LOVE GIVES ME WINGS .....

  

Something of a departure for me you might think, but then again maybe this is just an extension of the line and pattern that I've been enthusiastically exploring in recent months.  I also LOVE Scandinavian motifs, you know the kind of thing with a pair of birds facing one another and a pattern of hearts and scrolls?  So when I set out to paint a bird this is very much what was in my mind ....

And this was one of those times when I knew from the outset that the title of this page would be "Love gives Me Wings", which is why there obviously had to be a bird.

Now I draw better than I paint, and if I do paint then watercolour is my medium of choice, as I find acrylics a bit crude for fine detail and shading.  However, blue background and blue bird both went down OK and I knew I would be adding black line detail to liven it up.  At this stage Himself leaned over my shoulder and looked at the bird a bit doubtfully.  "Go make coffee" I told him, "then you'll see".

When he returned I'd added these basic lines and he began to understand where I was going with it. "Looks a bit Scandinavian" he said.  Good, because that was the look I was after!  Oddly enough no hearts found their way into this, and you'd think as a strong element in that kind of design, and the theme, they would have belonged?  Apparently not.

Then I was on a roll and exploring all sorts of line and pattern ... which is a bit of an obsession with me lately.  The words I already knew, but I expanded on them a bit.  It reached the point below and I felt like it was finished, but I couldn't help thinking that it was still a bit bare?

Not wanting to do my usual trick and risk spoiling it with too much decoration, I hit on the idea of using a white pen so that I could add doodling which would be very soft and subtle against the pale blue background.  I think it worked :)

We are just beginning the journey of living with cancer and embarking on treatment (Himself not me) so there have been a lot of dark days and some tears, not to mention a few rather bleak journal pages. However, one effect all this has is to make you take stock and be very VERY grateful for what you have.  We have been so fortunate to have more than 40 years of a great love, which time has not dimmed or diminished.  My man has been the one to give me wings and encourage me to test my limits, always with the safety of his arms to come home too.  Blessed?  You betcha.