A Year and a Half

Sometimes it's worth it to look back, to attempt to measure changes and to reassess. Perhaps to forecast a better tomorrow by adjusting what is not working or to just be grateful for personal growth? The Diva this week ventured that something could definitely be gained by taking an older piece of work and taking a new stab at it, much like Antonine occasionally does for Throwback Thursdays.
Surely there's always room for improvement, right?
I've been a tangly person for about five years now. I found the art form when I was looking for a creative outlet and for something that could distract me from chronic pain, rather than a pharmacy's worth of narcotics.
A year and a half ago I found a huge creative community on-line that I had not yet tapped into. I can only think I was not prepared for that as I'd not gone looking into the wide blue yonder, highly unusual for me.
I broke out a new sketchbook, a new blog, finally set up my Flickr account and was ready to tackle the world!
Alas, an early attempt at this tangly stuff was quite lame, er, rudimentary. I still posted it for all the world to see:

Day Six

That was in response to the sixth day of my incarceration, er, ah, "One Zentangle a Day," a book I finally just gave up on. It was a great introduction to the artform, but too many different art materials for all the different projects, even for me!
Let me get this right out of my system: I HATE MOOKA!
All right! Now I feel better! But it was the obvious choice of something I could retry. For Diva 255:

Diva 255
Flux, Mooka, Amaze, Printemps and a
Smattering of Tipple and Fescu

I gave Amaze it's own space and that works for me. I would have liked more Flux, but it wasn't having it. And in full-disclosure, I drew an outline for the Mooka so the curls would look right, er, ah, come out in a pleasing manner. I can't say I've yet made peace with the tangle, but at least I found a way to work with it.

The String Thing this week didn't do anything I expected:

Something's Fishy
Just Dillo

And here is a just-for-fun piece I did. I got the idea from a response I saw for Diva 252, to use Bales as the string, with the result looking like a Cathedral Window quilt. (if you know who that is, I'd like to thank her by making proper attribution!) It's probably my favorite quilt pattern, thus I had to give that a try:

Diva Dance, Bales, Sanibel, Snood, Crescent Moon,
Tripoli, Confetti, Printemps with Tipple, Paradox, Hibrow,
Phroz, Fluke, Amaze, Zonked, Knightsbridge, Cadent
and Acrosstick

It took me the better part of a day to do it--not that it was the ONLY thing I did--but I'll try it again! It was quite the distraction.
For the record, I was able to cut out all the medication save for the occasional aspirin. My vice of choice is, as always, a nice glass of vino.
If you thought you'd also see my inchies this week (or want to spend another five minutes with me) I've posted them here. I know your time is valuable, thank you for sharing some of it!