5 Minute Border Practice

Need some help with borders? Do you have five minutes to practice? Take an ATC, it's a 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" piece of paper, the size of a baseball card. Grab your pen of choice. At this particular time, I was using a Pitt Pen, size SX. Draw a series of unevenly spaced parallel lines.

Select an open section and practice a border. You don't have to spend a lot of time, just work on getting a variety of borders drawn. Perfection can come later, for right now just work on drawing the borders you know.
As you learn more and more borders, keep adding them into your practice ATC stack. They make a great, easy-to-go-to reminder of the borders you know how to tangle.

Therapy Has Begun

I started physical therapy today for my achilles tendonitis. 

Whoa! Stretching, pushing, pulling, straining.

And that was just the assessment.

If you were wondering about the two larger hearts -

they are from a paper punch I have.

Punches both hearts at the same time

and I just put my chop in the centers. 

Tangled a bit, made up those balloons,

threw on a little washi tape and called it done.

Fast Approaching

It will be here before you know it.  Valentine's Day. A time to tell those you love - that you love and appreciate them. A time for words, a time for cards, a time for chocolate :), a time to make a difference in someone's life.
A group of us artist types are trading ATCs to show our appreciation for each other and appreciation for the art. It is amazing what you can do with a little ink, some glitter markers, a micron, and a 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" piece of watercolor paper.
Are you getting ready to tell the ones you love that you love them? Cause you should be. And the time is fast approaching.

Re-Eval Done

I spent the morning at the podiatrist, re-evaluating this achilles tendon issue.

Four weeks of physical therapy coming up. Along with wearing a foot splint while I sleep at night. Continue the heat treatments, the ice packs, and the BioFreeze.

Then we will evaluate the situation again. The doctor said this injury will take awhile to heal up. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but it could have been worse.

From there I went and sat and watched the boys. Everyone wanted treats!

Especially this boy. Gus. What a card! Haha!

And then the girls were all like, "Hey! What about us?"

They really, really love their treats! For those of you who might wonder, the girls are miniature donkeys. Hershey is the smallest, she is the lighter brown one. At the top of her back, Hershey is about 24" tall. Full-grown all three. 

Mark actually got some work done today. And I spent the rest of the day icing my foot. Bah humbug. (Am I allowed to say that when it isn't Christmas-time any longer?)
(And, yes, I know this isn't art, but it was the best I got today.)

A Few More Peeks

Here are a couple more detail shots of that large piece I posted last night. After I took these photos, I added a lot of sparkliness to make my heart happy. I love sparkliness!

And pink and yellow, apparently!

And, I just love me some pretty detail shots! 

Tangle on.

Doing Better, APR #89

My foot is coming along. Finally. That old achilles tendon is finally starting to feel a bit better. Of course I've been sitting for a week and a half now. Reading, playing my gameboy, checking facebook, and drawing a little here and there.

About 40 heated foot soaks, 40+ ice packs, and one can of BioFreeze and I can tell some difference. Getting up in the morning and putting that foot on the floor is still a challenge. Talk about pain!

But I'm getting there. I go back to the doctor this Thursday to see where we go from here. She is looking for a 50% improvement. I think we have that much. Praying we have that much.

And in the meantime, I draw. And for the first time in quite awhile, I am linking this up to the Artist's Play Room where Jenn lets us post whatever art floats our boat this week. This is what has kept me afloat as I sit here on my chaise lounge with yet another ice pack. You can check out the Artist's Play Room here at Just Add Water, Silly! (I love Jenn!)

Still Sittin'

I am still attached to this chaise lounge and getting incredibly tired of it! My foot seems to be feeling better, get rechecked next week. The only tangible positive is that I am getting lots of tangling done. Working on more bookmarks for a swap I am part of. Couldn't decide whether to color the mak-rah-mee in the center and decided to just go for it and do it. Which do you prefer? You know how I am about color, so I don't even need to tell you which one I prefer.

I put a quick shot of this on facebook earlier in the week. Here it is cleaned up a bit. Those shapes came courtesy of a stencil used over Dylusions Ink Sprays. This one was a lot of fun! Now, back to sitting. Ugh.

Pluggin' Along

It's been a rough few days here at the house of Hendon. Somehow I have managed to mess up an achilles tendon. Not cool. I do happen to have one very awesome podiatrist, however, she surgered both feet about 25 years ago and she is still in business. Heck! She's even younger than me by a couple years. I know that 'surgered' isn't a word, but it aptly fits the situation. 
A routine of therapy and staying off the foot is about to drive me up a wall. We are trying to prevent a more aggressive approach and are giving a two week grace period.
So here I sit on my lovely chaise lounge with my ipad, drawing desk, a ton of pens and pencils and markers of every color, and a ton of projects that need to be completed. I am still working away on the 106 ATCs I need to complete for the CZT Deck Swap. I have exactly half of them finished. The one above just reminds me of the Wizard of Oz! Does that not look like the yellow brick road and the Emerald City? Totally not planned, it just fell that way! 
Hopefully my foot will start feeling better, instead of worse which it has done today, and I will be able to get back into the swing of things with this blog. Thank you for being so patient. 
Oh yes, I spent a good part of last week taping together a new journal/calendar/planner but was so unhappy with it that this afternoon I ripped it all apart. Threw away the remains of the journal, and salvaged what I could from the gelli plate prints and watercolor paper. Taking a new direction with that and hope to show you some progress in the next few days. 
Have a great Sunday! May God bless your day and your time and may you be faithful to Him - cause He deserves it. (Something I forget on a regular basis.) Hugs!!!

Batumber by K2

While I was in Maryland, classmate and CZT Kelley Kelly (AKA K2) posted a new tangle on facebook. I took it, played with it a bit, and drew the above tile in my CZT sketchbook. The lovely, flowing pink flowers are batumber.

This is what Kelley posted on facebook. Fun and easy, but looks can be deceptive.

So, I got out my sketchbook and started playing. CZT Cheryl Cianci had also posted a new tangle, which she dubbed Knot Rickz. If you are a CZT, or an avid zentangle® fan, you will get the connection in the name. Anyway, I sketched out the steps to the two tangles in my book. On each pattern I made a little switch that made the pattern work better for me. In batumber, Kelley draws the parallel lines first (which I cut off in the picture, sorry). I found it worked easier for me if I drew the curvy lines first. In Cheryl's Knot Rickz, I had to draw my string with ink, not pencil, or I just got too lost.

I had a few little issues, the main one being corrected with that last tip I wrote down. When I was wrapping my batumber around the Knot Rickz on the bottom, I lost track of the humps and my last couple flowers did not line up like they should. So I made a note of it to help me remember next time. Both these tangles are beautiful, and they flow so well together. Kelley posted about batumber on her blog The Path Untangled. Unfortunately, Cheryl doesn't blog, but she did give me permission to introduce you to Knot Rickz here on mine. Now, back to the drawing board, errr, sketchbook!

Trying New Things

Wow! That's really big! You can see every line I drew and all my little slip-ups, too.  >,< Actually, I like the pictures being big so you can appreciate all the lovely color against the black backdrop of the blog :).
So, it's 2014 already. Seriously? What happened to 2013? Our family seemed to have a fairly eventful year: 
Jason and Bobbie blessed us with a beautiful little precious granddaughter in Frankie. She was five weeks early, and weighed 4 pounds, 9 ounces. Beautiful and perfect in every way.
Kali moved to Maryland to attend culinary school and is on the way to realizing her dream of being a professional pastry chef. She is working at a world-class French restaurant in their pastry kitchen when she isn't at school. 
Mark continues to work at Shands and hunts every chance he gets, and I do mean every chance. 
Nicole and Dale are still enjoying life with all six of their children. Nicole changed jobs this year and seems to be enjoying life immensely. I love to read her and Dale's facebook statuses! They make me smile on a regular basis. 
I have had some health issues this year, and continue to work with them, trying to get things back to normal. It's been a very stressful year for me personally, but the family is all doing great. I continue my journey into the new land of art and creativity. My art was published in two books this year. I can tell you that it feels really strange to stand in a store and see your artwork staring back at you from a page in one of the books for sale!
Here's hoping that 2014 will see even more positive changes. Some new things, if you will. Kali will be finishing school and continuing with her two-year commitment to the restaurant. Little Frankie will celebrate her first birthday. I have artwork coming out in at least two new books this year, will be starting to co-write a book with a friend, and will continue working on my own e-book. 
May 2014 be rosy and bright for you and your family. May God richly bless you and provide for you in abundance as you honor Him with your life. Thank you for hanging in there with me and The Creator's Leaf in 2013! You are appreciated more than you will ever know! Hugs!!!
(A working note to myself: hits at 35,704 and 103 members.)

Book Review for 2013

2013 proved to be another good reading year for me. A couple years ago, one of the speech students challenged me to keep a list of books I read throughout the year. So I did. I knew that I read a lot, but I was really astonished to see just how many books I went through in a year's time. In 2012, I read 123 books. In 2013, I read 131 books. 

First Book in 2013: David Baldacci has been a favored author since I read his book Wish You Well. I have a tendency to download his books to my kindle as soon as they become available. My first read in 2013 was Baldacci's book The Forgotten, a mystery featuring Army Special Agent John Puller checking into the death/murder of his aunt. In true Baldacci-style, this was a hard to put down read.

Favorite Read of the Year/Biggest Surprise of the Year: I put off reading this book until the movie was almost upon us. Several of the speech and debate students recommended this book to me in the past, and I finally downloaded Ender's Game just a couple weeks before the movie was released. In this book, Ender Wiggin is the last hope for a futuristic Earth in fighting off and destroying a hostile alien race. I didn't really know what to expect going into this book and was pleasantly surprised with an interesting storyline development and my favorite read of 2013.

Most Anticipated Read: there were two books I couldn't wait to get my hands on this year! And they were written by the same two authors I anticipated last year!

Michael Connelly quickly became a favored author when I started reading  his Harry Bosch series. Harry is an old-day detective, that still writes reports with a pencil and paper. And I love a good detective story, having been a detective for many years myself. Even if you haven't read a Connelly book yourself, you've probably heard of the movie The Lincoln Lawyer, or maybe you've seen Connelly playing poker with Castle in that TV series. Connelly came out with a second book featuring the Lincoln Lawyer Mickey Haller called The Gods of Guilt. This book brought back a sideline character from the Lincoln Lawyer, killed her off, and left Haller to represent the defendent arrested for her murder. Great read! 

Dee Henderson is my all-time favorite Christian fiction writer. Dee had been off the radar for several years with some agent/publisher issues. She came out with a new book in 2012, and another in 2013. I pre-ordered it months before it was released. Unspoken did not disappoint. A kidnapping victim tries to put her life back together while keeping her identity secret, her purported kidnappers were identified and killed,  but along the way it becomes apparent that the true kidnapper is still out there and it isn't at all who you would suspect. An excellent read written in true Henderson style. Any of you law-enforcement types would appreciate Dee's realistic police writing.

Best Stumbled Across Read: I had read all of MaryLu Tyndall's books, even the ones written under the name M. L. Tyndall. I had not read anywhere that she had any new books out, so I was really pleasantly surprised to stumble across this book on amazon.com. And I have downloaded book #2 in the series to start on soon! A good seafaring adventure read.

Most Disappointing Reads: OK, I may anger a few people here by saying The Hobbitt was the most disappointing read I had in 2013, but it was. I loved both movies. A lot. And I tried to make myself read the book. Twice. I just could not get into the book at all. Thankfully the movies came out so I could enjoy the fun that is the Hobbitt, cause the book just did not do it for me.

Gilbert Morris used to be my favorite Christian fiction author. He and Janette Oke were the first Christian fiction writers I read. After reading about 20 or so of Morris' books, I realized they pretty much all had the same storyline, just with different names for the characters. And they are written at about a 7th grade reading level. I hadn't read anything by Morris in many years when I saw this new book of his come out. I thought I'd give him another chance and was disappointed to see that nothing had changed. He still used the same storyline, and the same characters, just with different names. I know there is an audience out there somewhere for Morris' writings, but I am not it. Enough said.

 Genres/Authors Read: My reading seemed to run with three main authors /genres this year. The first being law enforcement solving mysteries. Haha! I am a retired cop, so yes, I definitely like a good cop writer and Catherine Coulter does a pretty good job. (My favorite is still Dee Henderson, but we already talked about her.) I read every book in Coulter's FBI Series, featuring husband and wife team Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock. Each book also brought in another couple of law enforcement types from various agencies and worked them together with Savich/Sherlock on cases. Great reads all. I was disappointed when I ran out of Coulter's FBI books to read.

 

Catherine Coulter

Apparently I read a lot of pirate books as well, with my preferred author being Danelle Harmon. I think I read every book she's written. Harmon has a couple series, both were enjoyable reading.

Danelle Harmon

And I read cowboy/1800's stories, primarily written by Joan Johnston. She has written a lot of books, and they all revolve around three or four families, covering a couple generations. I enjoy reading about their hardships and how they overcame the obstacles they faced on a daily basis - and realizing they really aren't any different than we are today. 

Joan Johnston

Last Book Read in 2013: Sisters Found  was another Joan Johnston book. The storyline is about triplets and the men they end up with. Two sisters were raised as twins, while the third was put up for adoption. By a fluke, a friend finds the third sister and brings the three together. The story is about them building a shaky relationship, becoming a family, and culminates in a triple wedding. 

I didn't seem to read any tough books this year, no terrorist/war books like I read last year. I had a lot of issues going on in my personal life this year and I guess I just needed some easier reading, something less tragic and easier to read. 

To see a list of all  131 books I read this year, click here OR click on the My Reads link at the top of the page under my topper. Time to get started on 2014 and I already have my first book read :).