Zentangles? Nope, just doodles.

Huh? I'll admit I'm just not "getting it" (the Zentangle craze). Let me say up-front that I know I'm opinionated and I might annoy you but please don't take my opinions personally. They're just opinions; that's all. So let's get on with it: I'm having a little trouble with this Zentangle thing many of you have been posting about in recent weeks.

People like to sit next to me at meetings so they can watch me doodle. Compulsively. Important dates and information become incorporated into my designs. When I wrote "7 things about myself" for a "blogger award" recently, I admitted to being a compulsive doodler on my list. I have doodled on randomly strange objects like bowling shoes, and I can't stand to be at any meeting or workshop without a pen for doodling. My mom, who never much understood me as a child, did at least accept my doodling fanatacism, and when they first arrived on the market, she purchased me loads of Flair pens in every color imaginable so I could fill the margins and covers of all my spiral notebooks for classes. She continued to buy them for me for years. Mom's no longer around to buy them, but Flair pens are still a favorite doodle-pen for me, back on the store shelves for a couple of years now.

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Here are doodles from a recent meeting at Temple Beth El (black and white doodles below and up top), done with ball point pen. You might deduce we were talking a bit about money. The doodles were never meant to be seen beyond the meeting, but I'm posting them to make a point. I think they look Zentangle-ish.

So back to Zentangles. I find myself a bit puzzled, because they look JUST like many of my doodles. I decided to check out the Zentangle website figuring that maybe there must be something I was missing. And I discovered that they sell supplies. I need to purchase special supplies from a special dealer just to DOODLE? And, if I have my students fill a page with sectioned off patterns and designs all in black and white do I now have to say we are doing Zentangles? Or can I still call it simply be practice in repetition, pattern, and design, and can I use ANY DRAWING MATERIAL I WANT? I mean, we art teachers have been doing this FOREVER.

These photos below (and the color detail at the top) are of a slightly flawed white leather pocketbook I purchased. The doodles were done in Sharpies, which I love almost as much as Flair pens.

To me, it all boils down to this: if I want to eat REAL Italian food, I go to the local Italian restaurant owned by Italian immigrants. It's authentic. I do not go to the Olive Garden for authentic Italian cooking; Olive Garden just a brand name that is well-marketed. It doesn't mean the food is no good; it's just not necessary to go the Olive Garden for great Italian-style food, and it is NOT as authentic. Zentangles seems to me the same thing - someone who has found a way to successfully market doodling and make some money while taking away the "authenticity" of doodles without rules.
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Or another example: I make jewelry. I do not buy kits. I pick out the beads I want, the findings I want, etc, and while I might look at other jewelry or books for ideas, in the end I make my own decisions and figure out how to make it work. Zentangles seems to me a bit like buying the kit to do what can easily be done without it.
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Please weigh in with your opinions on Zentangles vs doodling, and don't be afraid to disagree with me. It won't be the first time, believe me, and I don't offend easily!!
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And in the meantime, I think I'll go doodle...