Gawd, what a week.  I needed something round and sunny today so I made the above tangle on some pages in one of my recent handmade books. 

Today is the first day I feel like myself in over a week.  I had a medical test that went wrong.  Nothing dangerous, but it's quite impressive how bad one can feel when something is seriously "off" but not dangerous.  I have had zero, and I do mean zero, motivation to do anything for days and days. 

Hurrah for feeling better!

Last week in the middle of my woes I had a bout of insomnia, and that's when I did the tile just beneath this.  I was still trying to work on grid-based tangles, which are not my preference.  The combo of "not my preference" and "feeling really crappy" added up to what you see below.

[Late last week] Oh, how my mood is matching the feeling of being "gridlocked," like the tangles I have been working on.  I've been pretty sick this week, unexpectedly.  Nothing that won't improve, but the improvement is slow.  I've discovered--no surprise--that I suck as an invalid.  I'm not good at sitting around.  There are things I want to be doing that are physical, and I'm just not up to doing them yet.  Frustrating.

Insomnia last night led to another grid-based tangle, C-Stem by Agneta Landeson.  I've never tried it before:

I'm not crazy about how it came out but at least the process did enable me to go to sleep.

This mandala started 8 months ago.  I did the outer border (you can see that HERE) last October and was flummoxed about what to do next. You know how these things sometimes have to marinate.  I've had the filter itself (yes, a used coffee filter from the amazing Cheryl Cianci CZT, who drinks lots of coffee) since 2014.  So this one marinated a very long time as a total blank, then again as a partially done piece, and finally it's finished.

"Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper, sprinkle cool patience."
(William Shakespeare)

"If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life."
(Oscar Wilde)

I managed to avoid all the other things I was supposed to be doing today when I heard that my friend Cheryl Cianci, CZT, was offering her coffee-filter class again.  I only discovered this at the very last minute and raced out the door hoping to make it on time.  I had taken the class about 4-5 years ago but my experience of Cheryl is that there's always something new and it was utterly relaxing as usual.  She is the soul of kindness, and hugely talented.

Much gratitude to all who teach.

A compilation of random thoughts this fine spring morning.

1.  Aren't these buttons fun?  I found them online and loved them, probably because they remind me of various patterns used in Zentangle® and also of patterns used in Oriental Rugs.  I'm hoping to use them in some tangling projects.  And maybe one or two will inspire a rug.

They are a collection of tiny mandalas.

2.  I spotted this beauty yesterday on a walk.  Yowza!  A "button"/mandala created by Mother Nature herself, and what a beauty.  There has to be a tangle design (or a rug) in there somewhere.

The plant goes by the unglamorous name of Osteospermum, also known as "Flower Power White."  It stopped me in my tracks on my walk.  Just an amazing flower; it positively glowed.

3. This is a partially-done panel on the bottom (yes, the bottom) of a tan paper box.  I've been working on this for two weeks and the going has been slow because I don't have all that much time to tangle right now.  Below you can see the completed design.  It will probably take me another month to finish.

Alas, I couldn't quite get that photo above to come out straight-on, but you get the idea.

The same box, vertical photo.  I still couldn't get a straight-on image.

I don't have the box in front of me but I'm guessing that the dimensions are about 9" long, about 2" wide, and perhaps and inch-and-a-half tall, with a cover that flips open.  I have a button to sew on when I'm done with the tangling and will use that for a closure (not one of the buttons shown at the top of this post).


4. Spring has fully sprung here and today we're having stunningly beautiful weather; up until today there have been very few sunny days and plenty of soggy ones.

May all the lovely colors, sounds, and scents of spring fill your senses today. 

(At least in the Northern Hemisphere)

Before I retired, I often wore pins as a decoration when I went to my office.  But now that I spend my time in jeans and t-shirts, the pins are languishing.  Here is a pin I never wore, a cameo.  I love it (and used to have a much larger one which was far more lovely, but it was stolen during a break-in at my former residence) but I never wore it.  Not once.  I simply had it because it reminded me of some positive things from my childhood.  Since it was just languishing away, I re-purposed it onto a card with some tangling.  I may put it into a shadow-box frame.

This may or may not be a genuine cameo (there are plenty of plastic fakes out there) but it doesn't matter to me.  It has sentimental value.

This somewhat overworked tile (I must admit I like it anyway) is the product of tangling over 3 days.  I started it during another night of insomnia and finished this afternoon when I absolutely should have been doing something else, not this.  But I couldn't help it. 

Below are some of the earlier versions leading up to this finish.

I have managed to grab a few minutes here and there for some creative work, which feels wonderful.  Not enough, however! 

Here are some of the things that have been accumulating.

On a totally other track, I am doing some punch needle embroidery and here is the progress on the piece so far.  The entire piece is about 9"x9" and you can see the start of it in my previous post.  It is very different than the one I did exactly a year ago (same piece, different colors and I did it in cotton last time; this is wool).

It feels so good to sneak in some creative work.  Makes all the difference to me...

I hadn't intended to draw today as I had too much else to do, but I just couldn't help myself.

My kind friend (and fellow Zentangle® enthusiast), Susie Ng from Thailand (check out her fabulous, imaginative artwork HERE), just sent me this photo below.  She took my single 3-Z tile from my February 22nd post, multiplied it, and manipulated it into this hexagonal mandala.  Thank you, Susie!  I'm assuming you used Photoshop, which I don't have.  Though I keep meaning to look into it.  What fun!

What a nice thing to do for a fellow tangler, Susie.  You gave me a big chuckle on an otherwise crazy day.  Now...I have to look into software that will allow me to do this.

It's been that kind of week--labyrinthine.  So many twists and turns.  We keep walking and we trust we will find our way in to the center and then out again on this challenging journey. 

I hope we are in the center now and will soon find our way out to resume our lives. 

I am still far from home, helping out my friend who is receiving daily treatments.  She is close to the end, however--only three more and she will be done and we will return to our respective homes.  A huge complicating factor has been the sudden illness of someone in her family; it certainly has increased the pressure on her to finish here and go home.  There is much uncertainty.

And yet, we know we just need to keep walking along on the path before us, and trust we will get where we need to be.  In fact, we are already where we need to be, and we just need to remember that.

It took me a few days to do this piece as it's so large.  I learned a lot in the doing and will try again for better results.

My friend also tangles and finds it therapeutic as she waits for appointments.  She is talented and here is one of her latest efforts, a Zendala done on a tile which she had pre-treated with a Fine-Tec paint gold wash.  Isn't this spectacular?  (I have her permission to publish this photo)

Those metallic Fine-Tec watercolors are so inspiring.

...we aren't having any where I am temporarily living in order to help out a friend.  It's winter here but the ground is bare, although in my actual town, 400 miles north, there's plenty of snow.

Nevertheless, the Zenuary2019 project on day 18 had a prompt to tangle something based on a snowflake shape.  Since I am way behind on this January challenge (I'll be working on it all thru February), I've just arrived at day 18.  I cut out the following shape on some previously-used paper:

...traced around it on a Strathmore tile, and here's the end result:

And here they are side by side.

"There is no better designer than Nature."
--Alexander McQueen

Basically no time to write today.  My friend is doing well but because of other circumstances (not my story to tell), we are still on the emotional rollercoaster. 

My heart is broken by some of what I see of the other patients at the treatment center, especially the sick children.  May they all heal, including their parents and caretakers.  May all be at peace; may all be well.

This is another Zenuary2019 tile, made for day 15.  The theme was "donut."  Somehow my donut ended up with a pearl in the center.  Fine with me, since I am not a fan of eating donuts.

"The pearl principle:  no inner irritation, no pearl."  Surya Das

Looks as though the start of 2019 will be choppy for me--I'll be doing some traveling and having visitors when I'm home.  Needing something simple and portable to work on, I spotted another Zentangle® challenge run by CZT Anoeska in Holland called "Zenuari" (there is a private Facebook Group with this information) and thought that might do it.  I won't be trying to complete every day, given how choppy my schedule is going to be, but I'l join in when I can to keep creative juices flowing.

Here is my first entry, for Day 2, with a "star" theme.  I'm playing around with the same tangle from the December 28th post.

 Sure enough, I had the thing laminated this afternoon (see yesterday's post for an explanation of "the thing") and then with the help of an x-acto knife and 3 minutes of work, cut a center hole and installed the works. 

Voila, a completed Zentangle® Spinner.

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm thinking about wheels/mandalas, etc., of which this is only one.

The big one--the Full Moon--was shining in my bedroom window so brightly last night that I thought she was going to come right through the glass and join me.  So I'll be calling this my Full Moon Spinner.

Now if we could all just learn from the quote below...

“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.”
― Edgar Mitchell

This week's Solstice (yesterday) caused me to start thinking about wheels, as in the Wheel of the Year and how that wheel is turning once again.  I've had wheels on the brain.  For example, the Wheel in the tarot (see my previous post on the Wheel of Fortune card HERE), plus I just finished a Zentangle® project that had me creating a wheel, below.

The above wheel is going to grow up to be a "Spinner Board," once its spinner arm is inserted thru the hole in its center.  Before I do that, I'm thinking I will need to laminate and back the piece.  There are 55 different tangles on the piece, and I'm guessing it's about 9x9".  It was fun to do and took twelve days, tangling for about a half hour each day.  It's part of Zentangle's Project Pack 04 and all the relevant how-to videos are on YouTube.

In the process of doing this, my already messy desk grew completely out of control, so today I went on a massive cleaning binge.  It should be noted that, for me, a "massive cleaning binge" is equivalent to picking up one piece of paper from the floor.  I did not get the cleaning gene.  I was happily raised in Lower Slobbovia.

But today I swept my large desk clean and forced myself to sort through things and create a semblance of order.  It's quite shocking.  More work has to be done tomorrow but here is the progress so far.  (Wish me luck with maintenance...not a strength either)

Apparently the wheel turned into a Wheel of Progress for me.  At least for the next 24 hours.

Happy Solstice to all...

  So far, we're having an extraordinarily early winter.  Multiple snowstorms have already struck, and it's been much colder than normal.  We are nowhere near the Winter Solstice when the season officially begins, but it's definitely winter out there.

I spent 2 hours today getting snow tires put on at the very busy local dealership.  More snow due tonight.  Fortunately, it's accumulating more in the hill towns surrounding this valley, but it's often rain or slush here.  We are lurching rather haplessly from storm to storm, with just a few bits of sunshine in between.  Today was mostly cloudy with a couple of hours of filtered sun.  This tangle was done to honor the short days and the occasional lovely brief moments of sun, when they come.

Yesterday's post was all about the sun; ironically, today's is all about the moon.

Here we have an experiment that didn't quite work, but I like it anyway.  I cannot even put into words what I was trying to achieve--it's too hard to explain.  But I still like the ghostly, dusty fadedness of this violet-colored full moon.

Before dawn this morning I woke up and couldn't believe  how much light was in my room.  I turned my head on the pillow and was almost blinded by the nearly-full-moon beaming down directly into my eyes through the window as She sailed along in the northwest corner of the sky.  It felt as though she were tapping on my shoulder and calling to me to,  "Wake up!  WAKE UP!"

Full moon
Make this night
Love will heal the wound
The glowing light
Will make things right
It's alright
--Hird

“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”
--Willie Nelson

Another piece for the Grati-tangle2018 Project.  This is the start of Thanksgiving Week here in the USA, and it's good to be actively looking for things to be thankful for in these very troubling times.

As I worked on this one, I really focused line-by-line and enjoyed the meditative aspect of the drawing.  I was thinking about how fortunate I am to have a home, food, warm clothing, and good friends.  All things that so many people in this world do not have.  I was also thinking about how happy I am that my friend who has been dealing with a very tough health issue is on the mend...not that it will be speedy, but she is getting better.

Lastly, I was grateful for having found this Oriental rug at a local auction last Friday night and paying next to nothing for it.  Only one other person bid on it and I won.

A few days ago, I shared a post called "Inspired By Others," in which I showed some work done a la Ernst Haeckel at our recent zenAgain2018 conference.  We didn't stop there, however, and today's post shows two very different artists whom we also explored.  Talk about crazy fun--this was a highlight of the conference for me.

Indeed, Keith Haring, one of Molly Hollibaugh's favorite artists when she was a child.  After wondering what, if anything, we could do with tangles and his work, Molly experimented and came up with this instruction at zenAgain2018, and below you see the tile I did as a result.  I was SO surprised - and delighted - by this choice of artists!

My own version of a Keith Haring-style tile.  Was this ever fun to do!  Done on a black Zendala tile with White Gellyroll pen #10.  Permission to break all the rules here, and just have a good time.

And if that alone wasn't enough, have a gander at the mosaic below.  Bear in mind that this is only  a partial photo of the whole mosaic.
Prepare to drool.

But wait--that's not all we did.

The next tile couldn't be more different.  (As is true for the "Ernst Haeckel-style" tile we did which I presented a few days ago)

Yes indeed, Master Klimt himself.  I couldn't do him justice--none of us could, really, but we all gave it our best shot and my tile's below, along with a partial picture of the group mosaic.

This is truly only a very small portion of the class mosaic, enlarged so that you can see the detail and the contrasts.

"What inspires me to paint? ...revisiting some old greats like Sargent, Homer, Whistler or local masters... thinking hard about a new approach or idea; or seeing a new painting on a friend's lounge room wall."
(Amanda Hyatt)

We are expecting our first snow of the season, here in the Northeastern US.  Things are growing progressively quieter as people scurry to get home before the snow begins.

This is another Zendala tile for the Grati-tangles2018 Project.  I've nearly caught up now and am so enjoying myself.  I was focused today on gratitude for good friends and for lovely art materials.

This tile went somewhere I never expected.  I was in an experimental mode.

ERNST HAECKEL
was the inspiration for this:

At ZenAgain this week we experimented with tangling that was inspired by other people's work.  This sea creature above is inspired by the work of Ernst Haeckel, and was it ever fun to draw. 

Below is a mosaic of the class's work with this assignment.  We were each given some General's Chalk Pencils to use--we each received different colors and were required to work with whatever colors we got.  Once again, you can see that all of them were similar, and yet, each is distinctly different. 

This was only one small portion of a much larger table with these tiles displayed.

Maria Thomas, one of the founders of Zentangle®, has a remarkable poster with her own version of Haeckel's sea creature on a portion of it.  See her poster below.  I believe this is for sale but am not certain.  (UPDATE:  Yup, it's for sale at the Zentangle® website.)

And finally, below, is a photo of a book about Haeckel's beautiful work (the master himself).  There are many books available about him.

"All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Yes, this makes three blog posts in one day.  It's true.  Deal with it!  <g>

Ratoon is a new tangle from Molly Hollibaugh CZT (one of Maria Thomas's talented daughters) released earlier this week.  The title of the tangle actually comes from some research that Maria was doing to prepare for ZenAgain this week.  A "ratoon" is described thus:  "a new shoot or sprout springing from the base of a crop plant."  The theme of workshop was SEEDS--all the seeds from our art-ancestors that we use in creating art today, and all the seeds we are sowing as we do our own art and as we teach others.  You can see the seeds represented in the tangle above.

Just as those seeds have and will continue to sprout, so all art stands on the shoulders of all previous artists.  In making our art--even if it's bad art!--we honor them.  One of the many things I love about tangling is that I never know where something is going to go, how it will develop, and the highly calming effect of the process.  We all get the same instructions, and yet all our pieces, while obviously related, are so delightfully different.  I will put a partial mosaic of this tangle as an example of that below (partial because there were so many of us that I couldn't get the entire view).

Yesterday's tangle was titled Rain, and as if invoked, it has been pouring all day today, including thunder and lightning.  We've had a rainy spring, a heavily rainy summer, and now a very rainy autumn.  We have had more than enough rain.

So for today's tangling I decided to use a Bronze Stardust Gellyroll pen in an effort to invoke the sun.  It's still pouring, and heavy rain is forecast for tomorrow so I'm not hopeful.

This is still part of the "Gratitangles2018" challenge. 

Today I am grateful that my friend who just had surgery is beginning to feel better.  And that the heavy cold I have had for weeks now is beginning to lift.

Just for fun I ran the original photo above through my iPhone app and got this, which I like equally well:

There is really no time to write today so I am just posting this tile which was so relaxing to do.  That is, after all, the point of Zentangle®.  Ahhhhhhh...