THANKS, BUT I'M ALL SET WITH THAT...

THE INITIAL RANT:
I've never been much of a tchotchke fan.  (If you aren't familiar with the word, click on it for a short definition.)

Why?  Imagine you have mentioned to a friend that you like a particular image--say, an image of an apple--and suddenly the friend is giving you magnets with apples on them, aprons with apples on them, ashtrays in the shape of apples, stickers and stamps of apples, little clay apples, little plastic apples, playing cards with apples on the back...you get the idea.  You are inundated with "cutesie" apple tchotchkes and you feel obligated--because you like your friend--to display them, but you hate having them all over the house.  All because you liked one specific image of an apple, and had the misfortune to mention that. 

Has this ever happened to you?

All you want to do is figure out a reasonable way to yell, "S-T-O-P!  Thanks, but I'm all set with that."

WHY I'M BRINGING IT UP:
...because I've been very worried that, in trying to give a "Happy New Office Location" gift to a dear friend, I would be guilty of the same thing that I am complaining about above.  Here's why:  In visiting her home, I noticed a picture of an elephant in her home office, and commented on it.  She mentioned immediately that she loves elephants.  Ok...I confess that a couple of times since then I have sent her video links to amazing stories about the intelligence of elephants; but bearing in mind that I don't want to overdo it, I've tried to be selective.  (I also like elephants, for their intelligence, but am not that interested in pictures of them.  Or elephant tchotchkes.)

Recently the friend moved into a new office location that she's very excited about.  I wanted to give her a celebratory gift.  I thought and thought about what to get her.  She had mentioned that, when she originally went to look at the space, the current tenant happened to have a picture of an elephant in the office.  That seemed like an odd "coincidence" to my friend, and that plus the wonderful space and all the attendant great amenities caused her to sign the lease.  My ears perked up.  Should I, maybe, draw her an elephant?  But what about the one in her home office--mightn't she just bring that in to her new rented space?  And would I be guilty of Tchotchke Syndrome?

I really agonized over this.  Bottom line:  I did draw her an elephant, and here it is.  She seems to like it.  She named him Jimmy, and he's now in her new space.  (Boring technical details about the drawing are after the photo).

ADAPTED FROM AN ORNATION CREATION TEMPLATE (USED FOR THE OUTLINE ONLY)

Not the greatest photo, but it's the best I can do.  Ok, so here are the technical details:

• i used a Ben Kwok Ornation Creation template to create the outline (only) of the elephant.  The Ornation Creation Group is on Facebook and is a great source for templates for all sorts of animals and objects.  Normally I would have just drawn the elephant myself, but as I was aware of Ben Kwok's generosity in offering these templates to the public, I decided to try one out.  Very glad I did, and am sending appreciation to Mr Kwok for his incredible kindness.  If you are a FB member, don't miss this group.
• I printed the outline on white cardstock (which give you a clue as to what a bad photo that is--yes, that is white cardstock in the background).  The interior of the elephant was completely blank.  I knew I wanted to work with Zentangle® on a little portion of the picture, but I did NOT want to cover the elephant with tangles, which I thought would look truly horrible.
• And for some reason, I didn't want to color the elephant gray.  I couldn't stop thinking about a blue elephant.  Why?  No idea.  But I wanted a blue elephant with only a few tangles on him.
• In thinking this over, I remembered the tradition of Painted Elephants.  No idea where I had run across this, but I knew I had read about it somewhere.  I googled the phrase and came up with this series of photographs (scroll through the thumbnail photos above the first picture and you'll see my inspiration in photo #6) and this article about the painted elephant tradition.  I do worry about the world's elephants and how they are treated--and I also love this colorful celebration of the animals and their connection with Ganesh.
• After organizing my thoughts, I set to work with my Prismacolor Pencils and a Sakura Micron 01 pen, and you see the result above.  I took my time and really enjoyed doing this.  In fact, given my feelings about tchotchkes, I was surprised how much I liked the result. 
  

Now if I can just resist giving her elephant ashtrays, elephant aprons, elephant stationery, elephant statues--perhaps we can even remain friends!  So far, she is still speaking to me.

I promise to join a TA (Tchotchke Anonymous) group as soon as I find one and start attending meetings.

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PS, This post is indeed the follow-up to the teaser I embedded in the post I wrote last week.