Beginner Zentangle® classes are such fun!

 I had a great beginner class the other day and I love the way their tiles turned out! I wanted to share them with you!
These were their first tiles! I love the individuality of them and the way they really pop!

Here are the mosaics of their first tiles!

We finished up with a second tile as well!

It was a really wonderful class and I'm always reminded when I do a beginner class how much I enjoy the basic process of Zentangle.

Don't forget you have a few days left to enter the giveaway... so tell your friends, make sure you are entering as well. You can do that here

Have a great day! I've got a very artistic friend coming to see me today!

Ah... new students!

Yesterday, I was getting ready to leave for my class, a Zentangle 101 class and my daughter said "Have a great class Mom as I was putting things in my bag"
I smiled and said, "They're brand new! It's a 101 class! NEWBIES!!!" and was thinking about how much I love putting the pens and tiles in the hands of beginners. I love the way they light up. It makes me so happy to share this with them and all of a sudden my daughter says, "Have fun changing people's lives tonight!"
It was a little corny, and it was a little silly but it made me tear up a bit too.... because sometimes it really does change people's lives.
I took an informal survey in one of the Zentangle groups I am an admin for, asking "how has Zentangle® changed your life?" and I ended up with 8 solid pages of stories. Hundreds of people shared with me how they never felt artistic before, or how it helped them to cope with loss or pain and illness.
This is something REALLY special
So last night, I had 5 students in my class. I'm going to share with you a couple things I heard that I've heard in some variation before that really hit me last night.
"I've never shaded before"
"Oh! I like it!"
"I DREW that!"
"Shading like this doesn't stress me out"
"This was so much fun!"
"I can see myself doing this next time I <fill in the blank>."

And that is why I adore brand new classes. It's fun and exciting to teach the more varied Zentangle inspired art classes, that feeds other pieces of me... but the pen in hand of a new student is a special moment.

Here are mosaics of their beautiful work! Aren't they gorgeous?

As always people liked different patterns, felt they were better at some than others, but that's ok! That's part of what makes taking a class so much fun!

Today I have no idea what I'm going to do. I'll figure it out in a little while, but right now, I'm just kind of wishing I could teach a group of new people every day!

Girl time! Cards and creation!

So, I made and fell in love with these super simple, and yet adorable cards. I used some papers I had from my scrapbooking stash and some die cuts and look how cute they turned out!

The front

And opened up

The front

And opened up

Ok! So the inspiration for these was actually spending the afternoon with these lovely young ladies.

Oh wait! That's not all of them!

These 4 young artists joined me in my studio for a Zentangle 101 class and the results were awesome.

Beautiful isn't it? I love to see the finished result but I also love how excited they get!

Zentangle 101

I love Zentangle 101 classes!!!! Look at the beautiful art they created!!!!

Tile one mosaic

Our second tiles

I got a rock....

Actually... I got an entire bag of them! I have a collection of rocks but I also ordered some from North Carolina because I wanted some specific ones a project.

I'm going to tangle them and display them.
I tested one out this morning to put into a gift basket. I really like the way they turned out!

I'll plan on making a whole bunch. 

 This is my Zentangle® gift basket. It includes tiles, a kit and a gift certificate for a Zentangle 101 class with me as well as info on what Zentangle is. I think it turned out cute!
I made the the "basket" from an Amazon shipping box and some cute tissue paper.

That's what I have made today, and I'm pretty pleased with it. 

What are you working on today?

Monday morning

Today is a lot of the type of things that make me twitchy, paperwork and record-keeping and all that stuff that business owners do.
But... I did get awesome and amazing Wonder Woman sneakers done. 

What you can't tell from the pictures is that the spines and the WW are done with a shimmery, glittery paint. The red especially is amazing. Ruby red slippers would look DULL compared to these.
I love them and kind of want to keep them for myself.
The black and white star/microstar background pattern I painted myself in a chalkboard style and they look really cool.

I hope she likes them. Her name is on the back spines and I'm super glad I put it on before I finished them or I'd have had to make another pair LOL :D :D :D

I hope you all had time to create something awesome this weekend and that you have time planned for yourselves this week too.
I have some painting to do as well as some tiles to make! I have a class on Wed and a big Zentangle 101 on Sunday as well! (if you're local to the Western NY area and want to come, I do have a couple spots still available so shoot me a message)
So that's my plan for the week.

Oh yeah, and it's Monday. So... This feels appropriate for today

Zentangle... My tangles, then and now

So there's really nothing new here today. If you've followed my blog for a while, you've probably seen most of these before. Some of you may know (or maybe you don't) but I'm an admin over on the Zentangle® facebook group. Feel free to come join us if you haven't yet! Anyway, we get a lot of people that question their work or are really hard on themselves.  I totally UNDERSTAND it, I just wish I could make them confident right away. :) But anyway, my point is we all start somewhere right?

I had a request to share some of my older work both there and here, so I'm going to blog about some of it and share it with you and also post it over there so people can see. As my friend (and gifted artist)  Cherryl Moote says, "Don't compare your chapter 1 to someone else's chapter 20."

This is the first piece I ever put together all on my own

So today, I want to share some of my early tangles as well as some of my recent ones, kind of a now and then to show growth.
It's been quite the journey!

I still don't like diamonds. I struggle with them. I find that I avoid patterns that contain them  actually. 

This is one of my "nemesis" tangles. I think because I had such a hard time with Amler, and never really was happy with the results I achieved. This one left me thinking "Can I do this?"

So, I actually GAVE UP on cubine here, I was like.. yeah... NOPE. That was the ONLY paradox I was successful at for the first 6 months and my purk is kinda.... lacking. But, this was the tile that made me realize I was hooked. 

I loved Betweed instantly. LOVED it. Had no idea where I'd ever use it other than Halloween, yet I find it's a mac and cheese tangle for me and I use it all the time!

So those were some of my earliest tangles. They don't look too bad, but I was so hard on myself. I see looking at them how much I've grown and I've decided that over the next week I'm going to redo each of these patterns and showcase them side by side to see how my style has changed as well. :) That'll be fun!

In the meantime, some recent work.

They're posted with their flaws and their uniqueness and the parts I love and the parts I can't "unsee" no matter how hard I try... but they are very straightforward in showing how much I've grown in my skills.

People ask how to improve. :) It's all practice and love and zen.

Deep breath, pick up the pen.
And go...

Hardly a real post, but lots of pictures!

Today's post!
Had a mini Zentangle 101 class with 2 students!