I have a cat on my arm. Why does she do this? She is such a strange beast, this cat.

Which has nothing to do with what I want to write about, which is Zentangle. Which is what got me going down the road to having entirely too many art supplies.  Basically, it’s structured doodling. It can be meditative and it works as a mindfulness exercise as well.

However, Zentangle works for me because it teaches me that art is an iterative process. By taking things one step at a time and by sitting with something I’ve made and thinking about what does and doesn’t work for me–that I can improve at this drawing thing and become more sure of myself.  It’s a slow process, for sure.  The key is recognizing that it is a process. And the iteration.

So in that spirit, I present my second attempt at a new tangle called “akuras“–I’m not sharing my first attempt because it ended up looking like a sphincter and no one wants to see that. I did use an “official” tile and a Micron pen for this–they are lovely materials but if you’re on a budget any old paper and pen will work.  And I’ve found that this is a decent source for tangles.

And here’s an ATC I did last week that was also inspired by this particular kind of structured doodling.