And the Rain, Rain, Rain Fell Down, Down, Down.

Since my life is a Disney movie, I must quote a favorite song from Winnie the Pooh in my title.

This week's Diva challenge was an easy one for me--playing with the official Zentangle® pattern Rain.  I like this pattern and think it can be a good one for tangleations or variations.  The construction is fairly easy, and it's a wonderful way to relax with some very simple auras and lines.

I picked up my tile and immediately pictured a Rain-styled border.  I drew the structure but didn't fill in the triangular shapes until I saw how the rest of my tile developed.  I then knew I had to draw one of my favorite patterns, which starts out with a mini Rain, Cat-Kin by Mimi Lempart, CZT.  Next I filled in some big pearls in my border and loved how those came out!

I think I should have stopped there.  I'm not always good at knowing when a piece is done.  I know it doesn't matter as long as I am having fun and enjoying my sense of relaxed focus and creativity.  I think I got hung up on the fact that I was using a Renaissance Zentangle® tile and thought I should manage to fit some brown in too.  There are no rules, Emily!  After drawing my first brown background line, I knew I'd taken it one line too far for my taste.  I was having fun exploring, so I kept going (that's a good thing!).  I added more skinny Rain and filled the centers with tiny lines.  Still not knowing when enough was enough, I thought it needed more contrast and added some white Rain bolts without the aura since the white pen was thick enough.

I think the piece is interesting, but I still wish I had trusted my instinct to stick to the border and Cat-Kin.  Maybe I could have created an inner border with Rain in the brown pen to satisfy my idea that the Renaissance tile had to have brown.  To quote my daughter, I was just being silly.

I sometimes have to remind myself to let the rain wash over my preconceived notions sometimes and just let the tile take me where it wants to go.  Or when I do let it take me, like in this tile, I hope I can  remember to enjoy the journey even if my ideas get a little wet along the way.