Sunday 8 February 2015

ITS NOT EASY ....

 


This is one of my "talk myself out of a low mood" pages!  I try really hard not to be a Moaning Minnie, always on about my pain or problems.  We all know how it can feel to be on the receiving end of someone who only ever wants to talk about themselves, their health, their latest operation etc so when this journey of chronic illness began I made a private vow that I wouldn't turn into one of those. OK I will also admit that we have one in the family as a horrid example ... which made me all the more determined to work at being half full rather than half empty!

But it was a bit of a blue day so I made this background of blue circles, and you can see the first words I wrote down below.  I often do this - make a background and then just write something, anything down.  It frequently surprises me what pops out that I didn't know was there but which needed to be said and acknowledged in order to deal with it.
So of course, having done that the next question had to be "what isn't"?  What's not easy that you need to give voice to?  Then the rest came naturally.  I began to add yellow to reflect a wish for positive energy rather than the negative blue, and the wings just seemed right: the idea in my head being something to do with wings lifting you up and out of yourself.  I know what I mean!  They're done with a rubber stamp which I printed onto a separate piece of paper and then stuck here.
The face is there representing the face that I, and presumably each of us, presents to the world - which doesn't always reveal what's really going on inside us.  The yellow is a Posca paint pen and, as you can see, these write really well, even over a blue Neocolour II background, although as here certain colours may need more than one application.
Then I got to the fun part - the doodling and the dotting etc, which I find kind of meditative and takes me away somewhere else.  At this point it actually began to remind me of a map of the heavens or something like that?  Like some kind of planet glowing in the firmament?  I also added a bit more yellow collage while I was about it because it seemed to need a frame of some kind.
So I guess this page was about being sunny and yellow, rather than blue, while at the same time admitting to myself that its sometimes a struggle to be that way, and to stay cheerful, and that I literally dare not give in. That way lies madness .... if it were not for God and all that she means in my life.

6 comments:

Debs M said...

fabulous! and you're right - it's not x

jinxxxygirl said...

Your journal pages never fail to inspire......deb

viv said...

I can see your pages help you so much with the way you feel

Ali Manning said...

This is an awesome page. I love the color combo and doodling. And our art journals are the perfect place to work through all these feelings!

alexa said...

And it does indeed look like a sun in a blue firmament ... I like that face addition too. Hoping that it has lifted you, or that at least being half full seems less onerous than being half empty. Having been laid up for only a week (strained back shovelling snow and lifting my Dad's steel walking frame in and out of the car) I have a teeny glimpse of how demoralising constant pain can be. You have my admiration.

Linda Vincent said...

Love this.....its very you. And why are dots so gorgeous.....is it the twinkliness of them? Reminiscent of fairy lights? Whatever it is...I love them! x