Wordy Wednesday: On Tangles (Zentangles)

I follow a blog called Tweety Loves Quilting and recently the blog author sharing her “tangles”. By the way, her tangles are awesome.

The tangles, sketches, doodles, Zentangles or whatever you may call them reminded me of the doodles I did in my youth. I got excited! What I used to do was put down and laughed at is now mainstream. I remember whenever I did them, it brought me peace.

So, I resolved to see if “tangling” still worked for me. In my youth, I used a geometric compass and some small rulers to create some of my doodles. I did not have these items this time around. So, my first effort was all done freehand and on ordinary notebook paper and a pencil which is anathema to the art of Zentangling. I am not an artist (and never will I be one). So, I could care less about the “rules”. And besides, I have always used pencil.

{To see a larger image, go here. Click on the image when it comes up to see it larger.}

The more "tangling" I did, the more the stuff I did in my youth came back to me. I got tired of the exercises on the third day and went rogue with the last square (bottom left corner).

I have to say that there is just something wonderful about doing tangles. It is very meditative. You are forced to focus on being deliberative and whatnot about what you are doing. You forget all about the worries of the day and what is happening around you. Your mind does not wander too much either.

This one nice thing about tangles is that it most likely can be translated to the quilting world. In fact, there is a quilter who actually quilts using tangles. Pretty cool, huh? I can see myself doing this. You get tired of quilting one pattern; so, switch to another design.

I will be doing more tangles in my future. In fact, I purchased a student and geometric compass which included small rulers and protractors. I also purchased some cheap sketch pads. I will see if I can switch to pen(s) in the near future. In the meantime, I am just going to enjoy doodling my way again and who cares what others may think of the things I do!