E Unum Pluribus

Some years ago (feels like five, but it was probably more like eight or nine) while I was cleaning up a bit (it sounds like I do a lot of this, but really not as much as I would like to think I do) I decided to make up our bed a little differently. I had just been in the linen department of some big store and witnessed the obvious use of "bed making" experts/specialists. Wow, those beds were awesome! Hmm . . . I thought . . . I could do this!

I figured that if the work we are doing ever went "south" or we moved to another part of the world . . . I could be one of these experts! But what does it take to get a job like that? Do you need a resume? Where do you go to school? Do you need a masters degree in bed making before someone looks at your portfolio? What school offers that as a degree program?

So, just like that, I began my "education" here at home. I challenged myself to make our bed in a different way, every day for one year. I am not talking about different colored sheets and bed spreads . . . oh, no. . . I mean using the same sheets and bedspread each time. (I did wash them every so often!) It was in the way I turned down the sheets, or folded over the spread. The position of the pillows (none of those throw pillows that ultimately get "thrown" on the floor (is that why they call them that?) Just the four pillows we sleep on. It was awesome.

Rick would often comment that it was an especially beautiful/interesting/funky "bed day." (Then he'd take me out for dinner! Of course, he probably was going to take me out anyway. . . but I liked to think it was because of my latest greatest techniques. :-)

I found it to be a great exercise in creativity, pushing myself to the limit . . . all within that similar self-imposed "elegance of limits" that we refer to in Zentangle . . . and all the while enjoying the outcome and the ridiculousness of it all! We got a lot of laughs . . . and I did it every day.

So what does this have to do with Zentangle? I decided to try out this phenomenon with a tangle. One of my favorite tangles is purk. I decided I would do a whole series of Zentangle tiles with just purk and see if I could make them interesting, beautiful, different, exciting, and fun. It really took the worry out of always trying to use something different, and it egged me on to discovering some interesting tangleations.

Rick adds:
Maria has discovered the fun subtlety of shading our black tiles with a gray Fabrico™ pen from Tsukineko® . . .

. . . and she continued playing with it on a Zendala tile:

Maria continues:
There's that "elegance of limits" sneaking in again . . . working within a narrow boundary (my tile) and with limited ingredients (purk). If you are feeling like a dare. . . give it a try. And if you have anything to add about this, I may have to give away another tile. Let you know who next week sometime.

As always, have fun.

- maria

P.S.

Oh yes, Jane Menard will be receiving a tile from our random drawing on the Tea Time blog post. Congrats, Jane! 

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