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.

BLUE DAYS .....

 

Yes I admit it, I made this at a time when I wasn't having one of my better days!  What the heck, for me journalling is about recording the highs and the lows, the positives and the negatives.  I'm sure you've been there - those times when you wonder why you even bother trying because you're never going to get anywhere?  Ah, I knew you'd understand ....

So anyway, I'd started off with a light blue painted page, with the colour at the edges deepened with some Neocolour II crayon.  Just collaged a few bits from magazines, a blue star from a sheet of wrapping paper, and a bit of washi tape.  I honestly didn't know where it was going at this point and part of me wasn't sure I cared.

So then I got some stuff off my chest by writing it down, before painting over it.  I know its there but nobody else needs to read my darker musings, right?  So when I found the word blue in my collage box that pretty much led to the whole theme, and I added a bit more stuff.

And this is what it led to in the end - and actually I journalled myself out of the worst of my mood, just by admitting that I felt bad and there wasn't much I could do about it!  All the dotty doodling and drawing seemed to have cheered me up.

Anyway, hope I haven't made you feel all blue and gloomy, and by way of contrast I thought you might like to see my (messy) desk in the lovely cheerful room I work in?  On my table is the junk journal I've just finished making (my first ever, but not my last!) and that I'm now working in on and off.  The room is basically white with rather a lot of pink - its my cheerful, happy colour for blue days like the above!

At the back of the desk is where I keep all my pens and markers, and you can just see the nice view of our garage.  Fortunately that doesn't bother me because my head is usually bent over whatever I'm doing.  The "create wonder, share joy" sign was begged from our local Starbucks, where I spend way too much time catching up with friends and putting the world to rights.  That's when I'm not nagging that the company pays its taxes!!