Tangled Tuesday No. 92

This has been a VERY exciting week in my little corner of the tangling world! Why, you ask? Well, I’m thrilled to say that I have now officially taught my very first “Introduction to Zentangle” classes! Happy Tangled Tuesday indeed!

I got my feet wet by teaching the whole lesson, split out over two evenings in our dining room, to Peter. It was fun to finally pass a taste of my years-long obsession on to him, and to see him stretch himself in a new creative direction. My favourite times were when he discovered some of the little “magic tricks” that make Zentangle so appealing and had his own, “Wow, that’s cool!” moments.

Then it was time for a bigger class!

My wonderful friend Deb has very kindly offered the use of space in her diner (which is only open during the day) for my evening classes, and I couldn’t be more grateful for her generosity and support.

I arrived well before my students (none of whom had had any prior experience with Zentangle) so that I would have time to set up and make our area comfortable and appealing.

“Introduction to Zentangle” class setup, 2016-08-06

One by one they arrived, and we settled in for a couple of hours of creative learning punctuated by laughter and periods of quiet concentration. In the process of my teaching some of the fundamentals of Zentangle, the students learned seven tangle patterns and completed two tiles, and I was elated with the success of the evening.

Here are the mosaics of their lovely work.

“Introduction to Zentangle” class tiles, 2016-08-06

“Introduction to Zentangle” class tiles, 2016-08-06

Now can I let you in on a little secret?

I love teaching Zentangle!

You might think this would have been an obvious conclusion, given my growing love for and experience with tangling over the years – but neither teaching nor public speaking have ever been a part of my skill set, so I was somewhat nervous about standing in front of a group (however small!) and a trifle anxious about my performance.

But I am so very thankful for everything I learned at CZT (Certified Zentangle Teacher) Seminar 25, all of which gave me the confidence to “be the teacher” for the first time since playing school as a child.

Yes, I have areas in which to practice in terms of presentation, communication techniques, and so on – but instead of dreading it as an ordeal, I am excited about the opportunities in front of me and eager to continue honing my skills. I’d say that’s pretty good for someone who considers herself to be shy!

Now I’m in the process of booking dates for my next classes, and will post the details here and on my website when they are set. If any of my Alphabet Salad readers are local to Windsor, Ontario, I hope you’ll consider signing up!

New Tangles

Since my previous Tangled Tuesday post I have learned the following new-to-me tangles.

From TanglePatterns.com:

• Sparkle
• Sparkool
• Spawn
• Spoolz
• Stone Necklace
• Tringle
• Twistee
• Veezy
• Veezley
• W3
• Waft
• Warped Eggs
• Widgets
• Worms

From Lily’s Tangles (Lily Moon):

• Andromeda

From Tickled to Tangle (Adele Bruno, CZT):

• O

From The Creative World of Eni Oken (Eni Oken, CZT):

• Quandu

From Elatorium (Ela Rieger, CZT):

• Rundl

Work in Progress

In last week’s Tangled Tuesday post I confessed that I’d slacked off on my colouring book-to-be goal of creating one page per week, and would have to make it up in the next week. I’m happy to say that I did it – I created two more pages this week! – so my total of completed pages is now 15 of 20. I am getting so close to being ready to publish!

Challenges

Since my previous Tangled Tuesday post I have completed the following tangle challenge.

Zentangle 172 for Weekly Challenge #279: “Duotangle Meer vs Auraknot”

Now on to a new week of tangling!

How have you been creative this week?
Please share!