Angela Porter

Artwork

I blended and layered Distress oxide inks on A4 mixed media paper followed by some fine sprays with water to create the background. I scanned this background in so I have it available for digital art.

To create the artwork, I wanted to choose an interesting piece of the background sheet. So,I cut the A4 paper down to 8.75″ x 5.125″ in size. I kept all the strips I cut off to use in my art journal / sketchbook, ATCs, or other artwork.

Copic Multiliner SP, Faber-Castell Pitt Artist and Sakura Pigma Sensei were my pens of choice to draw the design.

Oddly, I’ve only used four basic motifs in this design. I started drawing roughly in the centre of the paper, and just let it grow from there. Usually, I’d use many more motifs and patterns. But not today.

When I was happy with the design, I scanned it in and then digitally brightened the background colours, darkened the black ink, and added subtle shadows and highlights to help add some sense of dimension to various elements in the design.

Waffling on…

I’m still not feeling right today. I’m headachy, my digestive system is delicate and everything tastes just wrong. I didn’t enjoy my mug of tea this morning at all. I feel hungry, but when I eat I find I lose my appetite very quickly with just a couple of mouthfuls, and then my digestive system complains by feeling uncomfortable.

I’m also tired. Not so tired I want to stay in bed or just sit and not do anything, but tired enough that I don’t have a lot of oompf to do much at all.

Still, I’m not as bad as I was Saturday night and Sunday, but I’m still not right at all. An easy day is in order today, that’s for sure.

Back in late December, I had what I thought was a particularly nasty bout of seasonal tummy flu’. Vomiting, fever, shivers, headache, extremely tired, every part of my body ached, loss of my sense of taste and smell and sensitivity to noise. I had abdominal cramps as well. It took me a long while to feel ‘right’, and longer for my appetite and then sense of smell and taste to return.

My current bout of feeling poorly is an echo of how I felt back then. In fact it’s my third repeat of the symptoms.

I do know, from reading around reputable publications and daily completing the questions on the Covid-19 symptom tracker app, that all of these are symptoms of the virus.

Today, it emerges that the first case of Covid-19 in France was back in December.

A friend of mine was also really unwell over later December and well into 2020, with symptoms of Covid-19. We’ve often mused if the virus was around and about far earlier than was first thought, that some cases of pneumonia were caused by Covid-19, not seasonal ‘flu.

I also have read, again in reputable sources, that the virus can infect the digestive system and can linger there causing repeated bouts of the illness. Indeed,the latest thoughts are that the ‘reinfections’ by Covid-19 are actually not reinfections, but the virus causing a second bout of the illness in people who have recovered from it.

My friend and I may never know if we’ve had Covid-19 and recovered from it, not without being tested for anti-bodies. I know that we’d both feel much less anxious if we actually knew this was the case, as I’m sure a lot of other people would too.

Also, I may be putting two and two together and coming up with something else. The scientist in me is on the fence for sure. But, without being tested for the antibodies, how will I know for sure? How will anyone know?