It's good for you...

Want to clear your head, feel like you've accomplished something and fly away to another place?  Yes?  Try the lovely art of tangling.  Seriously, my peeps.  Try it.  

You'll lose track of time.  You'll emerge from your hideout feeling refreshed (or slightly miffed if things don't go as planned, but that's OK) and uniquely physically and mentally challenged.  

Think you can draw a circle?  Try it.  Try again.  Try it again until you've drawn a reasonably well proportioned and even circle.  How about a flower.  It's harder than it seems.  Try the same flower five times.  Do you see improvement by the fifth flower?  Is it well balanced with evenly spaced petals?  Try a 6 petaled flower.  How about one with 5 petals?  Do you have to turn the page or can you draw the lower petals upside down?  Practice it until your brain allows you to do the entire flower without turning the page.  No pencils.  No pre-drawing.  Let it flow....(aaaand there goes that Frozen song in my head now..argh)

You see, for those of you who don't draw or create art on a regular basis, jumping into tangling is initially a surprisingly difficult endeavor, but amazingly one in which our brains adapt to rather quickly.  We humans in the modern world rarely even pick up a pen anymore and if we do, it's to digitally scrawl our name on a check or payment screen.  This side of our brain is getting to be vastly underutilized in this modern era of computers and tablets.  

To force yourself to slow down with a pen and require that overstimulated brain to direct that lazy hand to carefully craft something on that neglected paper is extremely wonderful in a myriad of ways. 

I find it very fascinating when I teach an ink class.  I recently taught a class with the elephant as the form to work within.  People are so very unique in how they approach their projects.  Some are afraid to even start, some dive right in (usually it's the younger people or children who are the freest) some start with all of the "safe" parts first and some work all over the place without any rhyme or reason.  Most people are afraid of "failing", but really, what is failure?  Turning out a project that didn't look like the teacher's?  

Is failure having to start over?  Is it "messing up"?  Guess what, friends, "failure" is NONE of those things.  You see, every time you put your pen to the paper, your brain is gleaning something.  It's discarding the things that didn't work for you, reminding you of what did work, taking in important information as you go and correcting what needs to be corrected the second, third or tenth time that you do it.  Every time you "mess up", you have grasped extremely valuable lessons that you couldn't have learned any other way other than messing up.  

Ultimately, it's just a piece of paper, worth a few cents at most.  That piece of paper that you want to rip up and throw away is the cheapest class and teacher you'll ever have.  It's your closest friend as it hits the trash can, because it has directed your brain in a way that nothing else ever could.  In fact, keep those mess ups....they are valuable so that you can see where you've come from and the growth through the journey.

I just would like to really, really encourage people to not be afraid to try something new, something hard, something that you can and will fail at a few times before you succeed.  My pens have drawn miles and miles before I finally produced something that I could be proud of to display and sell.  Your pens will have to put in the same mileage as well. 

Art isn't something that we just "pick up" and do well with in the very beginning.  It's a LOT like ballet or gymnastics.  You really have to do it for a LONG time before you start becoming successful at it.

You can do it.  I can help you.

Keep going.

Luv,
Cady