Arts and Crafts

Yet another mandala…number 6 of the month!

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August Mandala 6 © Angela Porter 2013

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!

More Quote Greetings Cards.

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TiledQuoteCards1_AngelaPorter_2013 TiledQuoteCards2_AngelaPorter_2013

The human mind always makes progress…

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TheHumanMindAlwaysCard©AngelaPorter2013

Approx. 5″ square.  Unipin pens and Zig Art and Graphic Twin pens with water as a wash.  Metallic highlights.

Soggy Sunday Afternoon…

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Self-love, journal writing and letter writing to heal.

It’s been a while since I last blogged something.

Life has been both interesting and uninteresting.  I’ve had a lot of thinking to do, a lot of ‘down time’ has been needed to recover from the emotional stresses and strains of my working life.

I’ve spent a lot of time reading, the latest books are about using a journal as a method of self-love and healing oneself from the events of the past.  Something I need to do.

I have kept a journal for many years now, and I do vent and rant in it and find my way to some kind of clarity.  I have become a little disheartened at times as I seem to end up ranting about the same things over and over.  The books I have read ( Writing to Heal by Jacqui Malpass and Journalution: Journal writing to heal your life and manifest your dreams by Sandy Grason) have shown me that this isn’t a problem, that it may take many times through the same thing to come to clarity, forgiveness (of self and others) and to let go and move on.  In other words, I need to be kinder to myself and not be such an overachieving perfectionist!  And I mean that kindly

My plans for my journal today are to make a list of people who I need to write letters to for the hurts done to me in the past (even if such hurt and pain was not their intent) and to people I’ve not had ‘completion’ with. These letters that will never be sent but will allow me to let out of myself the anger, fear, hate, upset, disappointment and so on, and work my way towards forgiving them and myself.

I’ve swallowed down hurt and upset and anger and fear and so many more emotions with copious quantities of food.  The emotional reactions have been locked away, though they burst out at times, quite explosively at times, and it scares me that this ‘ice maiden’ has such energetic emotions.  I’ve spent a lifetime of nearly fifty years suppressing my feelings, not sharing how I feel with others for fear of rejection, embarrassment  conflict, hatred.  I’m not good at putting into words what I think and feel if I’m upset in anyway.  I am, however, much better at writing things down, as shown in my journaling of the past decade or so.

I won’t keep the letters either.  I’m going to burn each one as it’s finished.  If I need to return to the same person or group of people over and over again to clear things up for me, then I will do so.  I will keep doing this until I can write a letter that forgives them, and one that forgives me too.

Some of the letters may be apologies for the way I behaved.  I do have a tendency to cut people off, dead, if they upset me or betray me in any way.  To keep myself safe, I walk away, ignore them when they are around.  If I’m expected to work with them I can be cold and short with my words, protecting myself with such a thick wall of icy feelings and icy words.

This is kind of a scary thing to do.  It’s not the first time I’ve tried this, but this time has the feeling of ‘the time is now’ about it.  Pennies have dropped about the purpose of the letter writing, of letting out all the things I’ve kept bottled up for years inside me in a controlled manner, the writing being the control.

Art

Art has been pretty much on hold as I struggle with the idea that I deserve to love myself, finding out what self-love and self-esteem are all about, and just letting ideas filter through the conscious to the unconscious mind.  Inspiration for art has been, maybe not lacking, but put on the back burner for a while.  However, there are some creations, some that are works in progress, others that are finished pieces.Rising above the pale©AngelaPorter2013

Tangled Border © Angela Porter 2013

Across the divide WIP © Angela Porter 2013

Abstract May#1 © Angela Porter 2013

Abstract May#2 © Angela Porter 2013

Mad March begins…

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March Theta 1

March Theta 1 © Angela Porter 2013

10cm x 15cm (approx. 4″ x 6″).  Uni-Pin pens and graphite pencil on acid-free cartridge paper.

The product of a couple of evenings work here.

Imagination

Image

10cm x 10cm (approx. 4″ x 4″).  UniPin pens, Inktense pencils with wash and UniBall Sparkle gel pen in gold.

Just an experiment with a quote.  I’m not entirely sure that it works.

Crazy Time

Work has been manic and very stressful at times.  You’d think that after a full school inspection some of the pressure would ease off.  Not a chance.  Or maybe it has a little, but the staff, including myself, are exhausted mentally and emotionally and are struggling on.

I was away for the best part of a week with some kind of stomach ‘flu or bug.  Usually, I’d bounce back in a couple of days, but this one had me laid low.  On my return I was faced with staff friends stressed out about one thing or another, complaining about the behaviour and attitude of pupils and telling me about the incidents I’d missed while I’d been away.  Incidents that shocked me.  I had issues to deal with nearly every lesson; one of my tutor group arrived in my room in floods of tears stressed about school work and other things, another sensitive boy lost it in another lesson as the boys wouldn’t leave him alone when he was feeling a bit overwhelmed, another pupil had left a class because the boys were picking on her because her gran had died the night before.  All in two hours or so of arriving there.

The NHS

I’ve been getting on my high horse about the UK’s government’s plans to privatise the NHS through the back door.

I’m appalled at our present society.  The NHS, and the welfare state, are paid for by the British tax and National Insurance payers.  They are not owned by the government; the government is merely the administrator.  We, the tax payers own the NHS, as well as everything our taxes have paid for.  They have absolutely no right to sell them off without balloting the people.

It is not our fault the government and country is in dire financial straits.  It is wrong that our taxes are used to bail out the banks and other organisations.  It is wrong that the common people are hit by rising taxes, while the rich are given tax breaks when those who are most in need have to sell their homes, possessions in order to receive the care they need; this will only get worse if we end up having to pay for health care.  I’m sure our nation’s dental health has suffered as a result of the changes made in charges for dental care over the years.

We’re supposed to be a civilised, caring society where all have access to the care they need, regardless of their ability to pay.  Health care isn’t a business, it’s a basic human right, same as education, which has become a factory production line.

I signed a petition about the changes to the NHS and contacted my local MP.

If you’re in the UK and are reading this, you too can sign the petition at the 38degrees website.   In fact, please, please, please sign it.

It’s time the people realise that the government is answerable to us, the voters, that we expect them to manage things to take care of the society that contributes to the running of the country not the people who foul up financially, such as the banks, or to look after those who don’t need looking after as they are obscenely rich.

It seems that the government is stealing from the poorer echelons of society (and that includes the middle classes and professional people) in order to make sure the rich become richer.

Monograms

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I’ve been a little busy with some monograms.  They’re either 7.5cm x 12cm or 10cm x 10cm in size.  The rectangular ones are on watercolour paper, the square on bristol board.

a1©AngelaPorter 2013

b1©AngelaPorter 2013

c1©AngelaPorter 2013

d1©AngelaPorter 2013

e1©AngelaPorter 2013

f1©AngelaPorter 2013

Theta 2

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Theta2©AngelaPorter2013

I completed this yesterday.  It’s approx. A4 in size.  The major outlines were worked with an Umber Letraset Promarker with an ultrafine point.  The fine details were done using a UniBall UniPin fine line permanent pen.  There are gold highlights worked with a UniBall metallic gel pen.  The shading was done using a Derwent Graphitint pencil, Storm shade, and a water wash.  It took many hours of work…I lost count!

I’ve discovered Zentangles over the past few days.  The similarities between them and my art are remarkable, though I think my art has incorporated such things for a long time now without knowing about them, though it seems the first Zentangles were names as such in 2004 by their creators, Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas.

I have also found out that NeoPopRealism was created by Nadia Russ in 1989, and she used lines and repetetive patterns as a way to heal herself and her life.  This is taken from her website

“In 1989, Nadia Russ (aka Nadejda Maloletneva) invented the new art style, very unique art form of visual arts. Sensitive and emotional, Nadia was trying to get rid of her stress and frustration when things in her life were going wrong. But wrong was, then in 1989 and a few more years, almost everything. She drew with ink pen the line, turning into different shapes, figures, faces. Sections, that appeared, she filled with different repetitive patterns. Nadia never uses eraser. If she makes a “mistake”, it disappears because of the following patterns that balanced the whole composition. This drawing is meditative. Later, she was using the same concept when she created her oil and acrylic canvases. This art form called NeoPopRealism; she created this term January 4, 2003. The artworks of Nadia Russ are in different museums’ permanent art collections worldwide and in private collections all over the globe. “

Of course, doodling has been around for a very long time … and I often think of this kind of art that I do as ‘doodling’.  It is also very meditative and it can be the one thing that cheers me up during one of my darker days, something I look forward to coming home to at the end of a tough day at work.  It has a similar effect upon my soul and mind that the first mug of hot tea on arrival at home does – a huge inner sigh on the conscious, subconscious, physical and spiritual levels.

I am finding it interesting to look at the Zentangle patterns and how they can be constructed, and I’m even trying some of them out in a sketchbook.  Ultimately, my art flows, with no conception of what the finished piece will be; that has always been the case with my art – I really do just go with the flow.

*Added Tuesday 11 Feb 2013*

I have been told that Indian Mendhi designs predate Zentangles and NeoPopRealism by a very long time thanks to 1artviewer on deviantART.  These are the kind of designs that are applied using henna to the hands/feet of brides.

You can read more about these designs on Wikipedia and can see more on this website.

Of course, and I’ve mentioned this many times before, I’ve drawn inspiration from prehistoric rock art, as well as neolithic and bronze age art, early celtic and anglo-saxon art too.

*Edit ended*

Half Term at last!

3pm last Friday didn’t  come around quickly enough.  It’s been a short yet incredibly pressured half-term.  The pressure has come from the inspection, voice problems, and another problem that has affected my sleep, stress levels and health adversely.  I’m glad it’s over and I can have a week away from the madness without anything hanging over my head.

My only plans for this week are art, reading and sleeping, well apart from the other absolute necessities of life such as bathing and eating and so on.

It’s always quite tough for me to be alone to start with, but by the end of the week I’ll value my solitude.  It will have allowed me the time and space to just ‘be’, to relax, to rediscover myself.  Then, I will feel thrown back into the fray for another manic half-term.

Emergence 2

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Emergence 2 © Angela Porter 2013

Outlines worked using an Umber Letraset Promarker with an ultra-fine tip.  Colours applied using watercolours, watercolour pencils and metallic paints.

Approx. A4 in size.

As usual, I own the copyright to this work and it may not be used or altered in any way without written consent from me.

The letter P

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P © Angela Porter 2013

Approx. 16cm x 16 cm.  Rotring pen on white paper.

Just playing around here…thought I’d try this idea out.  Not happy with the overspills into the white space of the P.

As always, I own the copyright to this work.  It may not be used or altered in any way without written permission from myself.

Theta 1 Coloured

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Theta 1 Coloured © Angela Porter 2013

6″ x 8″ (15cm x 20cm).  Sharpie and rotring pens, Caran d’Ache watersoluble pencils with water wash and metallic paints and inks on heavy cartridge paper.

The colouring  has taken most of yesterday and another 3 hours today and it’s now done.

I own the copyright to this image and it may not be used or altered in any way without my written permission.