My Art For Survival blog is dedicated to exploring art, photography and writing!

I believe we are all creative intuitively and we need to be creative to survive. In my art business I will explore ways to ignite my spark of creativity while sharing my journey, living my best artful life! Thank you for joining me on my travels in my creative world!

I created “Zen World” in 2018. I found when I was tangling on Hemp Sketch Tree Free Paper 11” x 14” by Aquabee (Bee Paper) it was so absorbent, I had to switch to a Black Sakura IDenti Pen. A thin Black Sakura Micron did not hold up to this thirsty paper.

I challenged myself to draw all patterns in a new way, so I couldn’t just draw any of the patterns how I usually did. It was a fun exercise for me because I often get bored drawing patterns or tangles the same old way all the time. I didn’t want to look at other artist’s works to find new ways to draw the patterns because that would ruin the experience for me. All the tangles in this composition were from Zentangle Inc., official Zentangle patterns from my CZT Zenthology I received at my Certified Zentangle Teacher Seminar in 2014. I tried to fit as many tangles as I could on the sheet of paper without crowding the composition too much.

Imagine my surprise when I entered “Zen World” in the Namao Flower and Bench Show, Namao, Alberta, Canada in August, 2018 winning First place in the Painting (Other) Class and Best of Show for the Craft Class! What made my day was the comment I received on the back of the 1st Place Ribbon, “Best Example of Zentangle I’ve seen. Lots of 3D.”

Yet I entered “Zen World” in two other art shows and it didn’t win any awards and it wasn’t purchased. The moral of the story is that if you love your art like I do, awards will come to you in times when you least expect it. Keep up your daily art practice you never know where it will take you!