This is approx. 7.25″ (18.5cm) in diameter. Black Unipin pens and polychromos pencils on heavy, acid-free cartridge paper.
It took two episodes of Criminal Minds to do the pencil pattern and then to go over it with ink. Another three or four episodes to complete the colouring, and another one or two to complete the texture lines.
I’m enjoying doing these; they’re very calming and meditative to do as there is a lot of repetition in producing the finished piece as they are geometric in design.
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!
I have just finished this.
It’s 18cm x 18cm and I used Unipin pens and coloured pencils on heavy, smooth acid-free cartridge paper.
I assert my rights as creator of this art; it may not be used or altered in any way without written permission from me.
In creating a mandala we open ourselves to all the possibilities that exist inside and outside of us.
Carl Gustav Jung is credited with introducing the Eastern concept of the mandala to Western thought and believed this symbol represented the total personality, aka the Self. Jung noted that when a mandala image suddenly turned up in dreams or art, it was usually an indication of movement toward a new self-knowledge.
Within everyone’s psyche, to one degree or another, can be found a seed-center of the self surrounded by a chaotic maelstrom of issues, fears, passions and countless other psychological elements. It is the very disordered state of these elements that creates the discord and emotional imbalances from which too many of us suffer on a regular basis.
[From various comments on mandala’s pinned on Pinterest].
I really have been kind of busy with art during my long summer holiday from the madness that is teaching. I have two more weeks until I return to that craziness, and working out how to juggle creating artworks for two books with the demands of teaching and a little bit of a social life too. I’m sure I’ll manage it; art will be my solace at the end of a crazy day as it always has been, this time with the impetus to create to fulfil a contract too (which won’t take away my passion for my art).
Here are some of my creations over the past few weeks.
And there’s more of these at Artwyrd at deviantART.
I’ve also been busy with mandala type things too.
Again, there are more at Artwyrd at deviantART, as well as other pieces of art I’ve done.
I turned 50 last week. I spent the day with a friend at the West Somerset Railway. All too often in my life I have spent special days alone; days like birthdays, Yuletide/Christmas, New Year and so on. This year I plucked up enough courage to ask him to join me knowing he also likes steam trains.
Yes, it took a LOT of courage. I have a big problem in asking people to join me or help me. I don’t like to be the centre of attention nor do I wish to be a burden to others, and I definitely don’t like the sting of rejection either.
All of that is a bit bizarre as I will help others, accompany them, accept invitations and so on if I am at all able to do so.
Yes, I have problems with self-esteem, self-image, self-confidence and a lack of social skills that others take for granted and it takes a LOT for me to do little things to learn and break down barriers that limit me in my life.
I am learning. I am finding the courage. Little by little.
And that quote is quite apt for how life is being for me at this time. Lots of little changes and challenges (well one rather big challenge).
All these little quotes are going into an A6 sketchbook which is for me to carry with me to remind me of the little things (or not so little things) I need to do or remember to help me change my view of myself and to change my life.
Well, that’s the plan anyway. In itself, the writing of the little messages and the decoration of them is a pleasure. I hope the work helps to cement them in my subconscious and to reprogramme the faulty thinking I still have, a lot of which stretches back to childhood.
I have finally found a self-help book that makes sense to me. It’s Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David Burns. In the book he makes the point that it’s your thoughts that create your feelings and not the other way around. Many thoughts we have we aren’t even faintly conscious of, yet they still have enormous power over the way we feel, which then feed back to the thoughts producing still more feelings. We all have inner critics, negative automatic thoughts, and we can learn to change them, or at least reduce the power they have over us.
I’ve come across this idea in counselling in the past, but it’s never made as much sense to me as it does now. I think the counselling I had helped me heal some aspects of myself, understand others, gave me strength to continue teaching, but, more importantly, it laid some of the foundations for me continuing to heal the mis-conceptions I have about myself and the resulting limits they place upon my life (or rather the limits I allow them to place upon my life).
I have noticed a difference in myself lately. One big difference was me inviting someone to join me.
A second difference was the way I accepted the offer to create the artwork for two books; I did this almost unhesitatingly. The hesitation was about the number of art works needed and the time given to do them in. Surprisingly, the hesitation wasn’t about my ability, my self-doubt, and that was a big step forward for me too.
Yet another is that I’ve noticed I’m a lot more at ease around people. At one time I would be fidgety and eager to keep moving to move along to the next thing. Now, I can relax. On my darker days, the days when I’m low and in tears I do tend still to be on the move constantly, running away from myself quite figuratively, not happy to spend time in my own company. In the past this would have involved a lot of money being spent on pointless things, trying to buy a sense of ‘value’ of myself, or trying to show others I’m valuable as a person because of these things I have.
The truth is spend, spend, spend was only ever an Elastoplast over the wound called a huge lack of self-worth.
Comfort eating is a behaviour I still indulge in. I comfort-eating to fill the gaping wound that is a lack of people and love/affection in my life on a consistent basis. Oddly, the days I’ve spent with friends and the day or so afterwards are days where I have no overwhelming appetite, no need to stuff myself stupid to fill the hole, to hide the emptiness inside. Other days, I often don’t consciously realise what I’m doing until it’s done. I then feel stuffed full, and sick. Sick of myself, of how it makes me feel fatter than I am (I am overweight, how much so I don’t know as my inner-mirror is warped and I see myself as huge as blue whale), ugly (well if you’re overweight, you are ugly, and not just ugly on the outside but on the inside too), useless, no one will want to be my friend…these phrases are often heard in the strident, bitchy, sarcastic tones of my mother’s voice.
I’m getting better at finding evidence to refute these erroneous beliefs about myself, to understand that beauty isn’t a dress size or an age. I haven’t quite found the key to fit the lock to allow me to change these thoughts on a consistent basis.
Creating the quote artwork has been one tool in an increasingly large toolbox to help me find or forge the key that will dis-empower the negative automatic thoughts and allow me to believe I am the good, nice, beautiful person that others seem to think I am and that I deserve more good in my life.
I was contacted by Darya’s mum asking if I’d ‘do a blessing in the style of your cards’.
This is what I did. It’s approx A4 in size.
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.
March Theta 1
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
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.
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.
This is approx. 7″ in diameter. It’s worked using UniBall Unipin pens, Caran D’Ache watersoluble coloured pencils and tiny amounts of gold paint and ink on heavy cartridge paper.
I’m not entirely sure that it works. I think I’ll have to step away from it for a while before evaluating it with fresh eyes.
In it’s defence, I must say I lost myself in the creativity of the process and it relaxed and soothed me and has let me practice some ideas.
Art is the Adventure 