Welcome to the Club!

Today is Day 1 of the Virtual Book club.  We are starting with One Zentangle a Day by Beckah Krahula and we are honored that she is participating.
Here is what she writes about Day 1:

I want to say how honored and excited I am to be exploring One Zentangle A Day with my fellow CZT's.  I think it is going to be a great opportunity to grow as we see the content in a new light thru the sharing of our thoughts and tiles.  

Day 1 is all about getting acquainted. First the reader must get acquainted with their pen before they destroy the pen.  The warm up exercise with their initials give them an opportunity to use something familiar, their initials, to create with as they learn to hold and lighten their hand pressure.   Next learning the tangles in their sketchbook gets us familiar with the patterns before beginning the tile.  I am sure several of you have noticed I have stretched the steps to a meditative tile out a bit.  Since the audience is following written instructions I felt this was important to separate relax and breath so each got some thought and importance.  

Each days lessons grow on the previous.  Everyday starts with a meditative tile and then goes into a basic art lesson or ZIA.  Thanks for participating, now the fun begins.

The warm up exercise is to play with our pens and explore ways to make our "chop," the stylized initials that we use on the front of our tiles.  Mine has been evolving and I hadn't really settled on one, until now.  I did have fun with this exercise and love my new chop.  I really hope we don't have to destroy our pens later. It took me a good 15 minutes just to find one that hadn't already been damaged during one of my classes.

Playing with my pen required extra concentration with that slippery bandage.
It kept trying to escape my grip.

So, what did you think of Day 1?  Please comment and link to your blog if you have one.  If not, then email yours to me: Tangled Up In Art at gmail dot com. I'm looking forward to sharing your thoughts as we work through this book together.

I just received this from Maria Vennekens, a CZT who lives in The Netherlands:

I already started to tangle with the book as my guide January. I skipped the monogram exercise. I did that 
in several workshops on calligraphy already.
 
I do the exercises from Beckah in Carole Ohl’s calendar. Attached you will find a picture of  the day 1 exercise.
It has no sharp end to the right  - it grows into day 2.
 
I am very curious to see what other people do with the exercises in the book