They Might Be Zentangled.

One of my favorite bands is They Might Be Giants.  I have loved the Johns and their music since college. Soon after my oldest son was born, TMBG came out with their first kids album, NO!, so I got to share their music with him.  TMBG and all of their albums have taken us on many a long car trip in musical agreement.

Recently, the band played in Philadelphia for a free show with WHYY.  The band played some new songs from their new album Nanobots but also many great classics that I have loved for years.  One of the songs they played was Ana Ng.  A great song that tells a great story but also has a line that says: "I don't want the world, I just want your half."  As the song was playing, I was inspired to try and create a ZIA inspired by that line.  It has been a while since I created a ZIA just for me so I thought that this would be a great one to do.

I don't want the world, I just want your half.

I started this one with just the circle and dividing lines drawn.  I didn't use a string to further divide, I just went with designs as they came to me and went from there.  This one is on watercolor paper and is 7.5" X 9". It is an odd size, but I wasn't thinking about that when I started.

Now to nerd out for a moment.  I have an instagram account (@TinkerTangles) where I post photos of my work as I go.  It is fun for me to share my process and sometimes, if I get stuck, seek out some feedback from others.  After I got the drawing done, I posted a snap of it and shortly went to bed.  When I woke the next morning I found a comment.  See that there, the one from they_might_be_giants?  That is from the band! Not gonna lie, I almost shouted with glee.  I'm a dork I know but that was so cool to see.  My 13 year old was pretty impressed.  TMBG is now one of his favorite bands as well, so he could share in my excitement.

I working on this drawing though, I learned a pretty important lesson.  DO NOT LEAVE ART SITTING ON THE FUTON!  I have a room in the house that I have taken over as my "studio".  It does double duty as the guest room as well, so there is a futon in there.  When guests aren't sleeping on it, the futon becomes a staging location for what I am doing.  It's covered with paper, paper cutter, bags from Michaels etc.  So, as my desk was full, I put the drawing on there while I worked on something else.  The cat managed to scrape his claws across it and marked the paper. You can see it in the image.  Luckily, I can remove the most visible marks in my photo program.  I am going to get a limited number of prints made of this so, removing those scratches is important to me.

So, lessons learned, art made.  I hope that you like this piece.  Leaving so much "empty" space is something that I usually don't do.  This one a fun one.  It holds a personal meaning to me and was a lot of fun to do.

Wanna hear the song that inspired this?  Check out this video: