Ah yes, Daylight Saving Time started last night and I got approximately 3 hours of sleep.  I probably should never have tried tanglng today, and this was the result.  Not my best, but it 'still counts as practice, so I'm happy.

And now for some zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Still thinking that less would be more with each of these...however, i am enjoying drawing and painting them.

And I am keeping my practice up, which is the important thing.

This is part of the Magical Stars project designed by Sandyha Manne, CZT (scroll back a few days to Day One for more info on the Project).

I'm still feeling like this is "way too much of a good thing," but despite how busy it is, I had fun drawing and painting it.  If you didn't catch the origin of this project, scroll back to the Day One post on February 23 and 24, in which I name the project creator, Sandhya Manne, CZT and how to find more information about it.
For quick contrast, here's a small picture of yesterday's tile BEFORE I added color:

I think the color did what I wanted--calmed down some of the way-too-busy effect by emphasizing some things and causing other things to recede.
This linework can be seen larger in yesterday's post. 

Here is the linework only for Day Five of the Magical Stars Project.  I am not enamored of this so far--too many patterns and too fussy looking.  I wonder if I can improve it with color tomorrow (making some things recede and others more prominent may tone it down).  I love doing this project but as I work my way through it I am certainly inclined to think that less is more--this is NOT an example of that idea.

There is, in fact, a six-pointed star here but I tangled right over some of it so it's hard to see.  This is the black and white version--just linework-- and I'll post the version after adding color and shading as soon as I'm done.

Who knows if I can keep up with this project (for details of what the project is, see the previous post) but so far it's been incredibly involving and very calming.  It's hard to think about anything else when drawing, just the repetitive line after line after line.  And given what is going on all around us, that's helpful.

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!)

Two more "enhancing" techniques taught over the last 2 days of the weekend:

And here are the class mosaics, or as many as my camera could catch:

All based on the same directions.  A careful look will show how each is so different from any other.
Drawing is like handwriting--very individualized.

Isn't it odd how we don't get the roses without also getting the thorns.  Just like life. 

As the saying goes, "it's been a week."

A death in the family stirred things up for me and for everyone who knew and loved the person.  In times like this, I am grateful for my meditation practice.  I was able to sit with the feelings, seeing them for what they are, and not run away from either the pain or the blessings.  Those thorns were sharp and surprised me repeatedly.  But the roses, in the form of kind and funny memories, have been worth it and will continue to be so.

And given what has been happening in the world right now, (tragedies too numerous to name), I know I am not alone in feeling that this week has been a tough one. 

May we all seek and find our inner peace.

Whew, it's so interesting how after 3 months of not drawing (because I've been obligated to focus on textile projects with deadlines), it takes a while to get back on board.  Between 2 major surgeries (all is well) and the need to focus on textile work, I have hardly drawn or tangled for a year.  I just cannot believe how great it feels to be working this way again.

Beginners Mind, a meditation concept that is vastly useful in all areas of daily life, is helpful here.  Begin again.  Begin again. Begin again.  And above all, practice.

Practice is the best of all instructors.
- Publillius Syrus

Everything is practice.
- Pele

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.

Whenever I'm forced to take a long break from tangling, as has been the case recently, it helps me to get started again by using videos.  Here's one called, "How to Draw Cell" by TangleDream (click on the title if you want to try it yourself).  It's sort of like warming-up for a few days before I launch back into creating my own.

I would call this a high-focus piece; the "string" (the basic form, in Zentangle®) takes concentration but isn't hard if you watch carefully. 

A lack of verbal instruction means anyone with any language can follow along--no English needed.

It's always fascinating to see how one can think one is following carefully, and yet the outcome is so different from the original.  (I love that.  Plus I enjoy adapting things) 

Truly, we are all the same.  And yet, we are all unique.  It shows in so many ways, and art is one.

"...Your handwriting. the way you walk. which china pattern you choose. it's all giving you away. everything you do shows your hand. everything is a self portrait. everything is a diary."  --Chuck Palahniuk

Aha, I finally begun tangling again.  I hope to be drawing soon too.

This one is not my favorite.  I'm not a fan of the way colored pencils work on printmaking paper.  But that's all I had on hand, so the grainy-ness couldn't be avoided.  Next time I'll get back to using a smooth surface for the colored pencils.

But so meditative to be tangling again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK7Lg08UYzA if you would like to try it yourself.

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.

I began this tile yesterday, at a late night workshop where everyone else was doing symbolic and pictorial drawings within a circular border and no one else was doing Zentangle® other than me.  Given the purpose of the workshop, I think the NON-Zentangle drawings were a better idea (see the Mandala Secrets technique, which has nothing to do with tangling and is extremely interesting--I test-drove it several years ago and enjoyed it but it's not what I want to be doing just now). 

Drawn by me yesterday, and hugely relaxing to do!  I think it's been years since I used my Rainbow Lead Pencil--check out previous posts on the Rainbow Lead by looking in the right-hand column at the Categories section (scroll down and you'll see that category; click there to find the previous posts). 

I have missed using it.  Disorganization meant I couldn't find it for quite a while but I'm getting more organized and located my itty-bitty-stub of the original Rainbow Lead as well as a newer one.

What I love about the Rainbow Lead pencil is that you can try to manage it, but you really can never guarantee 100% what color is going to come out of the tip.  I've learned to figure some of it out, but it still surprises me and I love that.  It forces me to respond more creatively.  In this case, it meant I somehow ended up with less color than usual, and that was fine.  I like the opalescent look of this mandala.

Here are 2 more photos.  In the first I was in the middle of the line work, and in the second I had finished and lined up all my tools (you can see the nearly-used-up stub of my original Rainbow Lead pencil there; I have to use a ""pencil extender to use the last bit of it.

Drawing this led to surprise after surprise with the colors.  I love that!

It's been over ten years since I went to my first official Zentangle® class.  I've never been able to locate my actual tiles from that class (as you can imagine if you read this blog, I've got zillions of completed tiles) and believed I had lost them years ago.

Why should I care?  Because occasionally, other tanglers will post "Here's my first Zentangle ever!  And here is what I'm drawing now for contrast," and I always enjoy seeing the effect of their practice.  Practice makes SUCH a difference!  I've always wished I could find my first tile to view the effect of my own practice.

Then this morning I followed some clues that led me to look in my photo collection from 2012.  And yay!  I found photos of my first two tiles from my first "official" instruction by a CZT.  Unfortunately I cannot remember her name, and I don't think she's teaching any more.  I would like to thank her but don't know how.

We did 2 tiles in that class, which I remember as only about 2 hours long.  I do remember rushing to keep up.  But she got in all the basic tangles (Crescent Moon, Hollibaugh, N'Zepple, Tipple and a few others).  Perhaps "speed tangling" was not the best way for her to teach, but I got the idea, including the principles, and took off from there.  Without further adieu, here they are--tangles from my very first one in 2012 to 2020, eight years after I learned.  The progression is obvious.

Proof that anyone can do this.

As always, I'm struck with the parallels between tangling and meditation.  Practice is practice, no matter where it's applied, and it always improves things.  We may not be able to see it minute to minute, but observing month after month and year after year, the difference is huge.

                         “Painting is a means of self-enlightenment.” --John Olsen

Certainly not perfect, but good enough.  Perfection is not the goal.

I took a break today from the Lunar Phase Project (see the last few posts) and followed along on a video by Tanglewerks CZT.  She has many videos; the one I watched had no words, just music (and I shut off the music).  She did her mandala on a white tile.  I put it mine a grey tile, made a few changes, and added white chalk to spice things up.  It was a lovely way to spend the first few hours of a day--just quiet practice.  A meditation indeed.

I used to be able to draw any phase of the Moon easily from memory.  This is the Moon in Waning Crescent mode, as I've positioned it above.  (of course I could flip it around 180° so that the white "horns" point left and then it would represent exactly the opposite, but this is how I drew it--waning).  I haven't been watching the Moon as much during the last couple of years, and sure enough, I'm beginning to forget what's what.  Time to check back in with Her!

In fact, I have a series of tiles prepped as the Moon in Her various phases and I noticed confusion as I tried to put them in order this morning.  Could. Not. Do. It.  Had to resort to googling the Moon's Phases (what DID we do before smartphones?) in order to turn things the right way.  Yes, definitely time to check back in with Her daily changes.

While trying to determine exactly how long those tiles have been sitting around waiting for me to finish them, I re-discovered this (below).  If you asked me, "Have you ever drawn an elephant?"  I would have said with 100% confidence, "Nope."  But here it is.  And I drew it.  Memory is notoriously unreliable!

I based the coloring and the stars on an amazing photo I saw of a man in India riding an elephant for a spiritual celebration of some sort (to Ganesh, perhaps?).  His elephant had been covered with light blue blue dust and he or someone had painted stars all over it.  It pretty much looked like this.  I completely changed the blanket, though, and left off the man, and used a template for the outline of the elephant from Ben Kwok of Ornation Creation (he has tons of animal templates).  So this is not a copy of the photograph, not even close. I rarely tangle anything representational but my friend Julie adores elephants so I framed and gave it to her.  And I drew it exactly 7 years ago today.  A lot has happened in that time--she got married and now has a lovely little boy.  I'm betting the elephant picture is somewhere in her house, maybe even in his room.

Finally, since I've been on a Moon kick, yesterday I had fun with a Zendala I'd prepped with a watercolor wash a long time ago.  Just playing with the tangle Ibex.  I started off like the photo on the left and then somehow ended up like the photo on the right.  Not my best work but oh boy did I have fun playing.

Really, it is the same tile, just taken on 2 different backgrounds under different light conditions and clearly I'd done more drawing in the version on the right.  Still, when you look at the color differences, it's hard to believe it is the same tile.  I think I prefer the one on the left, before I overdid the work on it.  Live and learn.

Ah--I just heard that Queen Elizabeth has died. I know she was still working as recently as the day before yesterday, when she greeted the new PM.  Talk about taking to a role in life with utter dedication--how serious she was about it!  She wasn't perfect, but she was wonderful anyway.  She was born to become an archetype, and perfectly lived the role.  Go in peace, Lady.

This is part of a project I began years ago in a workshop with Martha Huggins and Molly Hollibaugh.  And I do mean years ago.

It always surprises me how much better I feel on a day when I draw.  Whether the piece turns out well or not, the process is mindful and meditative.

Here's a short article on why drawing--bad or good--is loved by so many. (Many of these same points could be describing the practice of meditation.)  Count me in. 

What happened to these people, the Mimbres, who created such dramatic and elegant pottery? 

Emerging from the Mongollon culture, they were a later version of that group which lived around the Mongollan Mountains in Arizona and New Mexico from about AD 200-1450.  If I am correct, the Mimbres peoples lived toward the end of that period (1050-1200 or so). 

Eventually, it appears that they  abandoned their homes and cultural centers for unknown reasons.  Just walked away, probably dispersing into other groups or other areas of the country. 

Who were they and where did they go--and why?  So far, we have no answers to these questions.  They leave us their inspired, graphic, dramatic pottery, from which this tile is drawn.  Here we have the fish, the deer, the turtle, and the caterpillar, all very precious and symbolic to them.  We have the four directions, a stylized sun, some stylized feathers.  While we can say something about what modern generations of Native/Indigenous Peoples would say about these symbols, we can only guess at the full extent of what they mean to people from this era.  It's a definitely a mystery. 

Only their art speaks to us about who they were.

To a Mimbres Woman
by Marty Eberhardt

I see your thousand-year-old thumb print
On the plain brown potsherd.
My own thumb fits perfectly
In the curve you left.
Other more elegant pottery bits
Lie among rocks and junipers
On this hill of dry grasses.
Red-on-white interwoven geometry, 
A tasseled quail,
Designs fine as any
In the art galleries of the town. 
But it is this plain brown piece that draws me.
My thumb seeks the curved place, again.
I see you forming the pot 
From coils of clay,
You look out over fields of corn and beans 
In the valley below.
Then, as now, a red-tailed hawk dips,
A horned lizard scurries under a stone
That forms the village wall.
Beyond the fields
Green cottonwoods mark the river  
Between jagged hills.
The wind shakes their leaves like a gourd rattle.
In the quiet between gusts,
The river rushes below, monsoon-strong.
It is in these wild places,
Where our thumbs
Feel the curve of another’s hand,
Places free from cement, neon, asphalt, smog,
And deadened water,
Across years, 
Across cultures and countries,
Beyond all reason,
We find each other.