WHERE CAN I FLEE FROM YOUR PRESENCE ....

  

These are lines from Psalm 139 and I've always loved them.  Cut off from my former church community and friends, and yet to build new relationships in our new life, I was feeling a bit sad and lonely.  At times of self pity it always does me good to remember that I'm never alone .... and as always I chose to document this in my art journal.

This was one of those rare times when I did know from the beginning what I wanted to do with the page, and that the first thing was to draw the serene female mother God face.  You can see below its earliest sketchy beginnings ... and no I can't explain why she turned out blue, she just did.

You can see below how I travelled from a simple outline and took it on from there.  Once I'd painted the background, the black sweep of hair was done with a big chunky Posca paint pen  The blue was painted with ordinary acrylics and a brush, then I added some shading with a grey marker and colour to her lips.

My mother God pictures always have swirling long hair for some reason, so when I looked at the above I felt it needed more but wanted to leave room for some writing.  I extended her hair a bit, and also added a blue edge to give the page more definition, and did some more subtle work to the eye.

Once the writing was done I began to feel that the black hair was too 'flat' a colour, so I got out some gold and silver pens and added swirls of these to her hair, and some touches of gold to her forehead and the neck of the dress.  Oh yes, and couldn't resist adding a few dots for decoration ..... well it would be wrong not to, wouldn't it.

Its very early days in our new life - barely 3 weeks since we moved and although the flat is looking more and more like home as we find places for things, there are still 9 boxes waiting for shelving in the studio.  However, I am managing to work anyway using what I have to hand (which is quite a lot actually) and that does my soul good when I'm feeling a bit low or lonely.

Himself continues with the chemotherapy, which is hitting him harder these days, and that runs right up to Christmas.  Then he has 4-6 weeks to build up his strength again before major surgery to remove his bladder and create a stoma.  Apparently its possible to live a full and active life with one of these and it should leave him cancer free.  Its big surgery so its going to be tough, but together we can do this.

I CAN GET THROUGH THIS!

 

This is the message I need to affirm to myself right now, so what's an art journaller to do but make a page out of it?  Sorry these pictures are a little bit dark - that's what the weather has been like here lately.

I'm not up to making complicated pages right now, but then again who says they have to be?  This is a simple coat of lime green paint over gesso, and then I grabbed my "blue" drawer of collage materials ....  That's how I organise my stuff - I have a set of shallow drawers on wheels and I have labelled them by colour, including neutrals, then words and people.  It works pretty well but is still something of a work in progress.  When I have time or am short of energy or inspiration I grab some magazines etc from the pile on the floor and rip out things I like, cut out shapes and file them in my various drawers.

I suppose there was probably a reason why I chose the lime green, but don't ask me what.  I only know I couldn't manage pink and red at the time.  Anyway blue and green is my favourite colour combination.  Below you can see how I added a grey shadow around the collage elements, and some lettering ...

The last stage was to  complete the lettering and then tackle the very plain background.  I wanted to keep it subtle so as not to detract from the main message, so simple circles with white and grey did the trick.

This is something of a mission statement - I've certainly gone back to look at this page several times this past week.  It does serve to remind me that all things pass, even the worst of times.  Not sure why I chose the bottles at the lower edge, but I assure you I've not turned to drink or anything like that!!

We are moving in 3 weeks and are almost ready for that to happen, and Himself begins chemotherapy in about 10 days.  Even with the help of amazing friends whose offers of help have been nothing less than heroic its not going to be easy, but with God's Grace we can do it - at least on the other side lies retirement and relative calm from which to approach the rest of the treatment.