Fineliner pen and coloured pencils on paper. A little less than A5 in size. A break from artwork being done for Michael O’Mara Books.
Good news is that some people in the UK have received their copies of Color Me Calm ahead of the 27th Nov release date Amazon have on their website. Woohoo!
This is a coloured copy of the mandala I posted yesterday. I used marker pens to colour it.
I returned to work at school two weeks ago and I have found it has resulted in a lot less time for me to indulge myself in my creative, artistic pursuits. The evenings and weekends seem to disappear in sleep as I’m so tired.
I do seem to be coping a lot better with the stresses and strains of being a teacher, which is a good thing.
The mandala above was finished earlier this week. I am debating whether to add colour and/or shadows or to leave it as it is. I shall see how the fancy takes me over the weekend.
It has been a while since I last made a post to my blog.
I have been struggling with vagueness and lack of focus with the medication I’m taking, and this one I’m on now doesn’t suit either. As well as the vagueness, I’m constantly on edge and fidgety, and the medication is supposed to treat that not cause it. Have to give it a couple more weeks before it’ll be changed though. I’m still away from work as a result.
In spite of all of this I’ve still been busy with art, though the focus for the projects I’m involved in has been lacking at times, but just ‘doodling’ with no constraints or requirements does help me settle a little and also is something I can do that doesn’t need that focus.
In the summer I signed contracts to do the artwork for two books linked to art therapy. In the last week I was approached by another company to do one book for them in the first instance, and if it goes well then there could be a whole series of them. My hope is that I’ll have enough contracts and work lined up that I can go kind of part time at work. That won’t be for a while and I need to get myself better first, but the part time may be a way of helping me remain ‘better’ in the future. Time will tell.
I’ve been busy with art. This is just one thing finished recently. It’s a little less than A4 in diameter.
Another astronomical cycle completed as the Earth returns to the point of solstice once again. The first day of Winter. A time to reflect on the year behind, successes and otherwise. A time to be willing to let go of all that has run it’s course, either by being completed or no longer needed, to make space for new growth as the Sun grows in power once again, increasing the amount of light flooding the Earth (well the Northern Hemisphere).
For whatever reason, it seems more natural to me to follow markers in time and the symbolism of the waxing and waning cycles of the Sun and how that relates to the patterns that we see reflected in our lives than does anything else. All a bit odd coming from a scientist, perhaps.
This year I will be looking on it as a continuation of a new start in my life. I have been off work since the middle of November and it really is time to let go of the old patterns of negative thinking about myself that have so blighted my life and experiences. It’s not going to be easy; fifty years of them whispering and disempowering and controlling me is a very long time. It can be done and I have to see it as a long term process, with the help of my doctor. It’s not been easy to admit I need help with all of this, or to acknowledge, truthfully to myself, the impact it has all had on myself.
However long it has taken me, I’m at that point where little steps are needed, and I do have to understand it is little steps, that this can’t be sorted instantly or overnight.
There’s been a complex set of circumstances that led me to this point of requesting help, not least of which was the nagging of a dear friend to get the help needed; it took them over a year to get through to me, that’s how much in denial I have been. However, we did get there.
I’m not prepared to air the circumstances here, where anyone and everyone can see them. Those who know me will know what they are, maybe. Those who don’t can infer for themselves what this may be about.
All I know is that I’m quietly on the mend now, slowly but surely, and that is all that matters.
My love and thanks go out to that dear friend who nagged me. My love and thanks to my little sister who has made sure that I don’t totally lock myself away all the time. My love and thanks to those I’ve seen and spoken to in the past few weeks, and before that, who have helped and supported me.
It’s been a long half-term at school; eight weeks to be precise. In that time there’s been two training days, a twilight training session. a memorial walk to raise money for school funds and the Senghenydd Mining Disaster Memorial, almost daily incidents of poor behaviour/attitude to deal with, lessons observations, book reviews (as in how well and regularly work is being marked), a consultation with my union representative, a stress-meltdown and hopefully the end of three year period of what feels like persecution/bullying in a particular situation at work (culminating in the union consultation and the stress meltdown).
I still have a pupil to be dealt with who has been making threats to physically attack me because I apparently ‘start on him’ by asking him to do his work. How shocking is that, that I should request he stop shouting around the class, distracting others and to do his work?
Oh the joys of being a teacher.
Having said that, there are joys. The shared smiles and laughter with pupils enjoying the lessons. The ones whose faces light up when they see me and who never exhibit poor behaviour in my class, even though they may do in other lessons), the shared laughter with colleagues, morning breakfast with ‘the girls’, the helpfulness of the lab tech, the enthusiasm and questioning of pupils because they are interested in something, their kindness and thoughtfulness. And so much more that it’s a shame it can become dominated by the negative things that occur and dominate my ruminating, over-analysing, over-thinking brain.
It’s been really busy for me with having to prepare work for a new course I’m running with my special needs classes, as well as teaching mainstream classes that I’ve not done for years. It’s meant late nights at work and even bringing work home – something I avoid doing as I do not want to go down the route of being a workaholic as I was in the first decade or so of my teaching career.
This busy-ness has really eaten into my creative time. Little art has been done, and I’m am doing my best to settle back into it in this half-term, especially as I have two contracts to create artwork for two books, though I have been waiting for direction for what the artwork is to be for a long while now.
I’ve barely stopped in the first four day so of the half-term. I seem to be running away from time with myself. I can struggle with being alone, feeling lonely and end up keeping moving, moving, moving to avoid it. Today I am remaining at home and trying to get things out of the way so that I will settle to some arty pursuits, or de-stressing after the last half-term.
I do seem to be a lot more resilient than I was a year ago. Though things can get to me (such as loneliness, lack of a sense of belonging, the constant worry I’m doing things wrong that have precipitated the situation at work that led to a stress-meltdown), I often find there’s a content ‘centre’ in me that I can access when I do things of a creative nature or things that focus my mind away from it’s rumination and negative thinking. It’s a little easier to spot when this is happening, though I don’t always catch it in time to stop the tears, the self-loathing and the comfort eating.
I rejoined a choir I’ve been a member of since I was in school myself. Sadly, I had to leave again once the stress levels rose as my voice was, and still is, affected by the stress.
Out of all of this, and at odd times during the last couple of months, I have managed to do some arty things. Here’s two mandalas of mine.
This one is a little different for me. The colours are rather subdued for a start. It shows the influence of my love of Romanesque architectural details, geometric patterns, natural patterns, doodly patterns, and, dare I say it, zentangles, though I do have to say the use of repeated patterns and doodly patterns has been around for thousands and thousands of years not just through the cleverly packaged and marketed brand of Zentangle! I’ve used patterns like this in my art for a very long time, drawing on my own observations as well as those of others…
Anyway, this mandala has been created using Unipin pens, coloured pencils, a Pentel white hybrid gel pen, and gold and silver Sakura pens. Yes, there are some very subtle metallic highlights on this one that don’t really show up in the scan.
Yup, it’s the eighth one in the series this month. I really have become hooked on mandalas this past week or two. The repetition that’s necessary to complete them (well it is the way I do them) is calming and meditative; that’s not just for drawing the outline, or for the colouring, but for all the texturing as well.
This one uses a rather unusual, for me any way, colour palette. The background has been left white as I really don’t know what colour (or texture) to do it in. Do I do earthy greys and black, rich earthy greens, blues the hues of autumnal day, twilight and night skies, or some other colour(s) that I’ve not considered yet?
It will come to me, and any suggestions are always welcome!
And here it is with a background. I’m ambivalent about the background; part of me likes it, part of methinks the colours are too similar to the mandala design, part of me wonders if I should have played around with colours more, and part of me thinks that the texture on the background should have been done in a copper metallic ink with dark inner shadows.
Art is the Adventure 