Falling Stripes

Another fun challenge from Laura of the I am the Diva blog this week - stripes, part two! 

I started with a simple striped string, and added one cross-stripe. That cross point was just crying to have an "X" drawn on it, so what better tangle to use than Xyp? I love Xyp - it's one of my comfort tangles. 

I expanded from there with Coaster, another fun one to tangle. Then some Btl Joos-esque things. And finally good old 'Nzeppel. They all combine into this tangle that I love! Is that boastful, to say you love your own work? 

Fall has definitely arrived here in Texas - some trees have already lost all their leaves, when only yesterday (literally, not figuratively!) they were full of beautiful brown/yellow/red leaves. We have lots of wind here - I don't know the voracity of the statement, but I have heard it said we're the second windiest city in the U.S. aside from Chicago - and when it decides to blow, it has its way! My leaf picture almost didn't happen. I admired the giant leaf piles (a.k.a. Zentangle backdrops) I passed on my college campus all week, and the day I finally brought my camera to shoot the Zentangle we had a nice-but-inconveniently-timed "moisting" (translation: moist misting) and strong winds. All of the lovely leaf piles were gone! But wait, in that corner over there, could it be? YES! A leaf pile! Perfect...except for the direct sunlight. Now what? If only I had my reflector I could diffuse some of the light. Staring down at the pile in despair, I noticed my shadow falling across the pile...maybe, If I stand just right, I can get my shadow to block the direct light and get some nicely diffused light. Bingo! Voila! Auld lang syne! It worked! And that's the story.

Creator - A Poem

If you've followed my blog for a while, you've read a lot of my writing, primarily my commentary on Zentangle tiles and my other artwork. I don't write poetry very often, but every once in a while inspiration will hit and I'll put some prose on paper. Last week was just one of those times. Here's the story:

Listening through Gungor's extraordinary new album, Creation Liturgy, I came to the twelfth track, "We Will Run/He Is Here". Expecting to hear the glorious harmonies of the band members raising their voices in worship, the instrumental lead-in prefaced a spoken verse rather than a sung one. The voice rose with the music, growing in intensity as the words flowed, the spoken word poem unfolding, initially delicate words transforming into an impassioned vocal epic. It was beautiful.

I researched the track, and discovered the poet performing on the album is Amena Brown, spoken word poet. She toured with Gungor, performing to their musical accompaniment. Here is a video of one such performance. I also love her poems Resurrection and You.

I'm not sure what got into me, but I decided to try my hand at writing a spoken word poem. 7:00 in the morning, waiting to go in to work, journal out, pen out, mind spilling onto the page. It was awesome - I just uncorked my thoughts and let them flow. I edited it, let a few people read it, edited it some more and then more. Now I'm just going to let it go, release it and see what happens. If you read it thinking of the style in which Amena Brown performs her poems, it makes a lot more sense.

Creator
He conceived everything you see
Everything that matters
He created matter
He built the world
He composes all your cares, worries, troubles
To build you up
Build to conquer
To conquer death, sin, Satan
That is His aim
To be victorious
He has a plan
A plan of salvation
Of saving
Sanctification
He is the Spotless One
One, because there are none spotless
No, not one but He
He fulfilled the plan
The nails in His hands
Finished a tour of earth
To bring us rebirth
He arose like a rose from a withered seed
Seeing the sun
Being the Son
The wood of that cross would be mine but for Him
The metal of those nails the only medal for my pitiful pursuits of piety
His power displaces my frailty
His blood my iniquity
He arose that I might rise
Beyond the skies
And see His eyes
Bliss
Ravishing the senses
Free from captivity
Free from myself
In the presence of the Almighty I will one day bow
I say that with surety
For He has assured me
That a place in His kingdom is mine
All mine
Because of what He did
How He rose
The price He bid
Buying me freedom, redemption
Satisfying the red
Now no need for the black
Out of that dark and into the light
It is light
His light
Light and peace
Hope
My hope
My peace
Jesus saves.

Thank you, Jesus, for saving me! Thank you for reading. If you have any comments or tips about the poem, I'd love to hear them! This is my first Monday post in a while, and you can expect more in the weeks to come I have a Zentangle book review in the works, an interview with a yarn spinner and a review of her yarn, more pages from my Sketchbook Project sketchbook to post - Busy busy! Until next time, tangle on.

Thinking Outside the Comfort Zone

Do you like challenges? Or do you shy away from them? I think my answer would be a little of both, depending on the situation. Challenges take you out of your comfort zone, throw you off balance, make you think. They also cause you to grow, improve, and truly live. I can't think of a challenge I haven't come away from without feeling it was worth it and improvement was made.

This week's Zentangle challenge truly challenged me. The Diva asked us to take inspiration from a charity called Beads of Courage. I think it's an awesome organization, but how do you boil something like that down to black and white, ink and paper? I could have gone the way others were going, and while I loved what I was seeing, it wasn't speaking to me saying "this is what you should do too."

The essence of the Beads of Courage program is the beads, and the essence of a Zentangle is a string (at the least it's what you build the rest of the tangle on). So I decided to make my string with ball chain to serve as a string of beads. Spontaneously arranging the string and tracing it onto a tile, I was off and running!

That's It (not!)

Well, kind viewer, that's my tile for this week. That's it. Have a good one!

Just kidding. This wouldn't be much of a blog if that's all that I said about my pictures, now would it? Although pictures speak a thousand words, here are a few more to explain the story behind this Zentangle.

Thread

Tangles used: Sankegg, Ixorus, Ix, Paradox, and Hollibaugh.

Do I have your attention now? In case you missed it, that is a Zentangle on a snake. Bet that's the first time you've seen that, huh? I'll explain why there's a snake in the picture later...