CALM & SERENE ....?

 

I'd love to claim to be calm and serene, but those of you who've journeyed with me for some time will know that it just isn't true!  I get passionate, enthusiastic, angry and noisy about all kinds of stuff and I can't seem to be any other way. I DO however work hard at the "think before you speak" thing, but with varying degrees of success .....

This page began just laying down paint in shades of two colours I really like together.  I just use basic craft acrylics because I figure I'm going to throw a lot of other stuff on top, so the only thing I always do is gesso first.  It gives a really great surface on which paint can slide and flow - without it would just soak into the paper.

I was just floating around with no very clear idea of where I was going with this (which is nice and relaxing), so I got out the Posca paint pens and began doodling here and there.  The word "art" at the bottom was cut out from a colour copy of a previous journal page - I do like to re-use things sometimes, though I generally try to change it up a little in the process.

Another Posca marker but the black one this time - its the blackest pen I know, nothing else comes close, and I love how a sinuous black line can link elements together that started out being unconnected.

I found a little Mona Lisa in my stash of collage bits, which led to my adding another one and thinking about her famously serene face, and that's when I began to write on the page.  Very often this is how journalling works for me - its an organic process and one step leads to another, without my necessarily being able to say how I arrived at the end result.

And you know me, I can never normally leave a page alone until I've doodled all over the place - sometimes afterwards I regret not allowing it to remain simple and uncluttered, but its just not how I seem to work.

Very often the pages I do which are very simple and unadorned reflect my saddest mood, when I can't find the necessary energy to doodle and decorate.  At least when I do you'll know that I was really enjoying going for masses of details, and not stuck in an empty place I couldn't escape from.

Himself goes back to the Big Doctor this coming week, when we will find out whether the next step for him is major surgery, or "just" chemotherapy.  Oh yes, and we're trying to get organised to move house in a month's time.  No pressure then - I guess its not surprising I'm not feeling particularly calm or serene!!