The Diva Challenge - Poke Root and Cubine Duotangle

Challenges are just not my thing. Rules disturb my Zen – assuming there is such a thing as a Zen that can be disturbed.

It’s like staring at that infamous sheet of white paper, which the Zentangle™ process so cleverly circumvents by having one begin by drawing four corner dots on the tile, then connecting them with an outline:

Step 1 - pencil dots in corners

Step 2. Pencil Outline (drawn darker than usual for visibility)

Voila! No more blank sheet.

But as soon as you tell me I have to do a tile with only one tangle (a “monotangle”) or that I have to use a blue pen, I am paralyzed by indecision. I just can’t deal with constraints.

There are several Challenge sites on the Web. I follow some of them, I look at the submissions, I admire them. I just don’t do them. The exception to all this angst is a Facebook group called SquareOne: Purely Zentangle. You can pretty much share any tangle there that conforms to the original Zentangle concept as described by founders Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts. Once a week, the group focuses on a single tangle. Note, I said “focuses on,” not “is challenged by.” The idea is to use that One tangle as a jumping off point, a tangle to play with, a tangle to practice and exercise your personal creativity on. Yes, a subtle difference, but for me, it makes all the difference.

Here, for example, is Assunta, the One tangle from the week of Nov 22. Once I drew Assunta (in the middle), I could add anything that struck my fancy. And I did.

Assunta, with Hurry, Bunzo, Printemps, and Bronx Cheer

In contrast, here is the one and only “challenge” that I have done to date, from I am the diva where we were tasked to only use two specific tangles: Poke Root and Cubine. It took several aborted efforts, but I finally came up with this one. Do you see what I mean by constraints? I couldn’t help myself – I had to sneak in a little Poke Leaf over on the bottom left. So I have failed the Duotangle Challenge, although it’s a perfectly fine tile, isn’t it?

 Challenges are just not my thing.