Sometimes tired old things just need to be dressed up a bit to shine. 

Cue the comments on whether that's true for all of us!  I'm talking about things.  Ha.

This morning I found a gray tile that I'd tossed some lavender-ish watercolor on long ago, in an early attempt to map-tangle.  The color had spread out over most of the tile, with absolutely no interesting shape, and was incredibly plain.  BO-ring. 

Out came more watercolors today and I tarted it up, used my heat gun to dry it, and went to town with some of the Inktober tangles.  Better.  Every tangle except one was brand new for me.  Some of them turned out more successfully than others, so I'll re-do the ones that really didn't have enough room to show themselves off.  Perhaps that'll be the task for tomorrow.

A meditation on the preponderance of spirals in the cosmos.

"In a spiral galaxy, the ratio of dark-to-light matter is about a factor of ten. That's probably a good number for the ratio of our ignorance to knowledge. We're out of kindergarten, but only in about third grade."
--Vera Rubin

I enjoyed every moment of this one.  Enough said.

It felt great today to just sit and tangle awhile.  Quiet and relaxing.  I'm rusty but the annual 'Inktober" Challenge adapted for tanglers got me going and I couldn't be happier, even though we're already nine days into the month.  I plan to do what I can and thoroughly enjoy doing it.  It's good to be back.

A repeat of yesterday's tile.  This is version 2.0 since I gave away the tile I did yesterday as a thank-you gift to a neighbor.  I realized I still wanted a version for myself and redid it, enjoying every line.

In today's version I added substantial green coloring as well as the blue, and experimented a bit with placement of patterns.  This was just as much fun as the first one.

Another "learning tile" done very quickly from an Artifex video.  This was done fast as a thank-you gift for a friend who made me a lovely dinner.  I cannot cook so cannot reciprocate, thus I wanted to draw her something as a way of expressing gratitude.

However, I needed gray-toned paper to work with, and didn't have any.  What to do?  I grabbed a white tile and threw a gray wash on it.  Et voilà--it actually worked!  I'll give it to her this evening.

Whew.  When it doubt, improvise.  Always a big life lesson for me.

I'm turning into a major fangirl of CZT Emiko Kaneko, who has a fantastic Youtube channel and shares her teaching there.  This (above) is my version of one of her lessons after watching one of her free videos. 

Here below are a few of the stages this mandala went thru on its way to completion.  I photographed as I drew.  What a calming experience.

One line at a time. 
Stay present. 
Cultivate patience. 
Enjoy the moment. 
Mistakes?  What mistakes--a mistake can be addressed and learned from. 
Appreciate appreciate appreciate. 
Hold the pen (hold things) lightly. 

I love the lessons I learn from Zentangle®; they're directly applicable to meditation, to daily life, to just about everything.

I made hard-boiled eggs last week and after they cooled this is what I saw.   I took a photograph because if ever there was an egg begging for kintsugi, this one was it. 

However, I ate the egg in my dinner salad, so no kintsugi took place. 

Not sure what kintsugi is?  It's the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics using gold in the cracks, resulting in a mended object of striking beauty.   Look HERE. 

The beauty is in the brokenness.

The instant I saw that egg I wanted to paint it, though I've no idea why.  Perhaps I've been thinking about kintsugi recently as I observe so much brokenness surrounding us all. 

Compassion can be one way to join our pieces back together, to form a strong bond, and to heal ourselves.

I contemplate this, and then write:
---------
Pick up your broken pieces. 
Lovingly place them together.
Be gentle. 
Add the gold. 
Allow time for healing.
And then, look. 
So much beauty.
---------

And here is one lovely article I saw on the topic.

So it started out this way...

I'm still "blobbing."  A great way to try out various watercolors and watercolor techniques.  These are Yatsumoto metallic watercolors.  Very subtle unless you really load your brush.

There was a teeny bit of Inktense Watercolor Pencil tangling going on in the upper left quadrant.

This is all I'm capable of today.  The night before last I had only 2 hours of sleep, who knows why.  All day today I've been dealing with credit card fraud in a major way.  It's taken hours to straighten things out.  And I made a major blooper with some friends that also took quite a while to straighten out (assuming I even did get it straightened out). 

Isn't this just how life is--some days great, some days awful.  (I could re-write that sentence substituting "hours" or "minutes" for the word "days" and it would be equally true.) 

There is nothing else to be done but to respond to each moment in the moment.  And what a challenge it can be to respond skillfully.

So all I can do is work on a few small blobs.  In fact, I am a blob myself today.  Neither happy or unhappy, but still just a blob.  Sometimes ya gotta go with the flow--even when the flow is temporarily blocked and becomes blob-like.

Here was how I started out, after watching a really fun video on IG TV by Yvonne West, CZT < @ywestart > which I thoroughly recommend.

My blobs before I tangled them.  The video was fun to watch and if ever you don't feel energetic enough to tackle a full tangle, this is a terrific exercise for experimenting with watercolor in a low risk way.

A kind neighbor brought these marigolds in a tiny bottle.  She collects old bottles and also grows flowers.  A wonderful combination.

I could actually have given this post a much longer title.  Something like:  "Kind Neighbors, Marigolds, and Other Favorite Things."  Too long.

Finally, a quick late-night tangle I did last night after watching Amy Kam's weekly Tangle Time.  The tile had been given a watercolor wash years ago.  I added the tangles (Gneiss, Black Pearl, Crescent Moon, Shattuck), along with colored and chalk pencils and graphite.  I threw in some white gellyroll.  And I still couldn't sleep--however I didn't wake up this morning until almost nine.  Oooh, a lovely sleep after all.  Once it actually came.

No idea how this happened.  A friend and I were fooling around daubing several types of metallic paint on a variety of Zentangle® tiles a few months back.   I've no idea what specific paint we were trying out here or even what I did.

The tile sat around with the paint scattered on it for weeks, and then I picked it up today and inserted a few scribbles.  It was fun, although I'm not sure I made it better and may have made it worse.  Just experimenting!

This was my own version of another fun composition from Amy Kam of The Peaceful Pen.  The big central diagonal attention-grabbing tangle was new to me.  A sparkly watercolor pre-coat on the tile made it challenging to draw.

And here's a quote that applies equally to tangling and to meditation.
              ---------------------------------------
Learn to poke around. Take your time. Go slow. Get down on your hands and knees and dig around. Sit in one place for an hour at a time and let the world come to you.

(John Bates  - A Northwoods Companion, Spring/Summer issue, 1997.

Today more than a hundred CZTs from around the globe gathered online with CZTs in Singapore to do an hour-long meditative tile on behalf of those who have suffered from Covid-19. 

These were the same CZTs who last year donated $10K US and this year donated $12K US to Covid relief efforts as a result of their two very successful and well-run schools for tanglers.

What I loved about doing it, though, was that 3 or 4 different CZTs from the other side of the globe led us all through an hour-long meditation in which, as we drew, we focused our compassionate attention on anyone who has suffered from Covid.  They did a superb job leading the meditation.  I so admire the structure they've created to support humanitarian efforts.  Thanks!

And now for the tiny treasure.  Yesterday I went to my local bead-and-jewelry-repair shop to get my watch battery replaced.  While waiting, I spotted this wooden box, which is no more than about 1 1/2" square.  With what appears to be a tangled Turtle on top.

In fact the box is so small I had to take a picture and enlarge the photo in order to see the fine detail on the turtle, which just blew me away.  The top of the box slides off so smoothly it's just a marvel of craftsmanship.  It's so small that I cannot imagine what to put inside. 

This continent was originally called Turtle Island by the First Nations People, and I still call it that.  I am very fond of turtles and simply couldn't resist this tiny masterpiece.

And this leads us right back to the meditative nature of the turtle:

This was my interpretation of a well-done class by Vandana Krishna, CZT in Bengaluru, India, as a part of the Artifex series I mentioned in the last post.  While I'm not sure my version actually looks like a magnifying glass, I really enjoyed the process. 

On a night when--for no obvious reason--I simply could not get to sleep, working on this tangle was relaxing, fun, and absorbing.  I have occasional bouts of sleeplessness, and am so glad to have drawing to occupy me when it strikes.

Here's how it looked when I finished the linework, and then on the right is how it looks after adding some color and shading.  There's currently a big boo-boo in the center of the tangle (I'll probably fix it at some point), which I left in place for now.  You can see it in the large version--a misplaced black line.

More Sunday night Tangle Time with Amy Kam (see previous Sunday posts) of The Peaceful Pen.  This was great fun.  Below are the original black and white tile, then the shaded version, then the third one is actually a print-out on my computer (which is why the entire tile looks darker) and with added color. 

This was such a fun experiment!  I ended up liking all three--the plain unvarnished first one, the shaded version, and then to my surprise I liked the color as well.

                   Art, like life, should be free, since they are both experimental.
                                                          --George Santayana

Yes, spring definitely continues.  I can tell by my constantly running nose.

It's totally worth a runny nose to have such a gorgeous spring.

Today I did this in celebration.

Before I added and activated the watercolor pencils--which I am quite enjoying--the linework looked more or less like what is below.  I must have prepped that Zendala with watercolor years ago because it's just barely visible there.

"Every spring is the only spring, a perpetual astonishment."
--Ellis Peters

I did this during a class with Debbie L. Huntington, CZT.  I was impressed by the wildly different results achieved by the students--each Zendala was completely unique.  It was my first try at watercolor pencils; it won't be my last.

I'm in a liminal place:  In between rug hooking projects, in between books I'm reading, in between tangling projects, and just "in between" on a lotta things.  The mind doesn't like being so in between, but that's just how it is right now.

Here's a map-tangled tile I prepped a while back and finally got around to tangling last night.  I'm not sure I enhanced it.  I kind of liked the prepped version before I added anything.  But I'll see if it grows on me:

Here is the "before and after" on my first Ecoline Watercolor Map Tangled tile.  I'm curious to look at them side by side.  Is the tangled tile an improvement, not as good, or is it about the same in its appeal?  I had my doubts about tangling on it as I loved the plain tile.

I like them both but think I'm favoring the tangled one.  Which surprises me.

Thanks, Annie Taylor CZT for great tile prep instructions and fun class!  I loved the room you gave students to use whatever tangles we wished, while making good suggestions.  And for your linguistic talents at teaching simultaneously in English AND Spanish!  Wow.

"If you've heard this story before, don't stop me, because I'd like to hear it again." --Groucho Marx

What???  How can there be such a thing as "too much color?"

That's not possible, right?  I mean, look at that spectacular Squill.  The bees certainly weren't of the opinion it was "too much color." 

So what the heck...?  Read on.

In the same fabulous patch as the Squill I found these perfect Crocus:

While you cannot really see the lush carpet of flowers--partially in shade--in this house's wonderful front garden, you can see the closeups above.

When I got home and looked at the photo I was so focused on the way the light was bringing out the spring yellow in the bush that it took me several moments to see the light shaft with a big rainbow in it hitting that same bush.

As if this little garden was being nourished by light and color.

That was my morning.  Color, there's never enough.  Beautiful.

So what am I talking about, "too much color?"  Keep reading.

Oh yeah.

The entire bottle of blue rolled off my desk, hit my legs, and made its merry way onto the floor.

You think my jeans look bad?  I wish I'd thought to take a photo of the floor but I was too busy racing to mop up the mess which spread EVERYWHERE.  I'm still finding traces around the room.

Thank goodness this was watercolor and wiped up easily but I used a zillion paper towels (and I don't like to waste those, but they were right there and I was desperate)

After which I took off the pants, laughed at my blue legs and my turquoise-y hands from cleaning up the floor, and spent quite a bit of time rinsing the pants in the sink.  The amount of blue ink that came out was unbelievable.  Fortunately I had just put a dark-colored wash into the washer, ready to run.  A happy coincidence.  So I threw the pants in and they've come out looking as though nothing ever went wrong.

So yes.  A bit too much color in that moment.

After that, I did another tile with another set of colors (the one on the right above).

Because seriously, there really is no such thing as too much color, and my entire day reflected that.

Phew.  I finally got this entire project redone and finished.  It's not my best work, but now at least I know what the trouble was--my helpful teacher pointed out that I need better quality small brushes.  (And lots more practice)  Yes!

Here is the initial stage, the underpainting before I used the smaller (problematic) brushes to add in  the tangle patterns.  Although I preferred the bee I painted yesterday, I had more control in this painting overall.  It's an improvement over yesterday's background wash and hexagons.  I'll take improvement!

When I got to the very end (adding tangles to the underpainting) and switched to small brushes to created detailed tangles, I noticed the points on the brushes were poor and the hairs would collapse--and spread--at the slightest pressure, resulting in sloppy lines.

But it's done (below), and wow did I learn a lot in creating it.  See yesterday's post for my initial problems.  Now that I know what went wrong, I think I'll be able to do better work in future.  I'm glad I experimented, and so glad I stuck with it long enough to try again.

There are two major take-aways: 
1) As usual, anything new takes substantial practice, and
2) Do not use cheapo materials--the right tools are worth every penny.

The start:  And, here we go again.  Another watercolor in a class with Sam Taylor/zenlapse (she has wonderful classes mixing Zentangle® with watercolor). 

Whoa, watercolor is so darned tricky!  Here I have prepped a 6x6" watercolor paper with her bee template, put a wash over the background, and done some coloring of the bee itself. 

Those are Fine-Tec metallic watercolors on the wings (silver) and the pollen baskets (gold) although as usual, they are so hard to show in a photograph.  The overall wash and other colors I just mixed from myregular cheapo Prang watercolors. 

If you really look you can see some hexagons drawn lightly in pencil and scattered randomly throughout the wash; unfortunately, as you'll see below, I did rather too-good a job erasing them so that the outlines wouldn't show in the final painting. 

Hah!  When it came to painting them, I couldn't see what I was doing.  And I still haven't mastered the trick of avoiding "hard lines" in a watercolor wash.  Watercolor has a big learning curve.  That's ok.  I'm determined.

Mid-stage:  I'm beginning to paint the hexagonal cells.  Because my light is on the left side, you can only see the gold and silver Fine-Tec there.  More hexagons to come.

Having done an over-zealous job of erasing, I'm having issues making my hexagons the right shape because I can't really see my guidelines.  Live and learn!  I'll keep going and post the outcome next.
                                         * * *
Er, um, no, I guess I won't.

The End:  The entire project went off the rails badly just a couple of hours later.  It went so far off that I ended up gently, slowly, and deliberately tearing it into several pieces (yes, I did indeed, a first for me), with the intention of keeping and  repurposing parts of them somehow into another art project.  I bet I can.

What went wrong?  When I began tangling onto the completed background using a watercolor brush, I lost control and completely wrecked the bee.  Oh, I was fond of that bee!  I tried to rescue it using a Micron, but that made it so much worse.

I was stung.  (pun intended)  However, as I mentioned earlier, I am determined.  I will re-do the entire project.  Perhaps I'll improve the next time.  I know I learned several useful things even though this attempt didn't work.  Hope springs eternal.

Dammit.  <g>

What should we do when there appears to be very little energy for "doing?"  Sometimes we have days like that.  I had one today.

Fortunately, I had two small Bijou (2"x2") tiles already prepped with Map Tangled backgrounds, so today I did them as experiments.  I had to make an effort to get going since I had no energy at all. 

The jury is out on whether I like the results all that much.  On this first tile I put the tangle Pepper (with a few orbs added) which I tarted up with Gold Jellyroll pen in between the black Micron PN strokes and also in the negative spaces.  I'm still contemplating this one.  But at least it got me drawing on a day when I felt...blah.  As we sometimes do, for no reason.  Just blah.  Not bad, not good.

How often do we notice these moments of complete neutrality?  I usually don't, unless a lot of them get strung together during a day--unusual, but it does happen once in awhile.  Should neutral always equal "blah?"  Many folks experience an occasional no-energy day.  

Perhaps I just needed a day to do nothing?  Or simply to contemplate neutrality?  There hasn't been much to feel neutral about in a long, long time (locally or globally).  Perhaps neutrality has been snoozing, and is now waking up again.  Is it actually neutrality, then, or could my over-stimulated nervous system from these last few traumatic years not recognize what it means to rest and restore itself?

Experiment #2,is also done on a pre-prepped Map Tangled background on another tiny tile.   Only this time, the prep included putting a silver metallic Fine Tec watercolor glaze over the regular pink-rose watercolor.  I used a purple Micron PN to do the tangle, which is Diva Dance--a tangle I love but always find quite baffling.  I need remedial Diva Dance lessons!

Diva Dance reminds me of neurons in the brain, quivering and firing.  And yet when I'm drawing, I'm usually totally absorbed and just not thinking.  Perhaps my own dancing neurons go into some type of trance when I draw.  A good thing, on days like this one.

A metallic shine is hard to capture on camera, and the deep rose color did not show truly here.  As is the case with the other small experiment above, I am still waiting to decide how I feel about the tile. 

In the end, it doesn't matter.  The practice itself--and "showing up" even on a day when I didn't have much energy--was my intention, not the final outcome. 

Show up.  Sit down.  Whatever comes up  is simply what is arising in this moment. Notice it.  No judgement. 

Exactly like  meditation.

After taking the class with Nancy Domnauer, during which we prepped and completed the tangling on three tiles (I only showed two of those), I spent just a few minutes the following day to produce the two UN-tangled tiles above.  I'm learning as I go.  People get obsessed with MapTangling, and I can absolutely see why.  It's a surprise every time; results are always unexpected and ever-changing.

Just like our day-to-day lives. 

But with MapTangling, results are likely to be beautiful every time, even if tangling on them can turn out to be tricky and challenging.  That's half the fun. 

Now, if I could only learn to be as calm in daily life when presented with a challenge as I am while doing this.

Here's a tiny tile I did just before bed last night.  It took about ten minutes.  This was done on a Bijou tile (2"x2") which I'd prepped a background on earlier in the day.  This is simply more linework from one of Jo Quincy's lovely soothing videos, just what I needed before trying to sleep after a wild couple of days in my life.  Once again I combined a video from Jo with my own "take" on it, by using MapTangling.  Ahhhhhhhhh.

To finish up, here's an iPhone-app "distressed" version.  I can never resist those iPhone apps.