EARTHBOUND?

 

Recently somebody said to me (something like) "it must be frustrating to be so tied down by your disability".  Thinking about it afterwards (and don't you always come up with a pithy response later) I came to the conclusion that she was completely and absolutely wrong!  Earthbound I may be, but in my spirit, through prayer and art, I have WINGS and can soar free.

Actually wings would be very useful if anybody up there is listening??  Then my ability to walk wouldn't matter!!  Anyway, below is how the page began.  I was trying to get away from my "usual" way of framing a page so I laid down orange acrylic and then used my Posca paint pen to create a pink border over it.  The strong black lines were added with my new, larger black Posca pen.  This is a 1.8 nib rather than my usual 0.7.

I had absolutely no idea where this was going but I was playing happily, so I added some bits of collage and some doodles. Then I put in some more pink inside the border, and a white line.  At that point I left the page for a while .... I do that a lot, just half make pages until the right words come to me.  Sometimes they never do so I just leave the page as is.

But when I came back to it all I managed to add were a few more doodles and bits of collage.  The page was then ignored until the conversation described above, at which point I decided I didn't like the element top centre, so I removed it and added something else which was quite plain.  That allowed me to write what was really going on in my head, which was "I may be earthbound ..."

Well then I was off like a rocket fuelled by my strong sense of the comment being WRONG and forgot to take any more pictures until I'd finished!  The wings are a stamp, and the rest is just doodles with Posca pens.

I am oddly satisfied by this page - the bold orange and pink please me, as does the concept of flying free from my (very) earthbound body.  All together now .... bursts into a chorus of "I am what I am" etc etc...

LET YOUR SPIRIT FLY ...

I recently bought a handbag from Disaster Designs, whose stuff just makes me smile every time I see it (I've got one of their purses now too). My bag has birdies all over it, and came with a label which had birdies like those above on it. I was so tickled by how these made me feel that I set to work trying to draw ones like them (which was fun to do) and I added a stamped image at the top of a spiral binding. The lil birdy at the bottom is my own original design! This is one of those times when I worked directly onto the blank page, and then below you can see how I began to add colour around the images .... (and a few more birdies admiring the flying ones)!
When I add colour afterwards like this its almost always using either my Caran d'Ache crayons or Promarkers, because these give me the necessary control to go around the images. At this stage I didn't actually know what the page would be about (that often happens) but when I began to wonder why I liked birdies so much it came to me that its something to do with the freedom of flight. Inevitably that got me thinking about my physical limitations, but also the absolute truth that my spirit can still fly freely ....
Its an important reminder that I need not be limited by what my body can manage but, as I wrote at the bottom, I still have the wings of imagination to take me soaring .... Hope you will feel strengthened by my birdies to take your own wings. I love reading your comments and responses even if I don't often manage to get back to all of you. Happy Birdies to You!

DRAWING MY OWN SPIRIT

Sorry this is a bit faint, but I wanted to show the initial sketch I put down on the page for this. I had the expression "the wings of my spirit" in mind, and wanted to show a figure just taking flight ...
Anyway, then I began to add colour and movement to her hair and wings - this is done with my Promarkers, which I am slowly learning to love, although I'm not sure they'll ever replace my beloved watercolours.
Then I drew some layers of colour below, more of those striations which represent seams and layers of life and soul, some of which are so very deep. I've got the first statement down in writing but now need some time to reflect on where it goes from here. I'll probably come back to this in a few days, and in the meantime I'm working on other pages. That's one of the things I love about art journalling, that I can just go here and there as the fancy takes me, and that whatever comes is the gift I'm given ....

Oh yes, and I've been chopping up magazines again, so how about these for journal prompts? ...

Download/offload
Well good
The Smart Way
Go see friends
Wake Up
You have somewhere
Song of the Goat
Random acts of literature
Star Quality
Ask Why
Around Sundown
Nothing Compares