Challenge Week 36: Assunta

On Tuesday morning I took my tangly toys and went to breakfast with the purpose of learning Rick Roberts' new tangle, Assunta. Learning this tangle was the Diva's Zentangle challenge for week #36.
   SO... I got away from my phone, sat on a cool and breezy patio, ordered my breakfast, and began to follow the tangle's steps that were illustrated in the Zentangle newsletter. I followed the steps, trying not to 'figure out' the structure. That was a little tough. Part of my brain wanted to understand what I was doing, so I could do it RIGHT! But there was a deeper part of me that nudged me to let that go and just trust the structure that I saw on the paper in front of me (I had printed out the diagram from the newsletter). It was still a little daunting, as I lost my bearings once my initials little nicks were gone, but again, I looked at the diagram for my map, trusting that the road really would take me to the end. And it did. Once I turned down the voice of control in the left side of my brain, the voice of beautiful unreason in the right side became loud enough to follow, and to trust what my eyes were seeing.
   I did a couple tiles before I got really comfortable with the structure and eventually, a sort of rhythm came around. I naturally worked small when I first began, and by the time I was ready for a third tile, I wanted to get into a bigger scale. I couldn't resist adding Puf to the spaces between the drop shapes, so having a larger scale would make that easier. This tangle reminded me of Cadent, and so my third tile included that as well, also all "Puf-ed" out. So much fun, especially the shading. That's when all the shapes emerge and things start asking to be out front or behind. I love that in Zentangle, you can decide what to shade and what not to. Because it's just a shape, and not a representational rendering of something real, like an apple in the sunlight, it doesn't matter where you put your shading.

I love the new Assunta tangle – thank you, Rick! And thanks to Maria for inspiring such a treat. If you read the newsletter, you will get the story on that!

Thanks, Laura for another fun weekly challenge!