sound the Bugles

A downwards progression - featuring Msst,
Prestwood and Tipple

One of the many interesting aspects of Zentangle is the way the tangles are meant to be non-representational.  This is one of the keys that really allows us to unleash our carefree artist selves - without the fear of whether what we draw looks like what it's meant to be.

For me it's a great outlet from my daily writing work, where I'm striving hard to make each word I chose capture as best I can whatever I'm trying to get across.  A break with a tile and pen allows movement and freedom and blissful meaninglessness.  However, as soon as I put that pen down and look at my tile, I snap back into the represented world.  I start to see all sort of things in my tile.  But that's fine, by then I need to get back to noticing things in that way.

Bunch of delights - Diva Dance, Rain,
Verdigogh and Henna Drum

When I set out playing with Bugles for this week's Diva Challenge I happily drew away thinking of nothing more than where the pen might take me, where a straight or a curve line might work, where dark and light should meet or steer clear of one another.  But when I stepped back from the finished tile, true to form, I saw all sorts of things that tied in with what I'd been reading earlier that day.  I could see rain dripping down to a parched and buckled land.  I could see elephant trunks.  I could see childhood beaches and ice-cream cornets.  And all that without me intending any of it.

Keeping it simple - with added Cruffle

I thought it might be fun for a second tile to swing wildly the other way - to intend to draw something, to set out to make a picture with the tangles.  I deconstructed Bugles - lifting the cones from the Bales-like connectors.  Set that way they reminded me of those plastic cones that florists sell flowers in - and if tangles grew on trees, what a bouquet that would be!

For some reason then I felt that I should come back round, to where we start from, an intention of no intention.  A third and final tile - with Bugles again lifted from it's moorings.  And tucked a little more snuggly into each of it's neighbours.  A simple square of paper and ink - and nothing more to it that whatever you want it to be.