Hidden Tiles

Sometimes when you begin a tile, you may start the tile in a way that you are less than pleased with. You may have made a mistake in your eyes in the tangle you were doing at the time. I say mistake in your eyes, because as we all know, there are no mistakes in the Zentangle Method. I don't know about other tanglers, but I have a basket where I throw my less than stellar starts, in the hope that I will be inspired at a later date to finish them. Recently I was ​reading a blog post on Zentangle.com by Molly Hollibaugh. She was giiving a technique of her which was, " When in doubt - Aura" After reading the blog post, I fished out one of my not so happy with tiles, and finally managed to finish it.

Here I started with the crescent moon. Even though this is a beginning and basic tangle, sometimes I struggle to make the aura lines even. This was the case with this tile. Not happy withe the crescent moon I threw it into the basket. The next iteration  added ovy and a barber pole to one side of the crescent moon, and a line of orbs on the other. Once again the tile ended up in the basket. After a read about " when in doubt aura" I pulled this tile again. Adding flux, instead of my usual printemps or orbs inside, I started to aura each flux until it touched the next one. Ina pod is also and aura tangle, as is striping\. Both of those were added into the tile. Some angular showgirl also with auras finished the tile. Now I was happy with the result. Sometimes just have to wait for the right inspiration to finish them.

The are many techniques for rescuing tiles. They include" When in doubt aura",  cover the part you dislike with a Bronx Cheer, or black it out completely and re tangle in white.  Maria Thomas has on occasion cut out the offending part, and then pasted another tile underneath. Often you cannot tell where one tile ends and the one beneath starts, and the cut out part is so cleverly done.

So if you find a tile that you are struggling to finish or you are not happy with it, throw it into a basket, and wait. Eventually the tile will tell you what to do next.