HEROINE

 

Frida Kahlo has been my heroine for a long time - because of a horrific car accident in her youth she lived with a LOT of pain and wore a leather corset because of back injuries.  But she made art and painted anyway, sometimes even from her bed.  If she can do it, then so can I ...

You can see the very simple way the page began with a background of pink and touches of lilac.   Teesha Moore (another of my heroines and a real inspiration) issued a challenge to do something with cut outs from one of her pages, and I found the idea intriguing.  What you see below is various shapes cut out and laid over my pinky background, and I really liked the result!

But it did seem to need a strong black line (Posca paint pen) to delineate the various "windows" as I was thinking of them.  You may also notice that I added a touch more orange paint around the centre.

So then I had Frida looking bravely and somewhat challengingly out of my 'windows".  Her direct gaze made me think about being brave when I really wasn't feeling it, and that's where the words came from.

And then I remembered that saying about bravery not being the absence of fear, but acknowledging your fear and going on anyway, and I figured that DID make me brave, however little I felt it!

The wormhole doodling was an afterthought but I like the way it enhances the window effect and the sense of seeing through .... I'd never had page a page like this without Teesha's challenge as inspiration!

And, I have the most amazing news to report.  The lab results from himself's surgery came back completely clear of cancer, COMPLETELY.  It wasn't in the lymph nodes at all, so he has an all clear and no further treatment.  It has to be the result of the many prayers which were offered on our behalf, and we can't quite take it in yet ... although we have booked a holiday!!

FRIDA ... AND THE GELLI PLATE

  

While I was in Virginia back in May I bought myself a gelli printing plate, but have only recently managed to find time to play with it.  This page is the product of one of my early efforts - and I'm pleased to say that I managed to print directly onto a page in my (wire bound) journal, without needing to either extract all the pages or paste one in!  Success.

My first few experiments were on separate sheets, but eventually I had a go in the journal and was thrilled with the results I got on the lovely quality paper - I didn't risk best quality paper on the the first ones!  So anyway, below you can see what I got - I understood why I'd got the white patches (uneven pressure on the plate) but didn't care too much.  In fact what I did was use some yellow paint to sort of "fill in" the gaps.

But what I really LOVE is the pattern it gives on the paper (you do need to use plenty of paint). Don't know how to describe it really, but the close-up picture below gives you a better idea - very organic-looking somehow?

So then I had a gorgeous page in my journal that I couldn't WAIT to work on.  Black seemed like an obvious foil for the pink, orange and yellow and I started with a bit of collage in the top right corner and a picture of my heroine Frida Kahlo in the other.  Then I started doodling a black line around areas that seemed to be shapes in their own right ... and it sort of went from there!

In fact I go SO absorbed in what I was doing that I forgot to take any more pictures until I'd finished it, but at some stage I made the connection between the organic shapes I was working with and Frida and me .... so it kind of became about the little cells and bugs than are the unseen enemy (pain) and how you can find against it.

Because of course, that's why Frida is my heroine, because she did and she made art anyway even when she had to lie in bed and work on an easel which rolled towards where her hand was, because she could hardly move.  Now that's heroism!  Am not heroic but try to be brave in my own small way .... at least on my better days anyway!

IN PRAISE OF FRIDA

You may or may not be familiar with the work of Frida Kahlo, a South American artist 1907 to 1954. In her teens she was the victim of a terrible car accident, and suffered life-long pain as a result of her injuries. Some of her injuries were appalling and I will spare you the details, but among them was a spine was broken in three places, as was her pelvis. She had 11 fractures in her right leg and her right foot was crushed. She got the gangrene in that same foot later in life, and had to have the leg amputated below the knee to stop it spreading, and was frequently bedridden after extensive surgery or just with pain.

I've always admired her - not only because of her striking self-portraits, but the sheer guts and bravery of the woman, so she's something of an icon for me, struggling in my own lesser way to deal with what life has thrown at me.

So there I was thumbing through my catalogue of collage images in search of inspiration and who did I let on but Frida's self portrait, with the tight thorns around her neck which represent her pain and struggle. I decided to draw a frame around her a bit like the South American Milagros, little shrines, because that seemed right for a heroine, and I gave her wings because she's gone on beyond her pain now. From the same page I found this little Frida label that just seemed to belong on the page as well.
I did the background with my trusty Caran d'Ache watercolour crayons, just a soft colour because I wanted the shrine to be what stood out of the page. Some collage sheet lettering provided her name, and then I just drew, doodled and wrote. The page turned out as I'd hoped - its vivid colours a testament to Frida's own brilliantly coloured paintings. It felt right to celebrate her life not so much in words but in art and colour.