Creativity – a curious nature

Welcome New and Returning Subscribers

Many Hearty Thanks, Sharing Creative Ideas, Answering the ‘Kat’ Kwestion

April 1, 2025

Completing my 15th sketchbook, and beginning the next one is always cause for celebration! To do so, Kat and I thought it would be especially fitting to shout-from-the-treetops enthusiastically, THANK YOU! Thank you all, my loyal subscribers, for coming along on my interesting, hopefully educational, sometimes crazy, always curious nature journaling adventure.

**Zentangle patterns used: LoveBuzz, Membranart, Frostz, Chatoo, Sea Urchin, Toku, Rosie, Calibree**

My recent webinar class, “Create a Colorful Reptile Eye¹,” sponsored by Host Karen Abend (of Sketchbook Revival fame), generated many new subscribers to my web page and blog, “A Curious Nature.” Wow! And Thanks so much. A special thanks to those who attended the live and/or recorded class. I loved seeing so many colorful lizard eyes (a sampling below). They were incredible!

Sharing the Wonder of Nature

With all the past and current activity on my blog, I feel so fortunate and very encouraged to carry on. Even though new postings have been random lately, there’s lots of works-in-progress soon to be shared. Meanwhile, comments including what you like about my posts and what you’d like to see more of, are always appreciated. What inspired you to subscribe to this blog? If it’s just enjoy, that’s perfect! Or maybe you’d like tips to develop a regular or even a daily creative practice, how can I be more encouraging? I’d love to know if you are an active nature journaler or tangler, or express yourself by creating art in other ways, such as through music, poetry, or storytelling. Send me your ideas by commenting on this or any future posts. I’ve created my webpage and blog because of my insatiable curiosity about the natural world. It’s extraordinarily fun to go beyond learning what the names of flowers, animals, rocks, and clouds are. The excitement of wondering and discovering answers for all the why’s, who’s, when’s, and how’s is so rewarding. Sharing is my joy!

Explaining Kat

Thinking new subscribers may be puzzled by my constantly mentioning Flambé or Kat or both, now might be a good time for explanation and background (and perhaps provide a refresher for those who’ve been following along from day 1 of my blog):

In 2014, a young stray calico cat showed up one day on our doorstep when we (Roy and I) lived in Oriental, North Carolina (U.S.A.). This little wild miss seemed to magically appear from our backyard woods, perhaps in search of a meal or a friend. She sat and meowed for a few minutes, but when we opened the door, she ran away. Efforts to get close to her when she returned several times during the week were futile. Then one day she vanished and never returned. Not knowing what may have happened to this pretty kitty, Roy thought a nice remembrance of her visit would be to add a small cat sketch to my next drawing. A dandy idea!“But only one drawing,” I thought? It was at that moment that Flambé appeared on my creative doorstep, and has never left!

Flambé, aka Kat, is always smiling, popping in and out of all my art, regardless if the piece is imaginatively & whimsically tangled or a serious nature study. Along with forming the best part of my signature “chop,” she’s the heroine of some pretty wild and crazy tangled misadventures, sometimes pushing Kat’s 9-lives threshold to satisfy her insatiably curious nature (and appetite). Flambé adores being noticed, whether she hides inside the story, or shows up front and center. She makes everything creative more fun. Flambé may be just “Kat,” but she’s my inspiration for and reminder about the value of komic relief, and makes the perfect konstant kompanion!

Whew! That’s all for now. Hopefully your questions about this blog, inspiration and Kat have been answered. If you’re craving to learn answers to other related topics, let me know. Meanwhile, Flambé and I wish you an exciting and creative remainder of the year ….. have times full of happiness, creativity, and memorable adventures, but most of all laughter and fun!

Hope to hear from you soon, and as always, thanks for stopping by!

Meow!

¹Unfortunately, the class or recording are no longer available for viewing. But I may have another live demo class some day in the future. If so, you can be sure the announcement will show up on my blog.

On the Edge of Chaos …. Annual Chaos Never Dies Day

November 9, 2024

Chaos Never Dies Day is an annual holiday observed on November 9th that reminds us that chaos and disorder are natural and inevitable parts of life. The day encourages us to embrace the chaos and find humor, creativity, and resilience in the face of uncertainty and unpredictability. It’s a time to let go of perfectionism, embrace imperfection, and enjoy the ride.

Flowing from Flambé’s depiction of the chaotic world that lives between her pointy ears, emerges 16 simple continuous line shapes. Can you find them all?

Drawings and Zentangle patterns: Zip, Stacked Stones, Bekkwheat, Boxworth, Ellis Chuang Rabbit, Tomada Rooster

(If you’d like a little help finding these shapes, the answers can be found at the end of this post. But only peek after you’ve given the illustration a thorough looking over.)

Of course, Kat has embedded herself within the chaos; her discovery makes for 17 total shapes.

Flambé’s thoughts on Chaos to Creativity OR an attempt to interpret her scratched lines on paper, in the above illustration.

A few of my elementary thoughts about Chaos and Chaos Theory

Now that Flambé has delighted and (most likely) confused you on the Nature of Chaos, allow me to reflect on my first exploration into the fascinatingly mind bending subject of Chaos Theory. Having never given much thought to the Theory, per se, I’ve always pictured “chaos” as something hectic and uncontrollable. A state of unruliness, mayhem, or disarray liken to natural disasters, mob pandemonium, mass shootings. Sound familiar? We’ve all likely been witness to an unfathomable situation and declared our world to be in “complete and utter chaos!” But there’s more, a lot more to Chaos Theory, where it is encountered and how it affects us.

When my reference list of lesser known Annual Days revealed November 9th is celebrated every year as “Chaos Never Dies” day, I was appalled. I mean, really; who wants to live in a world of ever-present and everlasting chaos?

But from the description of this Day, it appeared there was a positive side to chaos, piquing my curiosity. Anything that can make us laugh and inspire creativity has to be awesome! So began my last few weeks of intense study and pouring over countless YouTube videos to learn about Chaos Theory.

The more I read and viewed educational videos proclaiming to explain Chaos Theory in easy-to-understand language, the more confusing it seemed. The language was English, but the concepts seemed abstract to me …….. well, they were just plain chaotic! (This caused me to laugh!). It would be easy to spend a lifetime trying to “get it.” I’ll just have to keep learning!

So far, I learned about many familiar and new terms associated with Chaos Theory. These include the Butterfly Effect (highly central to Chaos Theory) which shows the connection between disorderly and highly organized things, like how the flap of a butterfly’s wings can lead to a string of events that can form a hurricane! It’s complex, but emphasizes (among many things) that we can’t know the consequences of seemingly simple systems due to unpredictable variables. That leads to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, Feedback Loops, Fractals, Probabilistic and Deterministic modes, etc.

Are you still with me?

In a nutshell, Chaos Theory “provides a scientifically quantifiable but simultaneously poetically suggestive way of looking at how almost everything in life is connected to everything else.”

We live in a “chaotic” world, and how we react and/or adapt to its unpredictability and complexities matters. But as someone (?) once said, “Embracing unpredictability sparks creativity.”
What does Chaos spark in you?

The images of all Continuous Line drawings and their order of emergence.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Inktober 2024 – An Inspired Garden-Themed Challenge

November 4, 2024

Searching for a theme to follow during Inktober 2024, I was delighted to learn one of my favorite podcasters and nature journal educators, Bethan Burton, shared her original list of 31 prompts. Named “Inktober in the Garden,” she cleverly chose each word to represent a different phase or activity encountered while gardening. To quote Bethan, the prompts are “aimed to get us thinking in different ways about the beauty of our cultivated space.”

Living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, where it’s now Spring, Bethan’s garden theme was very timely for her. However, October in central New Mexico where I live, is smack dab in the middle of Fall, so I relied on past gardening experience to create my daily ink drawings.

I hope you enjoy my 31 Inktober2024 tiles, inspired by Bethan Burton’s “Inktober in the Garden” prompts. I decided to only complete one tile/day; in the morning while sipping a cup of tea, I’d sketch a drawing with only ink (using a Pilot Varsity nib pen). Then later in the evening I added the color coaxing pigment from my limited number of Venus Spectracolor colored pencils (the remains of a 40+ year old set which constantly break and refuse to blend).

A big thanks to Bethan for sharing her Inktober2024 prompt list, and for being a constant inspiration through her podcast Journaling with Nature, and for bringing the world-wide nature journaling community together for her annual International Nature Journaling Week, where we can explore, share and celebrate a passion for nature. To learn more about Bethan and nature journaling through her podcast, participating in future International Nature Journaling Week, sign up for her Blog and Newsletter, follow her YouTube Channel and Instagram account, visit her website at: https://www.journalingwithnature.com

Here’s a bit more about this thing called Inktober

Inktober was originally created by Jake Parker in 2009, and since then has been deemed an annual event that takes place throughout the month of October. The rules devised for participants were, and still are, pretty simple …… Every day 1) make a drawing in ink; 2) post or share it; 3) hashtag it with #inktober; and 4) repeat.

Since 2009, there’s been an official prompt list shared every year by Jake and his Inktober group (https://inktober.com). But there are also many alternate lists generated, which participants can follow if they wish, or they can choose to work from their own prompts. Also since 2009, participants have not only worked in only ink, but have created colored drawings. Actually any media is fair game (wonder if anyone uses collage?), as bending the simple rules seems to be the norm. As Jake notes on the Inktober webpage, “you can do it [Inktober] daily, or go the half-marathon route and post every other day, or just do the 5K and post once a week. What ever you decide, just” remember “Inktober is about growing and improving and forming positive habits, so the more you’re consistent the better.”

And if you’re interested in participating in future Inktober events, just do it! Find a prompt list or create your own, and join the month-long party beginning each year in October!

This concludes my 9th year of Inktober!
As always, thanks for stopping by!