My Tangled Heart

"Tangled Heart" canvas

I'm teaching some introductory Zentangle classes over the next two months and practicing my own art everyday.  I did this design first as a 3.5 x 3.5" tile and then as a larger 10" x 10" canvas.  I'm using the design for the postcards advertising my Zentangle classes.  I'm so excited!

original tile

Prepping

My first official Zentangle class is tomorrow night and I've been prepping for a few days now.  In some ways, it's not quite "official," in that I've invited some interested friends over who I know will be supportive and encouraging.  My first class with fully-paying strangers will be a different ballgame altogether.  Still there's a lot to be done--materials to prep, class outline to finalize, food to make--and I am structuring it like a regular class.

And on top of it, I'm simultaneously interpreting it in ASL for my Deaf friend tomorrow night!  Which reminds me that I need to look up the sign for "shading" and "outline."  I had already posted on the Certified Zentangle Teacher forum a question about the sign commonly used for "Zentangle."  Two responses came back:  a "Z" signed with the dominant hand in the "L" space of the other hand (like drawing on a tile) and a "T"-hand signing a "Z" in the air (for Zen and Tangle.)

I'm really very excited and have been practicing my own tangles and tiles to get ready.   (Below is the frame I made for signs, etc.) The kids are excited, too, and have begged to help.  They're both going to come towards the end and teach their favorite patterns.

Wish me luck!

Some of my favorite tangles, including (clockwise from left corner): shattuck, hollibaugh, florz, knase variation
pokeleaf, bannah, nipa, mooka, printemps, Zenplosion folds, paradox, bales, curly-q, w2, cadent, chainging, munchin
flukes, flux.

So UU

I had a wonderful time at RE class (Unitarian Universalist Sunday school) this weekend, where we discussed the story of Joseph.  And it was so funny how UU the kids were, because

• they all knew Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; 
• they were more interested in the fact that the story we read lists all of Joseph's brothers' names and then leaves the sister unnamed, which really got the kids riled up (it's Dinah, actually.)

Peace and Quiet

I'm learning a lot of new ways to quieten a class as part of my work as a docent at the historic house.  There is the standard raised-hand-in-the-air (one GS leader said once, "Imagine a string running from your toes through your mouth--you pull it closed when you raise your hand."  Ick.)  When they raise a hand with two fingers up (peace sign) and  put the index finger of their other hand to their lips, it's "Peace and Quiet."  In Brownies, we use the Girl Scout three-finger sign in the air.  Some teachers have a clapping pattern that they start and the kids complete.  Last week, the teacher counted down from 5.  On Friday, they completed a few different sing songs:  "Stop, look and listen!" - "Okay!"; "123, eyes on me!" - "1, 2, eyes on you!"; and finally, "Hocus, Pocus.  Everybody focus!"  And I even suggested, on the spot, that when I said something really interesting they could, instead of shouting out (of which they were doing a lot), wave their fingers as you do for ASL applause.

And most of the time it works, for a bit, until the teacher has to trot out a new one.