This is where I draw the line ———

Well, this is where I drew the line this week, anyway!

(Click on images to embiggen.)

During this week's challenge*, I found myself seeing lines everywhere...

...and reacting emotionally.

I resented the way lines proscribed human contact with the 'natural world.'

I was acutely aware of:
fences, walls, railings, scaffolding, and electricity overheads.

(If you're not familiar with the weekly art challenge-play many Zentangle artists have been indulging in these last 14 weeks, go here to see some of the fun we've been having!)

I think my first tile reflects my initial emotional reaction to the challenge:

Before shading (I love the play of light in this photograph).

"Walking the line : take one."

It is also reminiscent of the airport runways I've seen during the week.
Do you see them?

After I expressed my feelings of being confined by lines (by tangling both feelings and lines), I thought, "There must be another perspective to explore."  I began seeking out lines within nature and, of course, I found them.  These beautiful palm fronds in my friends' back yard, for example.

I felt my animosity toward lines dissolving when confronted by the overwhelming beauty of 'natural' lines.  Lines don't only confine.  They define, they refine, they outline.  They're integral to beauty all around us.  And so I drew a second tile.

This time I used a curved string (sorry, Laura... I realise I've probably 'crossed a line' with such rebellious behaviour) and tangled one of my rare fifteen minute tiles.  The lines that appeared fluidly from the end of my pen were easy, carefree, happy lines (pardon the anthropomorphism).

I remembered to Breathe and to Relax.  
I stopped to Appreciate during the process and suddenly saw that it was done.

I didn't need to add (or say, or feel) more.
It was sufficient.

"Walking the line : take two."

(Definitely a digression from what I think of as my usual 'style'.)

It seems that, after all, most things can be viewed in more than one way.  And I've found that I have always benefited from personal contemplation of life (the universe, and everything) from different perspectives.

I've looked at lines from both sides now,
From up and down,
And still, somehow,
It's line illusions I recall.
I really don't know lines at all.

"Feather Canyons" (out my window on the flight up to Sydney this week).

I even found some incredibly beautiful, man-made lines (both curved and straight) by week's end.

Sydney Opera House : roof line.

Every time you think you know something 
(especially if you are certain of it)... 
Look again!