Carried Away

Oh, the plan. Sigh. Why bother?

This week's Diva challenge honors Earth Day. There are so many great organic tangles that conjure up wild vines and full trees, flowing rivers. I was excited to get busy on this one! I was inspired by Laura's Zendala, so I figured I would use that as the string to gather all the earthy tangles I was so excited about. I love the flowing tangles, so planned to use one to start.
   I looked at the selection of Zendala strings in front of me. Instead of choosing a more rounded version, I was drawn to one of the more linear ones. Why? Don't know. I was just in a moment and knew that's where to begin. But wait, that didn't go along with my plan! Oh well, let's go, it's Zentangle, remember.
    What came about was a big surprise to me. I worked on it so long, for one. I usually don't spend more than half an hour on a tile. But this one drew me in and asked me to do all kinds of things that I wasn't used to doing. (When you listen to a tile -- or your own intuition is more like it -- big surprises happen!) This is the photo I took when I THOUGHT it was done and ready to post...

But I kept listening and this is what it said:

Purple? Frills? Really? Earth Day? This tile carried me away to a place I'm not used to. Give me green and mud and I am happy. I probably spent at least two hours on this Zendala, all the while thinking of Earth Day, so I'm betting that my idea of what the earth really feels like to me is somewhere underneath, and it definitely includes the purples and frills.

I love how the Zentangle art form shows me parts of myself that I never knew before.

Thanks, Laura, for a really fun challenge.