Post-Operative Care

There's a saying that one of my high school science teachers repeated constantly: "There's no such thing as a free lunch." He had us expound upon that for our final along with, "There's no such thing as 'away.'" What he wanted us to know is that everything is at the expense of something else and you can't throw anything 'away;' it just goes somewhere else.
Lessons that have stuck with me for over forty years.
I was considering all that Saturday as it was community clean-up day, meaning we could take anything we wanted to the local refuse transfer station, for 'free.'  I put that in quotations because as i was hauling some brush to the trailer, I tripped and fell on my (non-writing, and more importantly, non-drawing) arm, shattering the radius bone at the wrist into many pieces.
I am home, resting comfortably, after surgery Sunday night, pondering just how expensive "free" will be. (What a way to test out my newly minted Affordable Care Act insurance!)
All that said, if you've visited before you may know I utilize the Zentangle method to help manage chronic pain.
It is certainly serving me well now!
These may not be the best examples of my abilities, but it's making me sit still, which seems to be the biggest challenge to my recovery. (And really, I'm experiencing very little discomfort related to this little "mishap." At least until the invoices start rolling in.)
First up, the Diva had guest Amy Broady provide a challenge to get our shine on. Rather than pull out all the pretty metallic pens and pencils, I went old-school in an attempt to SIMULATE shiny with the sparkle enhancement method. (What THAT means is included in this Zentangle glossary).

Diva 257
Get Your Shine On!

I wasn't doing this week's IAST before taking care of LAST week's, so they're here:

One is "All Angular" and the other, "Light N Fluffy."
And before I throw in the towel, the EIM for the week, I have to note that I went to the Emergency Room Saturday with one towel and came home with a different one! I guess I took to heart, "Don't Panic and Grab a Towel!"

That pretty much covers it for this week!

Un Poco Loco (Just a Little Crazy)

'Tis the season for a lot of craziness, isn't it? And that's what I was channeling when I pondered the EIM this week. The word out on Monday was, "locomotive." My son used to love trains in all sizes. His six birthday was spent on the Verde Valley Railroad. Another, much more recent, on the Durango-Silverton line. My dad had worked for Tyco a long while back and designed rail cars for some of their model trains. My nanna worked for the Pennsy railroad for a long time, affording my mother free travel before she married.
So I figured it'd be a piece of cake to dig up SOMETHING.
Not happening!
Which is why you get this:

Locomotion!

I did some research along the way and found out Little Eva was the original singer of "Loco-Motion" and Grand Funk Railroad really got it out there, but I wasn't drawing anything of the sort. So, let's move along, shall we?

It's the TwobyTwobyTuesday day and the word I selected was, "sparkle," thinking I'd find all sorts of glorious options from holiday goings on.

First up is from cookie baking day with my daughter last Saturday, a tradition carried on by the MEN in the family. With the passing of my brother last month, my dad passed it along to me as the cookie press is getting hard for him to manipulate. Thankfully, my daughter did a lot of it as the dough is, well, a tough cookie. Really yummy, though. The recipe is a family secret and the decorating is a day-long project, but quite worthwhile. Now, to ship the results to family far and wide!

Butter Cookies

All those candy sugars really sparkle, as do the real silver star candies at the top of the trees.

I went to Michael's last week for some art goodies and came home with these:

OOOH! Pretty!

But my official response to the twinchie and the Diva Challenge this week is this gift to the world, a sparkly star ZIA.

And one lucky visitor will get the original. So leave a message and I'll pick somebody to send this little two-inch gifty. (Disclaimer: it won't arrive before next Saturday, especially by international post).  Meanwhile, I'm going to try to clean up some of this glitter I have all over!

Thanks for stopping by! I do hope you are enjoying the festivities and all the sparkle of the season!

Stripes, this time with Sparkle!

I see a pattern here! Over at "It's a String Thing," the call is for more stripes. This time we have a swirly string from Sue Agnew, 055 for week 55 and a monotangle (use just the one pattern) of stripes and apply sparkle liberally. I have been playing with stripes as that was a recent lesson in "One Zentangle a Day," so I have SOME experience under my belt. However, my experience with sparkle...well, suffice to say I shy away from it as it kind of needs some serious planning. Especially in this case, with only the one pattern.

I explored various line widths (which is unusual for me) and assorted stripe patterns.The sparkle was preplanned and set in universal light (all coming from the same direction). I liked being able to focus on one tangle and going for a bold lighting effect. I think the stripes could have used more curves to establish form, but for such a teenie canvas, this is all right. To compensate, I did more shading than my usual work to build depth.