Not the FULL Picture

Laura, our well-loved DIVA, challenges once again! This time, it's draw with your non-dominant hand. I have to tell you: I totally love this one. I often do an exercise in my Creative Thinking classes that pairs people up and requires each partner to draw the other partner, using the non-dom hand. Similar "rules" apply: pen only, no eraser, just draw!

So, I embarked on my tile, string first. A little wobbly, but not so bad.

The tile turned out pretty well, too.

I found that I was holding my non-dom (for me, the left) hand still and moving the tile a lot more (lesson one: move the tile!)

I had to move slowly and deliberately, guiding the pen through each stroke (lesson two: duh!)

I made Crescent Moon first, as that's the pattern I generally teach first but decided to take a "risk" and include Betweed, which requires concentration (for me) and Trentwith, a tangle of my own, just to develop some more mastery over it (lesson three: don't be scared!)

I found that shading was the hardest part, as I couldn't quite get the pencil to "behave itself" (lesson four: let the tangle happen!)

Now, here's the REAL story. What the string can't show and the tile doesn't show is the amount of effort, concentration, and work (in a way) this tile was. What DOES show that is the following photo, of the nib of a brand new pen. Not so new, now.