Soon after our butterfly zentangle, my sister Bala came across this video on YouTube and wanted to attempt the peacock zentangle. It was intricate and had a lot of detail and we all welcomed the challenge!

We started working on this one in early April and finished closer to the end of the month, but we enjoyed every moment of it. With every week, the beauty of the peacock began to take shape until the finished product which yet again was same yet subtly different.

On the first day of this workshop, we drew the basic peacock shape:

In the second week, we all coloured in the peacock (bit of a departure from the original) following which we planned to draw the zentangle over the colours.

The following week, we filled in the body of the peacock with zentangle patterns:

The week after, we completed one feather and alternate starting points for the other feathers. By this time my sisters felt confident they could refer to the video and complete the rest of the pattern on their own. Total moment of pride for me!

This one was a lot of work and two of my sisters, Raji and Neela did not quite find the time that myself, Bala and Lakshmi found in attempting these designs.

Here’s Bala’s finished peacock:

I loved how the shapes altered a little bit in Bala’s interpretation. Her peacock looks like it is about to fly off the page and burst into a dance!

Here’s Lakshmi’s version:

It’s wonderful to see the artist completely re-awakened. Lakshmi was and always will be the most artistic of all of us. Real life commitments briefly derailed her interest in art for a good few decades but now that she’s back at it, you can see the attention to detail, the challenging shapes she chooses to zentangle and the confident strokes of her pen.

Here’s my peacock:

Lakshmi finished her peacock before I did and I was inspired to try the intricate patterns that she had attempted. Absolutely loving how we are now learning from each other and growing together as artists.

My cousin Goma gets quite busy with her grandchildren, but she loves to draw too. She is part of our little group and if she’s unable to join a workshop, she attempts the drawing through the step by step pics I post (as I’ve done above) and catches up in her own free time. Here’s her peacock:

With a few animal kingdom zentangles done, I felt we all were ready to attempt something different that I found on Pinterest. Our next workshop was different in the kind of pattern we attempted, and yet again, the interpretations that came in were all beautiful in their own ways! More on that soon.