Zentangles are a great art project for everybody (including those who say they can’t draw). Yes, they are glorified doodles but the “zen” part is not a joke, drawing them tends to put people in a quiet, meditative state. It has been my “first day of class lesson” for a few years now. More info here.
A few years ago my dear husband had episodes of indigestion (cucumbers?) and long-story-short ended up in Duke University Hospital where he underwent quintuple heart bypass surgery. Serious enough, but he also managed to have almost every complication a person could have (and he was not in poor health before) so our stress levels were high.
I decided to spend the long hours waiting for the surgery to be completed by doing a journal. Only, as you may already know, writing is not my forte so I made it a visual journal. I used a six-inch square sketchbook marketed for “Zentangles”.
These little drawings were highly personal to me, and I didn’t show these drawings to anyone for a year or two (except Duncan, see below). Eventually I began sharing them with other people.
So here they are beginning with the simply labeled sketchbook.
This is from the long day of waiting for the surgery to be completed. I realized afterwards that my anxiety really showed.
The surgery was successful and our family took a collective breath of relief:
Not much going on during this time:
Poor baby with his heart pillow:
But things started getting tense, maybe I had too high expectations concerning his care? No, I didn’t and believe me, I was keeping an eye on everything! BTW, the bottom quadrant were the designs in his bed covers, I think the left hand side was the tile floor.
This day started out pretty well but began unraveling (I think it’s the day the staff rushed in with a crash cart and we didn’t know that his heart rate was dropping).
A-fib does weird things with your heart rate, numbers were all over the place, but things were getting in control.
Did I mention our son was getting married in December? This day we went to a shower for them in Raeford. Yes, it was a relief to know he was ok for me to leave.
We went home and I showed Duncan my journal and tried to teach him how to Zentangle. Think the drugs were too strong, lol!
There were still complications upon returning home but we were keeping a positive attitude! (this piece is obviously unfinished)
This says it all:
The Art of Joy A. McGugan 