Oops!

No mistakes.
A fundamental lesson of our Zentangle Method.
I experienced this recently in my artwork on two different occasions.
I have some Moleskine journals that I bought to keep in my purse so that I'm always prepared for a tangling opportunity! One of them was calling my name: "Jennifer? Why haven't you used me lately?" I decided it was a good opportunity for some randomly generated strings and tangles, which I had done a few years back as a way of practicing all the Zentangle originals.
I started with some colored pens, another tool that seems to frequently collect dust.

I picked up a black pen, and immediately regretted it. The Moleskine paper is so thin, you can see through it. (If you look carefully, it even happens with the colored pencils.) After trying a few different pens, I thought, "What if I just use my pencil?" The process was so relaxing, and I was fairly pleased with the results.

On the left, I was transitioning. I used my pencil to restate the bleed-through.

Even pencil shows through these pages, but it didn't bother me as much!

My second "No mistakes" moment came when I was drawing a postcard for our local swap. I lost my direction while tangling "Stella". Oops. Hmmm. After finishing the rest of the card, I picked up my black Sakura brush pen and inked the area with the "mistakes". Hmm. I could still see the mistakes!!

Panic ensued, but only momentarily! I remembered that I had some pens that a dear student gifted me, that are the blackest black I've ever found. Sure enough, they were blacker than the Sakura pens. I used them to draw "Sandswirl", and really loved the texture of the black on black. When I had finished, I added a clear sparkly dot in each swirl. Black on black. Who knew?

Can you see the underlying mistakes? I can, but I like it!

To quote Carolyn Dube, OOPS stands for Outstanding Opportunities Presenting Suddenly!

Thanks to these "mistakes", I've explored two new-to-me techniques, and discovered joy in them!

What "mistakes" have brought joy to your life?