New Years Eve, 2012

The year 2012 is almost complete. It is almost history, done, over, out of there, kaput. You get the picture. Much has happened this past year. As far as my blog goes - it's quite obvious that photography has taken a back seat as I focus on artwork and make strides to learn some new skills. I began my art journey in April - by studying/stalking pinterest boards dedicated to art journaling. One thing led to another and before I knew it I was flying to Rhode Island to train and get certified to teach Zentangle®. I still click a photo here and there, but these days the pics are typically taken with my cell phone.

Our family continues to grow as Jason and Bobbie will be welcoming a daughter into the world in about four months. Nicole and Dale have expanded their family to a total of six children between them - two boys, four girls - yay for girls! Kali is now in a courting relationship with Joshua (scroll down to post titled The Perfect Christmas Gift). She is making plans to head to Maryland in May to attend L'Academie de Cuisine and gain certification as a professional pastry chef. Mark and I are still trudging along - paying bills and making it day by day. Thankful is what we are! Thankful for our wonderful family and thankful for another year. Thankful for God's blessings and thankful for each other. As we ring in 2013, let's remember all the little things that add up to one great big blessing. And be thankful.

More Christmas Tangles

Christmas. A week in the mountains. It rained every day except one. That day we rushed and drove around to see as much as we could see, then it was back to rain the next day. So, what do you do with six days of rain? You draw. A lot. So, here is another tile. More practice with diva dance, tearse, cadent, rain, tipple, and a couple other tangles that I can not recall the names of right now. I'll work on that and fix this post. Soon. Promise.

The Perfect Christmas Gift

Pretty much the best Christmas present ever for Kali this year! We flew this fellow in as a Christmas gift to her. Many, many thanks go to his family for deciding he should be in the mountains with us on Christmas Day! I think the joy on their faces completely sums up our holiday. Family, friends, simplicity, easy living, and love. Who could ask for anything more.

A Little More Diva Dance!

So. There's a new tangle in town. Her name is Diva Dance! She's happy, alive, free-spirited, and a whole bunch of fun! There are basically three ways to draw the Diva Dance - the waltz, the foxtrot, the rock and roll - and all three are in the tile above. She is my newest 'favorite' - in case you couldn't tell! I have a feeling I'm going to be doing a lot of dancing in the days to come :).

Diva Challenge 99

This particular Diva Challenge involved looping your border on all four sides. I tried and tried and tried to overlap my loops, but my hand just did not understand what my brain was telling it to do. I finally gave up trying to overlap and settled for a loop on each side of my string. This was an interesting challenge, although I doubt I'll ever try this again. Ha! definitely worth trying once :).

Christmas Tangling

 We've been here in the mountains for a week now. Time to head home tomorrow. I can't believe it's been a week already. It's rained every day except one, so we didn't get to go sightseeing as much as we wanted. But that's okay. We filled time in with other things. (Color above courtesy of Derwent Inktense Pencils.)

I even had the opportunity to teach Maria's new pattern Diva Dance to my daughter, who taught it to Josh. I stayed busy all week drawing. What fun! I was able to really get a handle on some new patterns. 

And I got some new pens for Christmas :) gotta go home and play!

Best Christmas Gift Ever!

Our daughter's 'young man' is spending Christmas with us this year. When we opened gifts this morning, this is what he handed Mark - Kali's father. Mark unwrapped the package to find this envelope. Inside the envelope he found this - 

Funniest thing ever! I don't know if you will be able to read the answers, but you can definitely read the questions. This was great! Way to go, Josh, for one awesome spectacular present! We'll get back to you after we run that fingerprint and criminal history check!

It's Christmas Eve

 

It's Christmas Eve. Pretty soon it will be Christmas morning. Different families celebrate in different ways. We are spending the holiday in the mountains and have already enjoyed several days here. Tonight we went to church - a Christmas Eve service - with several families and friends from our debate and speech days. We had a great time of worship and praise, ending with a candlelight song.

There's been lots of preparation getting ready for tomorrow.

They've spent a lot of time baking and decorating.

Maybe a little bit too much time. Hahaha!

And I think they are getting a little tired of cookies at this point. I told Kali we could freeze the rest and bring them out for another holiday, but they are still working on them even as I type.

And we get to enjoy the fruits (so to speak) of their labor. It's a labor of love.

Truly yummy. And really cute, too!

As we prepare to call it a night here, and as we get ready for gifts and family time tomorrow, let us all remember the reason we celebrate Christmas. It is not for the gifts - even though they are fun. It is not for all the cookies, and pies, and Christmas candy - even though we love those and won't tell our diabetes doctors how much we ate. The season is all about celebrating the one true Christ who was born on earth to make a way for each of us to be forgiven and to be able to commune and live with God. May each of you find the love of Christ. May you have a wonderful Christmas celebration of Christ's love. And may He richly bless you and your family. Merry Christmas from the Hendons, and from The Creator's Leaf. Hohoho!

Watercolor Journal

 I've been sitting here trying to figure out how to turn this into a Christmas post. Ha! It might have some Christmas colors in it. 

For whatever reason, the word "change" comes to mind. I've been working on Dion Dior's Watercolor Pencil class and one of the things she had us do was to set up a chart of our colors. At the time I didn't understand the importance of a chart and I ended up with colors spread out through two different journals.

I decided to change my procedure and I got one of the new Stillman & Birn Alpha Series journals and started over. I began with my inktense pencils and set up a block for each color.

I scribbled a swatch of color across the top of the box and watercolor washed it down the length of the box. I wrote the color number from the side of the pencil inside the box, then wrote the actual color name just below the box.

We are on vacation in the mountains for Christmas. I brought my inktense pencils and my Derwent Metallic pencils with me. I set up color swatch charts for both those sets.

When I get home I plan to set up charts for all the colors I have. Pencils, oil pastels, markers, anything and everything. And I'm going to keep them all in this one journal. It will make things easier. This "change" in recording colors will make my work flow easier and quicker, it will give me consistency in my art, it will help me assess colors better and more effectively, and most of all - it's really pretty!

What change do you need to make in your life? Of course, this was not a life altering change in my life, but couldn't I apply this same principal to the things I need to change in my life? Who couldn't benefit from more organization and structure in their life? What better time to make some changes than at Christmas? As this Christmas Day is upon us, may God bless you and be with you as you enjoy time with your family. May we all honor Him in this coming year. Merry Christmas!

Tangle Time in the Mountains

When we go on vacations I normally take jigsaw puzzles to work on - you know, to fill in time with as we 'relax.' I don't do 'relax' well. To me it sounds very similar to 'bored to tears.' So on this trip - I brought a ton of zentangle fun to work on.

Tiles, watercolor postcards, my Derwent Inktense Pencils, some new patterns to learn, and a whole lot of time. That's a great vacation right there! Sandy Hunter at Tanglebucket Studio challenged us to make a tile using the tangles:  girlande, popsicles, tearce, and sand swirl. This last tile is what I drew. Thanks, Sandy! This was fun and I learned three new tangles :). Just a short post. I need to get back to drawing :).

Getting Ready For Christmas

An early morning run to the Spartanburg airport - we were getting ready to welcome Christmas, but first we needed to pick up someone. It is a small airport, but really pretty. Just inside the front door were a lot of 'cousins' suspended from the ceiling. Some had Santa hats on and some had Santa hats and scarfs on.

At the bottom of the escalator was this beautiful - huge! - Christmas tree. These photos were all taken with my cell phone so they might not be the sharpest quality. But hey, they still work :).

His plane was running a little behind schedule. They had a rough takeoff and a rough landing, but he was on the ground . . .

. . . and she was pretty happy! They both were!

Then it was back to the lodge for some decorating time.

They did a great job making the suite more festive. Lots of garland and lights. Really beautiful!

Love this stairwell. It is really the perfect place to use garland!

Some Santa hats, some stockings, some lights, some garland, some presents, and it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

And some really happy faces! Merry Christmas, everyone!

String 031

I love Linda Farmer's string challenge each week. This is the 31st one and I've completed each one. Not always in the same week it's been posted - but completed all the same. 

This is the string that Linda gave us to work with. I was practicing a new tangle that Maria Thomas gave us this week called diva dance. This is what I came up with. 

Diva Dance is really fun to play with! I mixed it here with some ixorus. Loads of fun! Can you find the string in there? You can check out the string challenge at Tangle Patterns!