House Painting. Yep, that’s what I did all weekend long. No adventures, no long bike rides, no relaxing. I didn’t even catchup on housework- just house painting. Sad thing is, it wasn’t even my house.

As an FYI, I don’t own a home- I rent an apartment. period.

It’s not like I really don’t mind house painting, especially when it’s for a good reason, it can just be plain exhausting. Yet somehow over the long exhausting weekend, I did manage to squeeze in one visual journal practice session in and one completed tangled tile to show for it.

Unfortunately I hate it.

Okay so I don’t really hate it, but this was the first time I really struggled through the creation process. I was really excited when I turned the page to day eighteen. There were a couple of new tangles I saw that I really wanted to learn. The first tangle, called “Gneiss” was fairly straight forward and creates a really interesting star-like pattern. “Cadent”, a flag-like pattern was also fairly straight forward. However, “HUGGINS” caused me the most pain.

I think my brain went on vacation as I was drawing this tangle. I am fairly sure I created a least two new patterns, neither of which were the elusive Huggins pattern I was trying to draw.

I know, I should feel excited that I created new patterns, but all I really wanted this weekend was to successfully draw Huggins. Good news, I eventually got there, but not easily or consistently.

At this point, (i thought) I was ready to start my tile. I laid down my string guide and started filling in each area with a pattern. So far so good- right? Not.

Somehow I still managed to draw Huggins incorrectly, but I did try again on the same tile in a different area and managed not to screw it up a second time. Unfortunately, Huggins was not the only thing I battled with. I seemed to be missing the instinct I normally have when putting together a design. That magic knowledge that I normally possess that tells me the perfect spot to place each pattern eluded me. For the first time, I felt that this tile was designer’s nightmare- nothing seemed to work together.

The frugal part of myself refused to throw the tile away ( those little pieces of paper can be expensive!), nor would I waste another tile by starting over. Instead I jammed my tile in my storage box, closed the lid, and walked away.

In hindsight, I am glad I walked away. As many artists experience, that walking away and coming back to something at a later date could be just what the doctor ordered. After letting some time go by, I pulled out my seemingly hideous little tile and thought to myself “Maybe this tile isn’t so hideous after all”?

Hey, it can happen. One day hate something to death, the next day it’s not so bad. Taking time before making rash decisions is what everyone needs to do sometimes. We all could avoid a lot of heartache if we took a step back before moving forward.

Okay, so now it is your turn. Take your time, let me know what you think…

PS. Let me know if you spot the accidental new pattern. I will probably have to come up with a name for it 🙂