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Be Brave – Entangled Art WIP 25/06/19

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Be Brave WIP ©Angela Porter 2019 | Artwyrd.com
Be Brave WIP ©Angela Porter 2019 | Artwyrd.com

A bit more done this morning. Another 2.5 hours today for a total of 15.5 hours. Some hand lettering has been done today as well.

It’s coming along, slowly but surely.

I don’t think I’ll be doing much more today. I’m not feeling too well. More about that below though.

As usual, my tools for digital art are Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Pen and Microsoft Surface Studio.

So, Angela, how are you today?

I’m not feeling too well. I woke up in the night all hot and sweaty with a very upset tummy again.

I was ok before my weekly EMDR therapy session. I think this bout of illness is linked to EMDR. It turned out to be a rather surprising session.

I had a bit to talk about with my therapist, Linda, to do with interesting bits of the book I’m reading “The Body Keeps The Score” by Bessel Van Der Kolk who is one of the foremost experts on traumatic stress.

For real change to take place, the body needs to learn that the danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present.

“The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel Van Der Kolk

Linda and I had a little chat we had about how important she thinks it is that I blog and talk about my CPTSD and how trauma in my life has affected my life so much.

Our scans had revealed how their dread persisted and could be triggered by multiple aspects of daily experience. They had not integrated their experience into the ongoing stream of their life. They continued to be “there” and did not know how to be “here” – fully alive in the present.

“The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel Van Der Kolk

She said she thinks its particularly important as people assume that PTSD/CPTSD can only come from major traumas in life, sexual abuse, physical abuse. We talked about how neglect from birth – emotional and physical – can be traumatic and can cause problems with relationships with others and the self, and how it sets up the patterns for the negative beliefs about oneself.

I certainly did experience emotional and physical neglect and I never really had somewhere that was safe. I do now. I live alone. My home is my sanctuary, my safe place, and I rarely invite people into my home. Even though my home is safe for me, noises outside – doors slamming, car horns beeping, loud voices (even happy ones) can provoke a startle response in me. This is relevant to what happened in EMDR this week.

Scared animals return home, regardless of whether home is safe or frightening. I thought about my patients with abusive families who kept going back to be hurt again. Are traumatised people condemned to seek refuge in what is familiar? If so, why, and is it possible to help them become attached to places and activities that are safe and pleasurable?

“The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel Van Der Kolk

It’s not just having a safe home that’s important for me. I can feel safe here. However, leaving my home can mean I feel unsafe, anxious, on edge and this prevents me from doing things that I’d like to do. Simple things like going into a cafe for a cup of tea, or into an unfamiliar shop, to get out of my car in an unfamiliar place and walk around, to name just a couple.

I never felt safe at home or anywhere else for as long as I can remember.

That one thing has had a huge impact on my life, and though I now have a safe place, there’s still so much to work on when I attempt to venture into the world and interact with it and with the people that inhabit it.

Anyway, back to yesterdays therapy session.

We went on to continue EMDR processing of the traumatic event that we were working on last week.

Lots of pain/feelings in my body as the trauma was being processed. The front door to the building was slammed and the noise caused me to become startled. Linda was really surprised at how strong my startle response to the noise was, especially as this hadn’t happened before. She asked how long I’ve had startle responses; I informed her for as long a I can remember. She checked back on a PTSD questionnaire (not the right word but I can’t think of what that is now) I’d done a number of years ago now and the startle response was there.

I was instantly on edge, anxious, wide eyed and hypervigilant and we did some calming and grounding exercises before going back to the orginal memory.

It was obvious that the memory we were working on was being flooded by the startle response. So the EMDR was brought to a close for this week.

We did some calming and safe space work before I left.

Apart from feeling a little more anxious than usual, I felt ok on my drive home, other than I was aware that my body was still processing trauma in the way I experience it during EMDR – so odd aches, pains, sensations. Linda did tell me to be prepared for this happening as the startle response had really upped the ante on the processing and has brought forward new stuff to work with, even if I don’t know what it is at the moment.

However, as time went on I started to feel more anxious, extremely exhausted, and rather teary.

I still feel that way now, even though I also feel quite content at the same time.

The contentedness is that ocean that is me, the other feelings are the weather that causes waves on the surface of that ocean. The weather is rather stormy today.

Doing art helps me to be more aware of that contentedness, that’s for sure, which is why I focus on doing art on days like this, or at least on creative ventures.

Having an an upset stomach after therapy is quite a common occurrence for me, and Linda tells me it happens to a lot of her clients. It’s part of the continuation of the processing and/or the heightened anxiety that I experience in EMDR and in the startle response and I feel that anxiety in my stomach/abdomen strongly.

It’s always there and it’s part of the reason I tend to overeat; if I’m overly full I feel uncomfortable from food not from the anxiety I feel.

So, I’m feeling exhausted today, my digestive system is feeling tender, fragile, and still a little (maybe more than a little) yeuchy. A quiet self-care day is in order I think with light food for sure. I suspect a good sleep will be on the cards too.

As much as I find comfort in doing art, there comes a time when I become dissatisfied with all that I do, and I reached that point with my ‘Be Brave’ WIP. I think a day of crocheting hexagons and adding them to the blanket I’m making for a friend may be in order, and watching something on TV or DVD that soothes me, so that may be Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or the like. It may be that I listen to an audiobook, though I tried doing that earlier and I kept having to rewind as I couldn’t pay attention to it in the way I’d like to.

Be Brave -Entangled Art WIP 24/06/19

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Be Brave - Entangled Art WIP 24/06/19 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com
Be Brave – Entangled Art WIP 24/06/19 ©Angela Porter | Artwyrd.com

This morning I’ve done a little more work on this artwork. I’ve spent around 2 hours, so that’s a total of around 13 hours so far.

As usual, I’m using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Pen and Microsoft Surface Studio to complete this work digitally. As always, they’re a pleasure to use.

So, Angela, how are you doing today?

I’m ok today. I slept well last night and woke feeling refreshed. I’m about to get myself sorted to head out for my weekly EMDR therapy session.

I’ve not done the adulting I need to do sooner rather than later. I’ll sneak up on myself to do it soon, just not NOW.

Other than that, I’m quite content and wondering what EMDR will bring today. I know we’re working on a memory from my childhood and the emotions and beliefs about myself from then. It seemed quite an innocuous memory, but it was a lot more distressing than I thought. Not the single memory but the layers and layers of repeated incidences of a similar kind of thing throughout my life.

It’s part of the tangled web entangled around my painful self-conscious ways.

It’s always surprising to me how I’ve minimised how events have affected me and pushed them aside into the big box full of unprocessed traumas.

That box is gradually emptying. As this memory may be the root of many other instances where it’s emotional trauma has been re-experienced and reinforced then processing this one means the rest are as well.

Summer Solstice Dangle Design

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Summer Solstice Dangle Design © Angela Porter 2019 Artwyrd.com
Summer Solstice Dangle Design © Angela Porter 2019 Artwyrd.com

It is the Summer Solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere, the longest day of the year and from here on in the days will slowly get shorter. Still, it’s lovely to have daylight well into the evening with the sky still being fairly light at 10pm or so.

Yesterday evening I had a bit of an idea to try creating a dangle design on parchment, and this is the result. I needed a bit of a break from digital art after the hours and hours spent on my most recent mandala.

Parchment craft, or Pergamano, is an old craft and a lot of the work done, while beautiful, is really not my style. So I thought I’d try my style of art with it.

I used some ball tools to emboss the parchment with my design and then to add some shading. I drew the design directly onto the parchment with the embossing tools.

I started with the stylised flowers and worked out from there. Once I was happy with my design, I added a simple dangle consisting of round, heart-shaped and diamond shaped beads with a tear-drop bead to add some weight to the dangle.

I then added colour with some Kuretake Zig Writer pens on the reverse of the design. I chose colours that remind me of summer – the mature greens of summer foliage along with the bright colours of tropical flowers. I thought these would work well for the Solstice. Of course the hearts needed to be pink and I added some teal-blue to the small diamond beads for a bit of variety.

On top of the dots around the design I added tiny dots of gold glittery loveliness using a Uniball Signo glitter gel pen. I also added some tiny dots in the centres of the stylised flowers.

To give an idea of the size of this design, the black paper behind the parchment is A4 (approx US letter) in size.

Adhering the parchment to the black paper was a problem as glue shows through, so I had to use some tiny dots where the white lines were thick enough to disguise the glue.

I really think that the white lines of the parchment create something that is equally as lovely and maybe a bit more delicate than my usual black line art.

The uses of this design are many – greeting cards, note cards, framed artwork or used in Bullet Journals, journals, planners, scrapbooks, and more. In fact, I may replicate the design for my July cover spread in my BuJo.

If you’d like to learn more about drawing your own dangle designs, then my book “A Dangle A Day” is, perhaps, a good place to start.

So, Angela, how are you feeling today?

I’m feeling quite content today. Tired still, but content.

It seems the anti-stigma talk for Time to Change Wales and the anxiety I had around doing it on Wednesday has taken it’s toll on me just a bit. I do know, however, that I will recover in the fullness of time for sure.

This is part of the emotional/mental weather that is part of life. Beneath this weather is a calmer, more content Angela. I find this version of me from time to time; indeed I’m content in myself on many more days than I am discontented. Even with the bout of anxiety on Wednesday there was still a sense of being content.

It’s a strange thing to feel both at the same time. A bit like feeling the firm ground beneath my feet as a wild wind is buffeting me and trying to blow me down. I can feel that firm footing even when my emotions are a bit on the wild and windy side.

That’s progress on my journey to recover from CPTSD. Even more progress that I can recognise and describe this feeling.

This realisation makes me smile.

It’s progress, but it’s not where I want to be. I want to be able to go out and about without being scared of my own shadow. To be able to travel to unfamiliar places and actually get out of my car when I don’t have an appointment of some kind. To be able to go into an unfamiliar cafe or eatery when I’m by myself when I’m hungry and thirsty. To not go into full flight mode when something small has spooked me. To not be startled by loud noises. I want to be able to reach out to people without fear of rejection or to allow people into my home. To have all kinds of relationships with healthy boundaries where my needs and boundaries are respected by myself. To be able to go shopping without being overwhelmed by the choices available so I end up leaving without getting anything that’s needed.

These are but a few of ways that CPTSD affects my life and that I’d like to change through the healing journey I’m undertaking with the help of EMDR and therapy.

I’ve never been anything other than this permanently scared, extremely self-conscious person. Different events and places result in different levels of fear/anxiety in me. Even sat here, at my familiar desk, I feel anxious about writing about it.

The progress is that I recognise it now. I have identified it. Although it’s still there, it’s slowly being dis-empowered. Slowly means it’s being done properly and that I have time for the new level of anxiety or the increased self-awareness has time to become familiar to me before the next step forward is made. Familiar means it’s the more healed me. Healing bit by bit.

Mandala WIP – update

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Mandala WIP - update © Angela Porter 2019 - Artwyrd.com
Mandala WIP – update © Angela Porter 2019 – Artwyrd.com

I have to say I am really, really pleased with how this mandala is working out. It’s not at all what I expected in the first instance, but I am so chuffed with myself.

I also think I am really getting the hang of this digital art malarkey too. I can also say that there is no way I would have been able to create this using traditional media – I’ve tried similar things in the past and it all ends up such a mess with me.

Digital art is the media I think I may have been waiting for. It’s taken me three years to get to this artistic level with digital art. Even in this mandala you can see how I have learned and developed ideas as I’ve worked from the centre out.

I absolutely love my Microsoft products – Surface Pen, Surface Book and Surface Studio. I cut my digital art teeth on the Surface Book (not literally!) and found I enjoyed digital art and when I felt I could I got a Surface Studio as the smaller size of the Surface Book screen was frustrating me a little.

The change to the Surface Studio is what has enabled me to really take to digital art. The size of the screen, the ease at which I can change the angles at which I work with the Surface Studio, the speed of the processors, the sensitivity of the pen on the screen…

I just love it! So much so I’m on the point of destashing nearly all my traditional art media and gifting them to a worthy cause.

Don’t get me wrong. I love to draw with pen on paper, that won’t ever change so my pen collection won’t be going anywhere. But the way I can use colour and texture digitally is an absolute dream. It’s also mess-free!

I hope you noticed that I said I’m really pleased with this mandala. It’s not often I’m able to say that about my art. But today I can and I am. I am actually smiling when I look at this mandala.

My only problem now is that I’ve changed the design of the mandala in the latest ‘ring’. Oh well, I can adjust accordingly or just create a new design around this one. I’ll see how I go with that.

I also quite like the ‘ghostly’ outline mandala design as a background, though silly me managed to leave the outline above the coloured design. One of the wonderful things about working in layers is that things like this aren’t a problem!

I think I may celebrate my progress with this mandala and also my digital art skills with a nice mug of tea!

“Happy Birthday Brett” – An Entangled Design

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"Happy Birthday Brett" An Entangled Design ©Angela Porter 2019
“Happy Birthday Brett” An Entangled Design ©Angela Porter 2019

Happy Birthday Brett!

Today is Brett’s birthday. Brett is a lovely person who works hard with the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

So, I thought I’d design an entangled design for her birthday and ask members of the group to colouring using some or a lot of pink and shower the facebook group with pink in the coming hours and days (Brett loves pink!). I will be adding colour to the design in the coming day or two as well, to join in the colourful coloring celebration!

If you’d like to join in, just pop over and sign up to the group – you’ll be made most welcome there!

Dangle design

As it’s Friday it’s also dangle day and I sneaked a couple of dangles into the design, just for a bit of fun and also to make sure there’s some white space.

My tutorial book “A Dangle A Day” shows you how, step by step, to draw your own dangle designs.

To draw this design I used a 0.8 Uniball Unipin pen and an A4 sheet of Winsor and Newton Bristol board. I added the colour gradient digitally.

So, how are you today Angela?

My day started off rather flat and a tad ‘meh’ as I woke. It was raining-pouring and the skies were dark and leaden. The clouds have now broken and some sunshine is streaming through. As the sun has shone my mood has improved to a fairly content status.

I think I’ve confirmed what I finally noticed earlier this week – the weather really does affect my mood. I may have to get some lamp bulbs that mimic the qualities of sunlight for gloomy days to prevent gloomy moods.

Off I go now to add some colour to the design above!

“Inspiration” WIP

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"Inspiration" WIP ©Angela Porter 2019 - Artwyrd.com
“Inspiration” WIP ©Angela Porter 2019 – Artwyrd.com

Three more hours work done colouring this drawing in digitally. Slow process, but an engaging one, especially as I’m still exploring how different brushes and effects work. Slow but I think it’s coming along quite nicely.

I do need a bit of a break from it now for a little while, however. More tea is needed and it’s about lunchtime.

Drawn with Tombow Fudenosuke and Lamy fountain pens on Winsor and Newton bristol board. Digitally coloured using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Pen and Microsoft Surface Studio.

So, how are you today Angela?

This section is becoming a regular feature on my blog, isn’t it?

It’s important for us to talk about our mental and emotional health and recognise how they are in the way we do for our physical health. I hope that when I share little bits of my continuing tale of recovery from CPTSD it may help to break down the stigma and discrimination that there is around mental health and wellbeing.

Today I’m feeling ok, content. That’s all I have to say about my emotional and mental state today – contented.

“Inspiration” WIP

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Inspiration WIP ©Angela Porter 2019 - Artwyrd.com
Inspiration WIP ©Angela Porter 2019 – Artwyrd.com

I’ve started colouring “Inspiration”, the drawing I completed yesterday.

The drawing was done with a Tombow Fudenosuke and a Lamy medium fountain pen on Winsor and Newton Bristol Board. I’m colouring it digitally using my favourite trio of Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Pen and Microsoft Surface Studio.

So far, I’ve spent 3 hours colouring, so it’s going to take me a while longer to complete.

To be honest, it would be a lot quicker to colour using Chameleon markers or other traditional media. Weird, when computers make doing other tasks so much quicker and easier.

That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy adding colour. I mean, I could do that a lot quicker if I chose to use gradient fills. However, this time I wanted to add colour as if I was using traditional media, being able to follow the shapes of the design more closely, having more control over where I add shadows and highlights.

So, I’ll take the time over this one, like I do with many of my artworks.

So, how are you today Angela?

EMDR yesterday was a little different. We didn’t do any EMDR but we worked with my inner child on helping her to heal from past traumas.

I felt silly and daft initially. I didn’t have a clue what I was being asked to do, but my therapist guided me through the process, and eventually I relaxed a little and tried.

I was surprised. Emotional too. It’s not something that I’m comfortable sharing other than in general.

After EMDR I spent sometime in a Starbucks drinking tea, eating a piece of chocolate truffle cake and drawing. Partly this was to wait out the rush hour, mostly it was to give myself a treat after sticking with a therapy session that seemed silly and turned out to be an emotional, insightful and helpful process.

So, the healing journey from CPTSD continues, taking an unexpected turn.

Yesterday, as the sun came out as the day waned my mood brightened a little from just about content to a little more on the happy side. Today I’m a bit tired after a broken night’s sleep with weird dreams but I’m quite content.

Inspiration – Entangled drawing

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Inspiration © Angela Porter 2019 - Artwyrd.com
Inspiration © Angela Porter 2019 – Artwyrd.com

My morning task, afore heading out for my EMDR session later, was to finish this drawing.

I used a combination of a Tombow Fudenosuke pen along with a medium nib Lamy fountain pen on Winsor and Newton Bristol Board, A4 in size, to draw this design and add the hand lettering.

The white space really helps to break up the intricate details; helps to separate out the sections and gives the eyes and brain a bit of a rest from it.

I will add colour to this in the fullness of time, most probably digitally.

So, how are you today Angela?

I’m content. Not quite as smiley happy as yesterday, but content. Calm too, or relatively so. There’s a low level background noise of anxiety there.

I do wonder if the weather affects my moods more than I thought it did. Yesterday was both sunny and rainy – rather heavy spells of rain. The sun and driving in the sun was lovely and helped to lift my spirits somewhat.

Today there’s no sun. Just grey clouds and there’s been rain. I’m not quite as tickettyboo as yesterday.

I think I may need to add a weather tracker to my BuJo alongside my mood tracker to see if there is a correlation.

I have my EMDR session in a couple of hours time. I have no idea how that will affect me at this point in time, nor what memory we’ll work on. I won’t dwell or ruminate on it for now. Just get myself sorted to make the hour-long journey to Neath in a little while. Yes, I think that’s best for now.

Entangled floral for June

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All coloured! © Angela Porter - Artwyrd.com
All coloured! © Angela Porter – Artwyrd.com

I finally finished colouring this one today. It’s the June template for the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group.

There’s rather a lot of purple and teal-blue in ths one, as well as greens. I do have trouble with colour from time to time, it has to be said.

This was drawn with Uniball Unipin pens on Winsor and Newton Bristol board. I then added colour using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, a Microsoft Surface Pen and Surface Studio.

So, how are you feeling today Angela?

I’m actually feeling quite content, almost happy I think. My mood has been improving over the past week or so, but it’s really headed towards contentedness in the pass couple of days for sure. It’s a welcome place to be in for sure.

I got myself off to Hay On Wye today. It was a quick visit for me. I wanted to go to Bartrums to get a new Leuchtturm 1917 dot grid notebook and came away with a lovely pastel coloured Lamy fountain pen in Mint. Oh, the Leuchtturm is in Pacific Blue, which is a petrel blue. I also wanted to pop into Satori to look at the crystals, minerals and jewellery there. I did come away with a piece of Atlantisite- a combination of yellowish-green serpentine with inclusions of purple stichtite. I also picked up a piece of sunstone. Why? Because I liked them, a lot!

What surprised me, though, was how I found myself walking tall and proud, looking at the world around me and smiling.

When I’m in a not so good place emotionally/mentally, I tend to hold my head down, try to shrink my nearly 6 foot tall and rather hefty body into a smaller space so I may avoid being noticed. To that end I also avoid eye contact with people.

Today I didn’t do that. I faced the world almost boldly for me.

I really would like this feeling to last, or if I have a dip, for it to return again soon.

I have experienced feeling like this from time to time in the past, but not for a goodly long while, and not in a way that I’ve really paid attention to it.

The anxiety I have on a day to day basis was there, but just a faint background noise. It didn’t stop me from doing what I wanted to do, though I have to say it was a close call as I was deciding whether to go to Bartrum’s or The Pencil Case in Cowbridge. Bartrums won out because I wanted to visit Satori too.

Anyway, today has been a nice day to have a point of reference as to how I’d like to feel for the rest of my life, mostly. I know that being like this every moment of every day isn’t likely to be realisitic; things happen in life that knock our emotions, we all have emotional weather. However, to be able to return to this place would be a good thing when that weather gets stormy.

Something to talk about in EMDR therapy tomorrow.

Be Brave – WIP

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Be Brave ©Angela Porter 2019 - Artwyrd.com
Be Brave ©Angela Porter 2019 – Artwyrd.com

I’m currently working on this design. It took around 6 hours to draw the design and I’ve spent a couple of hours so far colouring it.

I drew the design on Winsor and Newton Bristol Board using Uniball Unipin and Sakura Pigma Sensei pens. I’ve started to add colour digitally.

I’m not sure about the background colour, yet. I fancy sunset colours, but I think I’ll wait and see how it looks when coloured in more.

Easy to change the colours when I’m digitally colouring using the usual trio of Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Pen and Microsoft Surface Studio.

So, how do you feel today Angela?

Today I’m feeling quite content and fairly motivated as far as artwork goes.

I’m not quite so motivated to go out and about, however. But content and motivated artistically is good enough compared to how I’ve been of late. Progress is being made.

And so the journey of recovery from CPTSD continues forward once more.