GREY SKIES

  

Unsurprisingly this page began in a rather low mood on a grey and distinctly unpromising day ... but ended up affirming something positive!

The weather was getting me down so I painted the page black and began to frame it with collage - this is the simplest quickest way I know to get a page started.  I sometimes feel a bit lazy working this way but the amount of mental energy I have to spare varies, and to me its more important to get something down on paper than whether its clever or arty.  I'm not doing this to prove my artistic worth to anybody, m journal is a conversation with MYSELF, and so all you have to do is like what you make, or even just enjoy the process.  Nothing else is necessary.

I carried on collaging, using my "neutrals" drawer of bits and pieces, and as you can see below everything was grey and black except for the face.

There is a vivid pink cyclamen on the windowsill where I work, and when I looked out of the window down the garden there are evergreen conifers in shades from bottle green to almost yellow.  I realised that even on a grey day there was plenty of colour ... if you choose to look for it.

This translated into a message to myself - which my pages ALWAYS are.  A reminder about light and life, and colour, peace, hope and love, all of which are inextinguishable, even on the darkest days metaphorically and physically.  Its all the more important right now to remember that, when the weather is kind of gloomy and with the Big Operation in 3 weeks or so casting a long shadow ...

Posca paint pens are about the only things I used on this page, apart from the black paint and collage, although I used a Promarker on her lips to keep them transparent.  Doesn't a very small amount of red just JUMP off the page?

Hope there is light, life, colour, peace hope and love in your life too .... though you may have to look for it like I did!