself to what others have done.  Here is my quick version (on the left), very different from what I usually do.

And to round off the Hollibaugh celebration, here is the same tangle done by several first-time students, below.  I had only 7 minutes to teach this tangle in a meditation class (all the students were training to be meditation teachers):

You can see the meditation chimes on the left.  I do love Hollibaugh.  Not bad for seven minutes of coaching.  We were focused on the meditative aspect of the tangle.

And now on to the
BIG YARN DYEING PROJECT, Day 2.

Life is full of surprises and today is no exception.  I will only get 3 skeins done today.  My goal is six, but...not gonna happen.  Much busyness with other people.  And my car is in the shop.  (Praying to the god of cars that it is an inexpensive fix)  Plus, I have an afternoon commitment.  I will end up dyeing yarn tonight, just to produce the third skein.  As I write this in the early afternoon, I've just taken two out of the oven.  So here are some photos of the process:

...and some of the results:

And of course, no dyeing process would be complete without what's in this last photo below.  At least--that's true for me.  I am apparently a dyeing slob.  I get dye all over my hands, despite wearing good rubber gloves.  It's a mystery how I do this; other people come out with pristine hands, but mine are always gross at the end.  (No, the gloves do not leak.  It's definitely something I am doing...but what?)  Without this stuff, I wouldn't be able to go out in public for days afterwards.

Legend has it that Pearl McGown, the diva and doyenne of rug hooking in the 1950s, used to dye wool while dressed in an evening gown to demonstrate that it could be done without being messy.  (NOTE:  She is an entire story to herself--she singlehandedly kept rug hooking going in the U.S., but she was quite the dictator.) 

Hey, if I owned an evening gown, I too could dye wool while wearing it without getting spots on it.  I never get dye on my clothes either.

But I note that the legend of Pearl Dyeing in Her Evening Gown says nothing about her HANDS.  Perhaps they were blue up to the elbows when she finished.  Mine are all colors when I am done. 

Long live ReDuRan.  (No, I don't get a commission.)

The Joey Challenge this week is to build a monotangle from one named XPlosion.  What's helpful about these challenges is that creating a good design with one tangle is often way harder than it sounds.  Here's my attempt to do this with XPlosion.

I used a burnished Rainbow Lead Pencil on the negative spaces and a Micron 01, after which I played with the tile using the Mirror app on my iPhone and picked this version of it to post below:

 Paris.  Beirut.  Iraq.  Syria.  Egypt.  All have experienced horrific violence recently, making so much of the world so sad, and leaving us all asking why.  Not just why on an intellectual level (all the political/economic/faux-religious causes) but why on a human level.  Why.  Just, why.

Makes me feel as though there is little I can do.  But there is something we all can do:  work on ourselves; watch our thoughts and our speech.  I need to remember to do this every day.  I do not always succeed.  My hope is that we can be kinder to each other.  Be more compassionate.  I am not talking about becoming doormats for violence; tough love is warranted when needed.  But coming from love, not from hate.  (I know it is hard to imagine coming from love right now, with some of what's been going on.  But if we act from hate only, we are no better than those we criticize.)

So easy to say.  So hard to do.  Please take one moment to watch this video (2 minutes) about a man who lost his wife in the Paris attacks.  As I said, so easy to say, so hard to do--but he is doing it.  May the Goddess help him in his effort.

Thinking about this, I created another zendala today based on yesterday's class.  It is barely a zendala because there is only one tangle in there, but the tangle matters.  It's called "Paris," and was created by Ina Sonnenbrand after the tragedy last Friday.  So if you look closely, you'll see it in the mandala in two of the layers.  It's based on the Eiffel Tower.  My heart goes out to France.  And Beirut, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and on and on.

Tangle:  Paris, by Ina Sonnenbrand.  Microns 1 and 01, Prismacolor pencils, Moonlight Gelly Pen, and a Pentel Brush Pen that was basically too dry to use.  Gamisol was used in a few places as an experiment.

Below is the same piece, but "painted in Waterlogue," an iPhone app I played around with.  It made me think of all the tears we have shed over this kind of violence.

It's been a long productive day and I plan to do it all again tomorrow; but that's a post for another time. 

To chill out this evening I just tried two new tangles.  Both were very relaxing to do.  The one on the left is called Cassiopeia, by Monique Leschner.  The one on the right is called CC by Mina Hsiao, CZT.  I want to try re-doing that one and turning it; it has some lovely effects that way.  I used an 01 Micron and a Rainbow Lead Pencil (but not my favorite one, which has different colors).

Oh, hey!  I just realized I could "turn that tile" (CC) with my iPhone mirror app and get a sense of what it would look like.  Here it is--that worked.  I'll still do it by hand at the next opportunity.

Today was tiring, but totally fun.   A day for gratitude, surely.

“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.”
― Meister Eckhart

A stunningly beautiful day in the state--in the bright sunlight, sugar maples are burning up with reds, oranges, yellows.  Autumn everywhere!  Only the sky was blue...but an incandescent blue. 

With excellent coaching from artist and CZT Cheryl Cianci, I produced the blue-themed tile above, although I was in anything BUT a blue mood today.  This was a soothing process, and the slow work with the Prismacolor pencils made it entirely meditative.  With thanks to Cheryl.  

Tangles used:  Mooka, Munchin, Pokeleaf & root, Florz, Knot Rickz, Tipple, drawn on a brown paper bag.

Here is a mirrored version (using the mirror app on my iPhone)

...and a version using the app "Painteresque."

Diva Challenge # 237 this week was by guest Charlotte Carpentier, CZT, and involved finding something around the house that one could use for a stencil.  I knew right away that--since it's fall--I wanted to use my apple corer. 

After all, fall is all about apples, right?

I love my apple corer, and I love the many varieties of autumn apples.  

And I often use the corer as a quick way to draw the string for a Zendala.  It works like a charm for that.

She also suggested we use a spray color with the stencil to form a string for our work, so I puzzled about that and thought about a watercolor wash, but then realized that I have a bottle of Walnut Distress Spray, never used, and I decided to give that a try. 

So, spritz, spritz, spritz...and I came up with this.  Alas, I began tangling on it before I remembered to take a photo, but you can still get the idea of what the string looked like--kind of a cross between a Renaissance Tile and a plain white one.

WHERE THE TITLE OF THIS POST CAME FROM:
As you can see, the instant I had the string I thought of using the tangle Foot-lites by Carole Ohl, CZT for some of the sections.  But I couldn't quite remember how to do it since it had been awhile.  And...UNFORTUNATELY...my aging brain remembered the title as "Spotlights."  So off I went, googling Spotlights and getting nowhere.  A couple of puzzled and frustrated hours later (it was pretty late at night by my standards, so being tired was not helping), I put out a call to other CZTs and Lauren Spiegel Eldon came to my rescue, asking if perhaps I might be looking for Foot-lites, not Spotlights?  She was very tactful and of course I had a massive "DUH!!!!" moment.

Ah, the aging brain. 

It matters to call something by its right name.

But I was on my way.  Here is the resulting tangle for the Diva Challenge:

I'm not quite sure what I was intending with the white pencil on the brown sections...I may have to re-do some of that, but overall I like it.  In addition to the Walnut Distress Spray, I used a Rainbow Pencil, a Prismacolor White Pencil, and a Brown Micron 01.

And now for a little iPhone app fun with the tile from this challenge:

This week I decided to try a new Monday challenge, Joey's Weekly Tangle Challenge #80.  I haven't tried this one before, and as it happened, she suggested a tangle I had never seen or heard of before, called Queeries (you can find it by going to her page at the above link). 

It's based on a question mark. 

I'm not sure how keen I am on this particular tangle, which is grid-based, but I was determined to try it.  I had to break it out of its grid, though, and then--I swear, the above photo really IS Queeries.  It's just my version of Queeries. I did not add any other tangles to it, since this challenge is supposed to be a monotangle...I just did line work around it and then shading.

I ended up thinking Queeries was pretty interesting, although I don't know how much I'll use it.  But then, that's why challenges exist. 

Next, I got out my iPhone and played with the tile using a couple of apps, with these results.  Here's a mirrored version from the mirror app...

I used a Rainbow Pencil to shade the original plain tile.  It never fails to amaze me how relaxing and focusing tangling is.  No matter what I'm thinking about when I begin, I forget everything once I begin to tangle.  It works every time.  So meditative.

I'm still fascinated with playing with iPhone apps on my tiles after I've finished because the results are so surprising.

At this moment, my own life is filled with queries about so many things.  I imagine that is true for a lot of us, not just me. 

Life loves to lead us to our own question marks.

Continuing yesterday's theme...

Surprise #1:  Another bunch of Rainbow Pencils (a different brand I found on amazon) arrived in the mail today from China, so I tried them out.  Good thing that these Rainbow Pencils are cheap, because I hate them.  They cannot be sharpened to a good point, and the lead keeps breaking during sharpening.  Ugh!  I would not recommend this brand at all.  Here's a photo of what NOT to get:

Surprise #2:  My back is demonstrably better this afternoon.  Hallelujah!  May it continue.

Surprise #3:  I thought I'd try out the new Rainbow Pencil on another "String Thing" tile for the same challenge as yesterday, #111.  So once again I tried Hamail, the focus of this challenge, with some Meringue and a little bit of Tipple.  Here it is...but the big surprise is the next photograph, in which I used the same tile but mirrrored it with my iPhone mirror app...and just look what happened.  All I can say is, wow.

I simply cannot believe what that mirror app did to my "so-so" tile.  I love it.

On the downside, you can see what not being able to get a sharp point does to the lines in the tile--very cloudy and mushy.  A nice effect if that's what you want, but as it happens, it isn't what I wanted.  That's ok, though, as I love the mirrored version anyway.

Once I saw that, I had to try it in another app on my phone called Waterlogue.  Here's that one.

Today is one of those days when everything feels surprising.  The gorgeous weather.  What occurred in my meditation this morning.  The fact that I'm still having some serious back issues, which haven't taken this long to resolve before.  Hearing that Yogi Berra just died (I was a big fan of his Yogi-isms, such as, "You can observe a lot just by watching," and "I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four").  Loved that guy, and I am happy that he had such a long life and appeared to enjoy it.

The next surprise came when I did the It's a String Thing #111 challenge today.  Tangles are Hamail and Flux.  I got almost nothing else done but at least I did this.  And wow--it went nowhere I thought it was going to go and turned out totally differently than I expected.  I thought it would be black and white...no.  I had planned to use a different tangle than Flux...no.  Nothing turned out as I thought!  But the real surprise comes AFTER this picture:

As usual, I was playing with my iPhone Mirror app after taking the photo, and tried out some new capabilities, and the app came up with this, which I really like a lot (I'm still not sure how I like the original):

Surprised that the app even changed the colors...and I like them better.  Such an interesting app, with many more features that I look forward to explore.  More surprises in store.

Oy, it's been a tough week.  And it's not over.  By tonight I was ready for some relaxation-inducing tangling.  Here is my response to the Diva Challenge #235.  Still practicing on black tiles.

White UniBall Sigma Pen, White Faber Castell Pencil, Metallic Blue Colored Pencil. 

Tangles include:  Nymph, Up n Down, Scrawlz, Frame Over, Leaflet, Balo.

And of course, I had to play with the mirror app on my iPhone, so that result is below.  I had photographed the tile on my knee while wearing bluejeans, and didn't crop the photo before I tried the mirror app.  Who knew the result would be so interesting?

Recently I've found myself struggling to get to sleep at night.  A lot of people have this experience, and I've occasionally had it in the past.  But now it's stretching into weeks.  Not every night, but most nights.  So unusual.  I've checked my food/caffeine intake, and my screen time, as well as my stress level, but there's nothing I can tag as a cause.  All is well...yet I often cannot get to sleep.

When this happens, I get up and leave the bedroom entirely and read or tangle.  Or meditate, which I also enjoy doing late at night.  Here's a blog post on the connection between meditation and insomnia--bottom line:  it may help, it may not.  But (for me, anyway), it feels good while I'm doing it, so I usually will give it a try if reading or tangling aren't helping me get sleepy.

WHAT I'VE BEEN WORKING ON DURING MY INSOMNIAC SPURT:
Alas, I can't post the main thing I have been working on in the last week because it's a gift for someone and until it's given, I will have to hold off.  Check back in the next week or two for the full picture.   It's a piece of Zentangle® inspired art, and I can only post enough of it that it won't be recognizable, so here is that bit.

That has taken much of my time (it's much larger than what you see above), but then the Zendala Dare #108 came along and I decided to participate in that.  It's been a while since I have done one of these challenges. 

The Rainbow Lead pencils I ordered from Oriental Trading Company arrived at the end of last week; it was time to try one out and see if I liked it as well as my other Rainbow Lead pencils.  If you want to know what I'm talking about, see my long post on using these pencils here, including information on where to find them and how to identify that you are really getting a Rainbow Lead, not an ordinary lead.  (Actually, every post since then has related to that topic, at least in part)

Here was the template for this week's challenge:

So far so good--I decided to do two tiles, one white and one black, and use the new pencil on each, and see how it worked.  Here was what I did with the black tile at 3 a.m. today:

 I was pretty happy with this except that it looked...well...DULLER than I thought my other older pencil does.  But maybe not?  I mean, who knows, at 3 a.m. in the pitch dark?  I took a photo (several, actually, but more about that later) and did some additional meditation, and finally went to bed.  I say "additional meditation" because I find that Zentangle is a form of moving meditation.  Like yoga.

This morning I got up and had another look.  Yes, it seemed duller.  So let me try it on a white tile and see if maybe I'm imagining that.  I had a chance to sit down and re-do this zendala template with different patterns this afternoon and here it is:

You know, I like this too.  But the colors of this Rainbow Lead pencil are dull, dull, dull!  At least so far.  They just do not have the p-zazz of my earlier, older RL pencils.  (I am sorry I cannot distinguish them by name--unfortunately none of the styles have any identifiable names.  Darn!  Makes them hard to discuss.

I used a variety of tangles on this:  Marasu (center), Scarabou, Enyshou (oo oo oo, do we have a sound pattern developing?), Paradox variation, Indy-Rella, and Perfs.

So here is a picture of both types of RL pencils I'm comparing

The pencil on the top left is by far my favorite.  You can get it at ????? (Good luck finding these--I know Oriental Trading had them years ago but they don't anymore.  See my previous post, referenced at the top of this post, to see more about finding these.)  Frankly, every time I see them I buy up every one I can get.

On the lower right is the pencil I just got from Oriental Trading.  In fact, Rainbow Lead pencils are cheap, so I got 2 dozen of them. 

Now look at the leads...you can see the way the colors are distributed.  Also, see how much brighter the lead on the upper left pencil is?  So it truly is not my imagination; these new and readily available RL pencils are definitely more dull.  Darn!

My overall assessment of them so far:  MEH.  Good if you like subtle dull colors.  I have a lifetime supply--anyone want to buy a couple?  (Kidding--I may use these in classes)

Here is what these new and currently available pencils look like, in case you want to get a pack from Oriental Trading:

AND NOW FOR THE OBLIGATORY PICTURES WITH MY IPHONE MIRROR APP:
Ok, if you got this far, you didn't think I could resist playing with my iPhone mirror app and these zendalas, did you?  Of course not.  Here are two pictures of the black one, mirrored a couple of ways:

Yes, I cannot resist; I admit I am addicted!  The last one is from the white tile.

Perhaps it's not so bad to have occasional insomnia.  I had four lovely meditations today:  two regular ones, and two moving meditations with Zentangle.

Today I was reading a very helpful post on white-on-black tiles by Betsy Wilson, and tested out some of her techniques (which is why my result below resembles a highly mediocre version of one of her her originals).  I think Betsy will be my new idol--from the little I've seen of her other posts I really love her work.

I often like my own work too, even though I know that I need practice.  But I don't particularly like this tile below.  I also don't think comparisons are often useful, but even I can see, when I compare my tile to hers, that I have a long way to go.  I understand, however, that practice will be my savior here.  I will keep at it.  Holding out Betsy's technique as a model will be useful, not discouraging, even though I am not at all thrilled with this first try.  

This tile started out with the central Meer motif; I was using a white Broad UniBall Signa pen, and the ink was NOT going on well at all.  It was not fun to use.  Next I repeated the Meer motif in the upper left with a Faber Castell white colored pencil, testing that out.  Better, but so much fainter it seemed to be disappearing on the black paper.  Not happy with that either.  Finally I did the Meer motif on the lower right with a white GellyRoll pen.  Surprisingly, I liked that best--which isn't saying much.  The coverage on all three was not that good. 

At that point I thought I had finished, but then threw in some Rainbow Lead pencil for a bit of color, and added the Beadlines.

My overall feeling:  Meh.  (Live and learn)

Well, since I wasn't thrilled, I couldn't just leave it alone, so I went into my iPhone and used my mirror app on it.  I don't know if that made it better or worse!  I am definitely fascinated with this app...see below.

And just one more try with the app...see below.

I find this mirroring app mesmerizing.  These hardly resemble the original at all.

More practice (and perhaps studying more of Betsy's blog) should help me improve my technique. 

I can feel a major research project with the black tiles coming on!

While I'm on the topic of inspiring blogs:
If any of you reading this are confused about what Zentangle® is and why it should not be called doodling, take just a moment and read this post by CZT Sandy Hunter.  I love what she's written here.

Don't get me wrong; I'm a big fan of doodling and I doodle all the time, but doodling has a different genesis and purpose, as I discussed in this post which I wrote in June of 2014.

NOTE:  Unless you are an art nerd, no need to read the text on this entry!

I have way too many Sakura Gellyroll pens that I haven't had time to use, and before today I didn't really know how the different types differed from each other.  So this afternoon I did the same tangle on 3 black tiles using 3 different types of Gellyrolls:  Moonlight, Metallic, and Stardust.  (The Stardust pens produced the big mystery)  My thinking was that if I used the same tangle, I'd be better able to see the differences in the pens.  I had a variety of colors in each of the 3 types, and hoped to use all the colors in each type on its own tile.

Results:

I learned a lot doing this (will spare you the lessons).  But the big mystery was...where the heck did the color go when I used the different color Stardust type on that far right tile?  Here's another look at just that tile, which turned out to be my favorite even though it did not have different colors...

Love that one.  But the colors--???  So I asked my CZT friends about it and Donald Wilka said yes, they do disappear on the black but they show up on the white tiles and the tan tiles.  Which meant, of course, I had to try them out on a white tile.  But before I show you that, I liked the look of the tile above so much that I decided to run it through the mirror app on my iPhone (if you've been reading you know I'm obsessed with playing with this app) and that produced this piece below, which I also love.

I admit I am a fool for that mirror app.

Finally I got around to doing a Stardust Gellyroll experiment on a white tile, and darned if Donald wasn't right.  I never really doubted him, but check this out.  I used the exact same pens in the same order of colors, and here is how they looked on white. 

On the actual tile, they are as glittery as they look on the black--but they do not photograph with any glitter showing at all.  You'll have to trust me on this.

So to sum up, here are the 4 of them all lined up.  All use color, but only 3 of them show color.  The Stardust Gellyrolls lose their color entirely on the black tile, but I ended up liking that tile the best.

Today's work made me realize I need to do a lot more of this type of comparison.  I'm inspired.

All the hot humid weather is making me cranky. Really, really cranky.  I don't want to do any substantive walking outdoors or real exercise...I just want to hunker down in the a/c.  So now I have an intense case of summer cabin fever. Restless to the max!  I just want this heat to break so I can get out there again and M-O-V-E.

I thought I would work on a black tile today since I was in a dark mood and I don't get enough practice with black tiles.  It's time to put in some serious work and experimentation with them.  I also have a seemingly endless supply of three different types of gellyroll pens in wild colors, and I need to learn what the difference is between the three types.  Gellyrolls show up dramatically on dark tiles.

Today I limited myself to a white gellyroll with white and red Prismacolor pencils to do a simple duotangle on the black tile.

At first I just did the white-on-black, but then later added the red to reflect my impatience with the weather.

Contrast this to my tile of August 12th.  I think the heat wave had just begun then and I was still feeling chipper.  I've been paying with the mirror app on my iPhone, and so after I did that tile and posted it, I ran it through the mirror app and came up with this:

Whoa, I love that!  And talk about a different feeling from the tile I did today...I liked this so much I'm having some greeting cards made from it.  That mirror app is really fun.

While I'm at it, here are a few more portraits that I did long ago.  These are from 2007.

And now here is a review of the stages of the second mandala I did with Ann Grasso's mandala creation technique.  A few of these photos have been shown in previous posts, but I haven't yet showed the entire progression of this one, which I just finished today.  Here's the development of this mandala.  (New photos are at the end)

The original plain-vanilla version, but this second Zendala® was done on a Renaissance (tan) tile and so requires different techniques.

Using another copy from my original (on more cheap copy paper), I did a fully-colored version and really liked that too, but I was realizing that cheap copies were not holding up well and after all that effort, I began to re-think using this type of paper.  I was reminded that I could make copies using a much higher quality paper, and I'll do that from now on.

Creating this version still left me with the original un-colored Renaissance tile.  Time to color that one next...

And so, I did color it yesterday, and on the rich tan printmaking Zendala® paper, I could really "go to town" in a way that the cheaper paper couldn't handle.

And of course, I could not let well enough alone at that point, so I got back on my iPhone and played with my Mirror App again.  I can't help it. Must. Try. It.  Below are two results.

Next in this series will be the creation of a Zendala on a black tile.  I haven't worked all that frequently (yet) with the black tiles.  I enjoy never knowing how the drawing is going to turn out--what twists and turns the mandala shape will take as I work on it.

I notice I am petrified every time I begin to work on one of these, and yet working on each one, at each stage, has been incredibly calming.  The fear is all in advance, and dissipates as soon as I touch pencil to paper.  I am immersed in and enjoying this meditative practice, as well as the results.

Let's round this off with another Mae West quote: 
"Anything that's worth doing is worth doing slowly."
I am going to bet she was NOT talking about Zentangle there.  Ya think?

I then copied, and shaded it on regular copy paper.

So far so good.

I did not want to duplicate the colors.  Today I sat down and colored the actual Zentangle tile.  I thought coloring deserved good paper. 
I didn't look at the former colored version, and couldn't really remember it.  I wondered if they would come out identically, and hoped they wouldn't.  And...they didn't!  I am liking this a lot too.

Next, I made another copy of the original, and colored that.  I was liking this a lot.  But I the paper was flimsy and cheap.

I realized I still had the original mandala, uncolored, on the beautiful heavy expensive printmaking paper of the Zendala® tile.

Did I want to copy this onto the tile itself?

But could I leave it there?  Oh no.

So I pulled out my iPhone and used the Mirror App that another CZT just mentioned to me.  I just got this app (it's free) and have been experimenting.  (Some would say I have been ruining things...eh?)  So here are two results with from the mirror app.

Ok, maybe I can let this particular mandala go now!  As Mae West used to say: 
"Too much of a good thing...can be wonderful."