strange fruits

One of the key concepts of Zentangle is that there are no mistakes – no need to use an eraser.  This is quite daunting, but also quite thrilling too.  If you make a ‘mistake’ or at least a mark that you don’t like the challenge is to change it into something else. 

In addition to not erasing mistakes I suppose we are not meant to erase any ‘string’ lines (the vague borders you draw at the start to later fill in with the pen) either.  Sometimes these get tidily covered by the tangled patterns and any shading, but sometimes (perhaps because I’m a bit heavy handed with my pencil) they remain.  They look a bit awkward to me – but an important part of this activity for me is learning to love the imperfections.  Zentangling should be a pleasure not a chore.

 

Today’s tile looked like this – 

Today’s tangles : Poke Root – strange cherries that lay over one another and create a sense of depth as well as dimension when you shade them with the pencil.    Festune – which are like decorative lifebuoys and again appear rounded.  Hollibaugh – a lovely stacked planks design which is one of the best tangles for showing the massive impact that shading can have.

I had a buzzy mind while drawing and feared my tile was becoming intricate but cluttered.  I forced myself to leave a band of space running through it.  It could be a river running across the paper – the long Thames before they bridged it.  Or viewed this way up a winding path leading into the woods – with strange fruits and mushrooms – each promising to delight or harm but unlikely to declare which beforehand.  Trees with crossed branches casting strangely straight shadows from strangely straight limbs.