Unintended Destinations

What is that?

Is it a Zentangle tile?

Why, it is!

Let's get a closer look:

 My tile for this week's Zentangle challenge is here! I decided to have fun with the photography this week. The little maintenance building you see in the pictures above is located on the campus of the college I attend. It just so happens that the doorknob is magnetic, and I have a few magnets in my Zentangle kit! Perfect!

The opportunity this tree provided couldn't be passed up, so I decided to take a photo there too.

Tangles used: Ix, Fife, Beeline, a variation on Swarm, Bronx Cheer,
Paradox, Crescent Moon,  Jonqal,  Shattuck,
 and you might even spot a variation on 'Nzeppel.
Whew! That's quite a list...I didn't even realize I used so many!

I originally intended to just offer a simple straight-on shot, which is what the one on the doorknob is, but if the magnet bothered you, here's another one, sans magnet.

This is an interesting tile because it wasn't supposed to be for this challenge! I started working on it for the Break Free challenge. It wasn't going well - I didn't particularly care for how it looked, not to mention that I didn't do the Beeline tangle "right" and that the Bronx Cheer is actually hiding one of my early mistakes. The challenge was over, the tile still incomplete, and I never went back to it. At least not until this week. I didn't have any blank tiles with me when I started this week's challenge, but I did have the unfinished "break free" tile. Since the challenge this time was to use the new tangle, Ix, I figured I could simply use the framework I started previously and include this great, fresh tangle.

So that's what I did. All in all I really like how it turned out. I like the overall composition now, Beeline actually looks pretty good skewed just a bit (who says there's a wrong way to do a pattern? Not me!), and Bronx Cheer hangs out so nicely in the corner. Ix doesn't play a huge role, but it holds its own. I love Ix - definitely one to come back and experiment with. Yet another example that there are no mistakes in Zentangle, only unintended destinations. Oh, and it also shows that shading hides a multitude of "mistakes!"

I tangled some of this while waiting for my first karate class to begin. It seems so fitting to be Zentangling right before performing martial arts. Both share an Eastern influence. I learned several kicks and punches during the class and the instructor utilized step-by-step demonstrations to teach new techniques, similar to a tangle step-out. They even require a similar level of focus and attentiveness. They seem to go hand-in-hand in many respects. Perhaps I'll plan to tangle before class every time! Whenever I see this tile, memories of that first class resurface: the anticipation of participating in a new experience, the expansion of my comfort zone, the sore muscles afterwards. Sometimes I give away my tiles, while some I deem too precious to let go of. This is one of those tiles I will be keeping, partly because I enjoy looking at it, but partly because of the nostalgic correlation with that first karate class, which was an unintended destination indeed.