I needed to create a cute, whimsical, simple mandala this morning (and on into the afternoon). This is what I came up with. Plenty of bright colours glowing against the dark background.
Stars and hearts are motifs that often appear in my work, as well as arches that can be like petals, sunshine or architectural. The holly leaves and berries mark this mandala as a winter one.
Digital art worked using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and Microsoft Surface Pen and Surface Studio.
It’s another day, another new dawn, and I needed to do some art to self-soothe. When I’m like this I nearly always draw mandalas.
Carl Jung, the psychotherapist, asserted that by drawing mandalas, we get a view of what is going on in the unconscious (subconscious) mind that we are unaware of. He also recognised that drawing a mandala gives a window into the current state of mind and emotions, it also allows ordering and healing to take place.
Yesterday’s mandala and today’s are quite different, but drawn for the same Yesterday’s mandala and today’s are quite different but drawn for the same purpose. To soothe my overwhelmed emotions, and it has helped in doing that..a bit, anyway.
I’m not entirely sure how I’d interpret my own mandala, however, but I’m sure that plenty of people will read a lot more into than I will.
I woke earlier with the need for some self-caring, self-soothing art and a mandala is the only thing that does that at times.
I created a background using various shades of pink and red Distress Inks (Worn Lipstick, Abandoned Coral and Candied Apple). I scanned it in and then drew the mandala digitally.
I needed pink as a soothing colour, so I chose a monochrome (more or less) colour scheme for the mandala.
I knew I wanted a Star Wars quote, and I chose this one from The Clone Wars. I feel a Star Wars marathon coming on later today; something else that I find soothing.
First, though, I want to get some work done on colouring another illustration for the Spectacular Sea-life coloring book. This is yet more self-soothing.
I thought I’d use the coloured paper from yesterday in some digital art.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I’ve created a simple bit of line art to celebrate the day, and it’s available exclusively to members of the Angela Porter’s Coloring Book Fans facebook group. It’s free to join and I have a number of templates that are exclusive and free to members of the group.
I love to see how people use colour to bring my drawings to life. I provide the bones, the colorists add the flesh in the form of colour.
I wanted to try out an idea I had, and it’s worked out fine, I think. Mind you, I’m not thinking well today – I’m experiencing an ‘introvert hangover’ from being in a large group of people last night. I come across as quite an extrovert to people, but that is a well practiced mask and to keep it up is rather exhausting. It’s also tiring to be around people with all the noise, various emotions, and just the number of people there.
I have a couple of things that I need to get done this afternoon, and I also need to take care of myself and this ‘hangover’ of a headache and tiredness. I really need a good amount of alone and self-caring time. Maybe when I get home this evening I’ll manage to do that.
Anyways, the arty idea I had has ended up as a rather ghostly, faded design, which actually describes how I feel at the moment.
I like the softness of both the contrast but also of the lines that form the mandala. I do have a bit of a thing for grungy backgrounds at the moment. The texture really appeals to me and I like the contrast between the more orderly mandala designs and the chaotic grungy-ness.
I’ve had a busy day learning new things to do with video and so on. The concentration has taxed my brain just a bit, and I needed some time in an arty happy place.
My first task was to find a quote that appealed to me today. This one is quite apt I think, for many reasons. I’m not entirely sure my typography is right for the quote, but it will do for now.
I then knew I wanted to do a mandala as a background. I find this style of mandala very soothing to draw, and soothing was just what I needed today.
Once I’d finished the mandala, I added colour in greens and teal. Calming, soothing, balancing colours for today. Colours of calm contentment, which is just how I feel at the moment. Also hopeful colours. That green reminds me a lot like the first leaves showing themselves at the tail end of winter, spreading hope that the warmer, lighter days will soon be here.
Quote by J L Wyman, art by myself.
I read this and knew I just had to create a mandala sun to go with it. So I have.
A bit of a calming time was needed this morning before attending to my business of the day. I thought a mandala in blues, greens and purples would hit the mark.
I enjoy using a flexible ink pen ‘brush’ to achieve the varying line widths. This allows me to build up abstract patterns and textures quite nicely I think. I have a way to go to find my ‘voice’ with this style of art. The more I do, the more will become clear to me I’m sure.
I’m not sure that the design flows as much as in yesterday’s mandala. I wonder if that’s because I only put one rather geometric series of rings in the centre of the design.
I had a tough EMDR session yesterday. Today, I feel content and upbeat but I’m realising just how tired I am mentally, despite 10 hours sleep. Yesterday’s session had a lot of body processing going on. That means stored trauma is processed via physical sensations. Yesterday those included electric shocks in my leg/foot, side, arm, pains like hooks in my shoulders, a blunt pushing/stabbing force from my stomach up towards my heart, pain in my eye. Those are just a few I remember. The pain/sensations weren’t more than I could bear, though some came close to it!
30 or 40 minutes of this is enough in a session I find, and that little amount of time out of my day is worth it for the long term benefits it brings of helping me recover from CPTSD. The tiredness I feel will pass in a day or so.
I actually drew this one last night. My emotions were overwrought and I needed something that was calming and relaxing.
I used a digital equivalent to scratchboard art. I used my digital brushes to remove areas from the upper black layer to reveal the lower, coloured layer.
To create the more geometric areas I used the digital equivalent of fineliner pens. For the more organic lines, I used a flexible nib digital brush.
There is a kind of magic in revealing the colour hidden by the black darkness. I found myself working in a quite different way to recent mandalas; it’s going to be a technique I return to again and again I’m sure.
Digitally created using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Pen and Microsoft Surface Studio.
Monday is still EMDR therapy day for me. My emotional and mental health is generally the best it’s ever been. However, I’ve discovered that I’m still a bit too close to the edge of the abyss within which I was trapped for most of my life. I wore a well practiced mask so that few people really knew the inner struggles I had on a daily basis.
It was such a good mask that I mostly fooled myself, until I could no longer do so around ten or twelve years ago.
I thought everybody thought and felt the same way I did; I never knew any different. Now, however, I know what contentment is and what feeling happy is too.
Last week’s EMDR session floored me for around three days. I didn’t expect it to do so. Memories surfaced that I’d pushed away and they distressed me greatly. The emotional exhaustion was intense; all I wanted to do was sleep. That wasn’t possible – as well as having the Spectacular Sea Life colouring book to finish I’m involved in an intense project which requires a lot of focus and concentration of a different kind. It’s also provoking emotional responses in me that are causing me some difficulties. One of those emotional responses resulted in me running away from the internet to watch Star Wars and then to create this mandala.
I have learned how to self-soothe!
The realm of emotions is really tricky for me. For most of my life I numbed my emotions. It was a strategy that helped me to survive as a child and the unhealthy strategy continued into my adult life.
Through EMDR, I’ve discovered that I have emotions, some I never knew existed in me and I had no names for them. Which is odd, as I could always recognise those emotions in others!
Anyway, by becoming more self-aware of my body and emotions and dropping the protective mask I’m having to learn to put boundaries and barriers in place to protect myself. Learning to say no, or the clear equivalent of that little word, is not an easy task. However, I am learning.
Healing from CPTSD is a tricky process, but it really is possible! It takes time though. Well, in my case it has.
Art is the Adventure 