Comfort Zone and Challenge #111

A couple of years ago a very talented Certified Zentangle Teacher started a blog called I am the Diva. One of the features of this blog is a weekly Zentangle challenge. This challenge has become an inspiration and a community for so many creative minds. I have followed and admired her blog for years. I have watched how she has touched and inspired so many. I have also participated in many of the challenges, but I have never submitted or shared my results, mostly because of technical reasons.

So this week I decided I would begin taking part in challenge and make an effort to learn how to submit my work(still learning). So I read the challenge for week #111. I thought what a great challenge. I set a goal of taking on the challenge and created two tiles. After they were complete,I went back on her blog to learn how to submit my work and upon doing so reread the original post ... HA HA HA ... I had totally misinterpreted the challenge. Not a deal breaker, but actually pretty funny.

For some reason in my head I had originally read it and came out with the challenge being choose a tangle that is outside your comfort zone. I loved the idea of this. The diva mentioned that Mooka was her tangle that she for one reason or another avoids. And I agreed that I also tend to ignore that particular tangle. So off I went to creating. I decided I would pick two tangles that I had considered outside my comfort zone and would create one tile with each.

The first being Poke root. 
I thought if I went crazy with it, I could find some way to love it.

And then on the second tile I picked Mooka.

Well, come to find out that was not the challenge. Not sure how I missed that one. But it worked out in the end in couple of ways.

• For one, the challenge actually was to use all Mooka on one tile. Which I ended up doing anyway. So yay ... awesome.
• This process of choosing a tangle outside my comfort zone was enlightening and fun and through this whole journey I have decided to move both Poke root and Mooka into my comfort zone. I have learned that there sometimes there is benefit and discovery in challenging or pushing yourself to try something new or go in a different direction.
• And lastly ... this situation has taught me to slow down and read things with a little more focus. 

I so look forward to participating in future Challenges and it is already Monday ... time to check out what the new one is.

Smiles,
Molly