New reading glasses with very round frames:

Liking them!  I can even see with them.

And next, more round things:

I so enjoyed myself today when I stole some time to tangle.  There has been no rug hooking, no rug punching, no punch needle embroidery, no drawing, and no tangling for weeks.  In short, an artistic desert for me, and it hasn't been fun. 

Likely it will continue for a while longer while I tend to all my piled up obligations.  The "obligations" are all voluntary and each by itself is wonderful.  But they all have schedules and deadlines and I am scrambling to keep up.  Thus, the art is falling behind.  I will catch up once I figure out how to coordinate things, but oh, do I miss my various art projects.

And the last round thing for today:  HAPPY EQUINOX, as the Wheel of the Year has turned towards Spring (here in the Northern Hemisphere).  I'm thinking of all those curving eggs that can be stood on their ends today.  Roundness in balance.

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.

I am home for just a little more than 24 hours, then will be gone again.  Packing cubes have saved my life and are keeping me organized as I make all these trips--thanks and blessings to the friend who introduced me to them.  (If you do not know what they are, google them.  Fabulous tools.)

"Returning" feels wonderful.  And in the tangle below, I was returning to a tile idea that we explored in a workshop late last year; but this time I used different "fillers."  I'm not totally crazy about it but it was peaceful to work on and I do like it overall.  That's all I ask!

This is another Zenuari2019 tile, for day 19.  The prompt was "Hefty Hack."  HUH???  I had no idea what that meant.  So I went back to the original instructions, which read something like:  "Toss some water on a tile.  Then take a plastic bag, scrunch it up, and put some watercolors you like directly on the bag.  Then take the scrunched-up bag and daub it onto the tile."

Okay...so maybe it was called the "Hefty Hack" because "Hefty" is the name of a type of plastic bag in the USA?  But the person who runs Zenuari is Dutch.  Perhaps "Hefty" has a different meaning in the Netherlands?  Because here in the USA, my only reference for Hefty bags is the VERY large kitchen or garden trash bags.  She can't have meant to use one of those on a 3.5" tile. 

It was all irrelevant to me, as--because I was away from home when I did this--I had no access to watercolors or plastic bags.  I was able to borrow some watercolor pencils from my friend, and after wetting the tile I applied them to the wet spots and tried to move the colors around.  It didn't work well but I did end up liking the effect anyway.  I'll have to try it again with real watercolors and a small plastic bag.

Oh how I wish we could find a way to truly and effectively recycle plastics.  We have completely messed up our planet with them, and we've done it all in less than a hundred years.  There must be a way to clean up our mess.

...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 nearly qualifies as what's known as an "inchie," a tiny drawing.  But in fact, it's more like a "two-inchie," since I did it on a Bijou tile (2x2") with a gold gellyroll and shaded it with a Prismacolor yellow pencil.  It's done for the Zenuari2019 project, day 16, "tiny tangle."

I'm away from home again and thus haven't tangled in two days.  Or done anything except knit.  Starting to feel a withdrawal.  I certainly hope I can get to do some textile work or some more  Zentangle® today or tomorrow.

"We first make our habits, and then our habits make us."
--Dryden

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

In the style of one of my idols, Mori Yuzan, a Japanese artist who lived in the late 19th and early 20th century:

Yuzan's work has always been irresistible to me because of the linework.  Wave after wave.  and so many tangles (not that he would have thought of them that way).  Both of the above tiles are nearly copies - if not outright copies - of his spectacular work, which fortunately is now int he public domain.  So relaxing to draw these and hopefully learn a bit from him.

Both were done for Zenuari2019 day 14, "idol tangle."  I think I'll be doing a lot more idol tangles!

Ugh...whatever I ate last night here at the hotel must not have been kind to me; I'm having an "unhappy-camper" stomach experience today.  Nothing awful, just uncomfortable, so it's all ginger ale all the time. 

Blecch.

The tile on the left was done for Zenuari2019 day 12, and the instructions were, "Grid tangles only," so I used the tangles Stricle and Demi and threw in other random lines.

The day is bright, sunny, and chllly but I am sleepy anyway.  I'm away from home helping a friend who truly doesn't need much help  We've been having fun tangling.  I did the tile above earlier while she was working on something much larger.  Lovely to have a companion in art.

When I find myself fading, I close my eyes and realize my friends are my energy. --Anonymous

I have been slowly exhausting my stash of Strathmore tiles, thinking I'd use them for tangle practice because I didn't like them.  But they are growing on me.  I may have to get more after I finish my current supply.  They are a very different surface from the traditional Zentangle® tiles (Fabriano Tiepolo printmaking paper), which I truly love.  Much smoother and in a way less forgiving than the Fabriano ones, but I'm learning to like them anyway.

This tile captures so many reasons why I love tangling: 

• it's calming
• it's a practice that compels us to let go of the quest for perfection
  
• it's fun
• it's almost always a total surprise
• I even enjoy my worst results, because the process is so pleasant, and that, my friends, is the entire purpose of Zentangle--its meditative nature.  Just as often, though, I rather like the end product  Other tanglers are much better at this, but it delights me that I really don't care and am simply happy for them.  The rewards I get from the practice are all I need.
  

"Have no fear of perfection.  You'll never reach it."  --Salvador Dali

Two more tangle experiments today.  I am saving the textile work for next week when I think I will have more time to focus on it.  What I love about both Zentangle® and textile art is the deep inner silence I experience when doing either.  Both are highly meditative.

Today I went into that silence with joy and relief.  One of the wonders of Zentangle is that it doesn't matter what the outcome is, bad or good, because the process of creating is where the gift lies, and that in itself is enough.  Often the outcome is wonderful--a bonus.

Tiles from today's work on the Zenuari2019 Project.

I titled this post "What Falls Out of the Pen" because whether I like the results or not, what ends up on my tiles always surprises me.  As all three of these tiles did.

For a variety of reasons, today was a hard one for me.  Really, really hard.  I put aside other things and spent the time tangling.  A good night's sleep tonight should help as well.

By the time I got to this one, I was truly exhausted.  It shows.  But that's ok.  Practice is always helpful so I'm glad I kept on. 

“Sometimes, only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated.”
–Alphonse de Lamartine, Méditations Poétiques