Present and Accounted 4

These last few months have been a black hole for me.  I was upset and confused about the following:
   1. On August 23rd I received a call that my brother had died that day from a blood clot, he was in the hospital for tests.  He was 10 yrs my junior and the last member of my family, leaving me with only a few aunts, uncles and cousins. He lived in South Carolina, so I had not seen him in a few years.
   2. I had a stroke, soon after he passed.  I was taken by ambulance to a stroke center in a suburb of Chicago, 40+miles away, for treatment.  It was a hard time for me knowing that my brother had just died from a similar incident.  I have done a good job of recovering from the stroke, not having insurance made it hard.  I have been on meds and a regiment to recover.  I had some lack of balance and inabilty to write.  I had just started a class in silversmithing at a local jr. college and was terrified of losing all my art skills.  I spent alot of time recovering my motor skills.  I couldn't even sign my own name, which would mean the end of alot of my art.

I hope that I can be forgiven for not being on line during this time.  I have been able to recover from most of the primary problems of the stroke.  I now know that there is a GOLDEN WINDOW for a person who has a stroke, this window of time is 3 hrs. If a person is taken to the ER within the 3 hrs, it will allow the doctors to inject an anti-stroke medication that can stop the stroke.  I missed that window because of  not having insurance and thinking this was just a bout of extreme mental strain.

 
  

Finally I can....

I am not doing a good job of relearning how to post from a borrrowed computer!  I can't seem to figure out how to know what picture is actually going to be posted.
   This is my first post for the latest exchange I am in, I hope it comes up on the blog right.  I don't like that photographiing a negative image shows all the small imperfections.  Most of those small scratches are made visible by the camera (both by the flash or abient light), and are not as visible to the naked eye.
    Here is one of my ATCs from my series, Full Moon Series.  It is of the leaves of the Feverfew plant.  It is a plant I have grown for over 30 years. 

Krap, I can't get my pix from this puter to upload to this blog, nother stumbling block for me to get past! 8-(  Back to the darn pix section to see what I need to try and what might work.  Life w/o your own puter is for the birds,

No pictures to post.  Since my "puter" died, I haven't figured out a way to edit and post from my Hubby's computer.  I have been busy getting my garden in shape.  For the last 2-3 yrs I haven't been able to work in it as needed.  I fell yesterday as I was opening the door and sprained my ankle on the same leg that has a new knee!  That is the way things seem to go right now. The fall scared the dickens out of me, no one was home and we live in a sparse area, so I looked up at the sky for awhile and then made slowly inside.  Ankle is wrapped and I put ice on it and the knee.  Hope to get my computer situation straight and back to normal. 

Last of the Five

Last one of my five ATCs.  I don't know why I didn't notice how my lines slope in the background fence or divider? This was an interesting project, so I may try it again on a different picture. I like the way the watercolors behave on the vellum paper. The colors don't seem to sink into the paper as much and I tried both the pen lines before and after the wc.  I think each has it's merits.

Falls for the forth...

This is number four.  I liked the multi leveled falls in the reference, but I decided to only do the top level.  I noticed that these 5 cards are not in order!  Note the small 2 in the lower left corner? Duh!

Number Three in Series

The picture I used as a reference was a treasure trove of croping ideas.  I chose just 5 of 50 I could have done.  This one is part of a small falls and a gnarly tree. I think the background is a fence or wall.  It is hard for me to keep from making non-slope lines.  My lines tend to go up to the right..how I write on lineless paper.