The Quiet Side
Exploring the unseen benefits of creative focus.
Trust : one in which confidence is placed
Every time I teach a class, I am asking students to trust me to teach them something new. More importantly I am asking them to trust themselves, and their ability to focus and relax.
Seeing completed Zentangle artwork can be intimidating. All the beautiful patterns and compositions appear complicated. Through the first tile of every class I teach, students hold their breath, tense their grip and fight with their own bodies to get ink onto their tile. They tell me they can’t draw or they aren’t creative.
As children we know we can do anything! We will grow up to rule the world and be the best at everything. When we are young, we have not had years’ of negative talk telling ourselves, or someone else telling us, that we aren’t good at something, we aren’t artists, we shouldn’t take the time to be creative.
For adults, having a creative outlet where practice is a key part in the activity – where you regularly participate in the art or craft – can help you break those negative voices. Regularly spending time on an activity and learning something new each time you do so can little by little help your confidence come to the surface.
Recently I tried the following variation of a tangling exercise when I was having a busy time in life, and lots of trouble focusing day after day. I felt like I could not draw a straight line. For days I was frustrated with my ability and taking it back to the basics allowed me to enjoy this creative journey again.
If you regularly tangle, sketch or draw, and find yourself in a rut, or if you haven’t picked up a pen in a while, try this exercise. It takes us back to childhood a little bit, we did this a lot as kids using crayons, and it definitely shares some characteristics with Zentangle.
Try This
On a clean piece of paper, draw a curvy squiggly line that overlaps and intersects. Within those spaces rather than coloring within the lines, as you may have when a child, fill the space with straight parallel lines. Rotate the paper as you want, to change the direction of the lines, but keep drawing the lines in the same repetitive pattern, the same directional motion each time. Keeping the same motion is key to helping you relax into a pattern.
deliberate – still – appreciate – quiet – focus – trust – deconstruct – beautiful – reflect – relax – discover – create – comfort – shade – breathe – inspire – be bold – embellish – savor – slow – calm – admire
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