Musings...

Hey there 2012. I realise you've been here for a while, now – but I've been on holidays. (Well, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.) And hey there, froggy blends (ahem)... bloggy friends. Welcome back (to you, and to me). You probably wondered if I'd disappeared last year? Good news! However it's come about, I seem to be back at the keyboard. Blogging my art.

In one way, I knew I would be. You see... it's an imperative: the art; the writing about the art; and, hence, these blog posts you've come to know and love. (Hush now, and take a seat.) Hang on just a jiffy. I'll put some music on for you —

Gregory Alan Isakov - 3 am (Lyrics)

Okay. Let's begin.

This is about a feeling. I don't know if you're familiar with this one, but if you are, you'll know what I'm talking about. Sometimes I realise there's something that I Simply Must Do. The judge's decision is final. No correspondence will be entered into. DO NOT PASS GO. Do not collect two hundred dollars (shame about the money). "Resistance is futile."

If any of you have had a great creative idea attack without warning at three in the morning (and if you're anything like me), you probably know that you need to at least jot it down – since getting back to sleep, without doing that, is a lost cause. Fighting against these imperatives consumes more energy than allowing the creative flow to happen when it will. And, anyway, if you fight your own creative Muse, she'll just be an obstreperous pain in the butt until you surrender to her demands. Humble acquiescence is a much wiser path. So, these days, I choose not to swim against the tide when I experience those, "I need to draw/write – now!" moments.

The Kiss of the Muse — Paul Cezanne (c. 1860)

Do you recognise this feeling?
Thought you might.

Okay, then. The next bit...

Apparently, it's over 10,000 miles from here to Providence, Rhode Island, USA. More, when you don't fly crow–wise (which I didn't). So why did I undertake this journey of Ulyssean proportions? The answer is simple...

I had to.

I knew that I was going to study Zentangle® teacher training with Rick and Maria in the USA. So I surrendered to the will of my personal Muse. Here I am. Surrendering. (I look pretty happy about it, too!)

Kit, with Rick and Maria — Providence, Rhode Island

It was one of those, "Okay! I'll do it! (Now, may I have some sleep?)" moments. Should I have waited until a more 'sensible' time... delayed until the 'time was right'... waited to be 'practical' and 'rational' about it? Sure... sometimes that's the answer... but not always. And not this time.

So, at the end of September, I packed up (the night before), and spent 25+ hours flying from Australia to the East Coast of America. And now (well since last October) I'm a CZT. A Certified Zentangle® Teacher. (If you tangle, and you know it, clap your hands. And then stop clapping, and get yourself off to CZT training. I guarantee you'll have fun!)

Sometimes you just need to grab life
with both hands,

take the dream, 

and make it real.

Risk it! Create it! Live it!

So there you have it. Life, or our creative muse, or fate occasionally taps us on the shoulder and simply tells us what's happening next. And this part of my life, this journey of faith, if you will – it was just like that – I knew... utterly, completely, surely, and certainly, that this was where I was going.

Do I know what life has in store for me tomorrow... the day after... next year? Nope! Don't need to. I've learned not to question or over-analyse the future too much. My friend, Michelle, said that attending this seminar was like life giving us "serendipity on a stick." Well, who am I to question that?

So, I'm living it out. Swimming with the current. I'm claiming my artistic, working art studio dream. I'm grabbing it by the throat, and making it mine. I'm starting by tangling every day. (I'm posting my progress on Facebook to motivate me to add at least something more each day.) And right now? Well, I'm sitting at the beginning of Day Three. About to pick up my pen....

At the end of Day One (click image to embiggen) 

---

"Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling, with the mistaken belief

that you cannot bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. 

What you have not done is feel all you are beyond the pain." — Saint Bartholomew

Shades of (very subtle) grey

Kit's 2011 Calendar - January (so far)...

I made a fun discovery regarding shading, while playing with Nzeppel on my 2011 Tangle Calendar... which, of course, I'm going to tell you all about!

Tortillons:

I like to use rolled paper tortillons to push my pencil shading around the paper. Tortillons have a firm tip that I find doesn’t need to be sharpened or reshaped as often as the paper stumps I've used in the past, and they’re so cheap I buy them one gross (144) at a time on eBay. The tortillons I buy are quite short, so I mount them in a pencil extender for more comfortable use. (I have used Amazon links for each of these items, so that you can see an image for each tool, but there are heaps of these items on eBay, and the latest Zentangle® kit I ordered came with a rolled paper tortillon in it.)

2011 Calendar: 

I have started a ‘one square a day’ tangle calendar this year, inspired by AC's beautiful calendar. I bought a lovely blank calendar, to which I add one tangle a day (my one and only New Year’s resolution for 2011). Mine is a blank, acid free "Keep a Memory" Do-it-yourself calendar. But, if you'd like a lovely, Zentangle inspired, blank calendar of your own, there is still one of these beauties left (at time of posting) from Open Seed Arts on Etsy!

Now, as they say in children's books, "on with the story…"

Shading Trick: 

On the 2nd of January, I decided to do a square of Nzeppel. When I had finished my tangle, I wanted to add a very light and floaty effect for such a small space, so I was loath to add too much pencil shading, which may have resulted in too much grey and too little contrast. So, as I was thinking about what to do next, I dabbed at the page with my tortillon ...a Eureka moment!!

The tortillon left a delicate, soft, light-grey shading mark on the page – just by dabbing it directly on to the paper (no pencil)!

I shaded the rest of Nzeppel using the same technique – and was very happy with the result.

There was enough graphite sitting on the end of the rolled paper tip of the tortillon to leave a lovely delicate shading and, when it began to fade away to nothing, I just ‘topped it up’ by running the tortillon tip along my pencil tip a couple of times. 

Initially, I suspected this would work best on the super smooth paper of the calendar… but I tried it on a Zentangle tile and it worked very nicely there too!

Thanks to Linda Farmer for encouraging me to tell this little story -
I would recommend all tanglers to read the tanglepatterns.com article about shading!

You can find more brilliant examples and shading suggestions at Mel's blog: Lone Creature.  Check it out to explore the differences between blending (or not), pencils of different softness, shading with white on dark cardstock/paper, shading using your Micron, and how to provide a sense of depth, shape, and 'outline' without using outlines at all. 

Phine has posted some great visual examples of shading techniques here. Check it out!

And yet more shading fun here at stART's blog - I'm going to find my Copic markers and give it a go!