A new hobby?

Why yes ... it IS snowing again but see the Arts Council (ACWC) there across the street from my office? On the 4th Monday of the month they offer art classes for a small fee. Often they are painting or drawing which I have a severe lack of skills for. Last night it was Zentangle!!

For just $5 we got this great kit! Cloth bag, 01 pigma pen, pencil, blender, 5 tiles and acrylic case and several handouts. I ate the choco already. Sorry! Ok, not really...

For another $5 I bought 10 more tiles in a case. Chris, the teacher, said that good quality water color paper would also work but I liked the acrylic cases to carry/store them in and I thought $5 was a cheap treat for myself. Any excuse, right?!

For the class we started  by learning these 4 tangles. The shading really changes them. I did discover that less lead was better than more when it came to shading.

Horribly out of focus but here are the tiles the entire class made - amazing how me made the same tangles but the tiles are all so different.

Chris went on to teach us some of her favorite tangles.

During break Chris had supplied lavender shortbread topped with lemon salt and the ACWC provided several tea flavors. Yummo! She had also put out these spectacular napkins. She washed the muslin, hemmed and tangled them and then heat set the ink. I am sewwwwww making some of these for my next tea party. Wouldn't they make great gifts? I also need to get a signature shortbread recipe since I really could have gone for another piece last night... Suggestions?

I've been looking at tangles as machine quilting opportunities and now I am even more excited! I know it's hard to see in some of the pictures but I have already stitched pebbles (ZT calls them perfs) and the spiral design called Rick's Paradox is essentially what I used on my Walkabout quilt which I just discovered I either never photographed or didn't label  properly. Oops.

Now before certain people get worried about my hexies...
A - Yes, I will at some time tangle a hexie something or other.
B - They asked me to teach one of these monthly classes on hexies. whoo hoo! New converts!!

I think my zentangle pin board is going to be expanding soon...