This is approx. 17.5 x 17.5cm and was created by me using UniPin pens, Zig Art and Graphic Twin pens with water as a wash, coloured fineliner pens and coloured pencils on acid-free bristol board.
Art is my solace, even though at times I’m doing the work through tears. Today was one of those days. I’m really struggling with the inner critics who are beating me up so badly at the moment, and despite me trying my best to quell them, to soothe them, they are currently stronger than I am and are winning. Art has soothed them a tad…just a tad.
Some days it’s hard to find anything to be proud of about myself, to feel I am as important and matter as much as every other person on this planet, that I’m a good person, a kind person, a caring person and so on.
On days like these, days like today, creating something pretty through my art reminds me that there is something in me, about me, that appreciates pretty things and can create pretty things and so there must be something pretty or even beautiful within me.
This one is ‘pretty’.
Astrologically pinks and greens belong to Venus, the planet of love, beauty and harmony, romance, relationships the urge to empathise and unite with others, pleasure, joy and sensuality.
The lilacs and sea-greens belong to Neptune, the planet of dreams and fantasies and helps to dissolve boundaries and change existing rules. Neptune can also result in confusion, and confusion is often experienced during profound and/or subtle changes in thinking, rules, beliefs. Change is never easy.
Interestingly, both planets are related to artistic pursuits and aesthetics and our own personal tastes.
Now, I’m a scientist as well as an artist and all round oddbod, so why the astrological meanings of the colours? I find it helps me to understand the art that I create intuitively, especially the colours. Perhaps the colours are telling me to allow the old rules of the inner critics to go and to change them, to let the boundaries they have created dissolve and in so doing let love into myself, first for myself …
Maybe … or maybe it’s just pretty!
Angela Porter 