Zen What??

I'm always looking for new ideas for texture for my metal.  I keep a book with pictures I've collected, patterns, and my own drawings.  I needed some way to pull all these together into cohesive designs.  So I am taking a continuing ed class at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Zentangle.  It's an 8 weeks session on Saturday mornings. 

I refer to Zentangle as structured doodling.  Launie (our teacher) calls it creative meditation.  I was a little tense at the start...as I am with all classes.  I always have this fear of...."what if I suck at doing this" when I take a class.  I don't relax until I get my hands moving. 

I used to draw when I was a kid, but haven't drawn for a long time.  Well, we got to drawing right away and it is a lot of fun....and meditative...very relaxing.  It's amazing that that tiles came out looking great. But then, drawing patterns is a lot easier than drawing a person or a bowl of fruit...at least for me.

So I'm spending the next seven Saturday's at the CIA doing Zentangle.  One of the sessions we will be drawing on t-shirts and canvas bags.  Another week we are going across the street to the Cleveland Museum of Art in search of patterns.  In the end I hope I can take all the patterns I've collected and to create some unique designs.

Here is one of the tiles we made today.  All the same and all different.

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