WALK THE WAYS ...

 

This page came from somewhere deep inside me, and I'm not really sure why or even how!  If you've ever written poetry you will know how a phrase will rise up and haunt you, a fragment that wants to be part of a whole you can't quite imagine.  It was something of that kind which happened here ....

I was just playing with paint after cruising Pinterest looking for inspiration - I'm always trying to challenge myself, to stretch my wings farther than I ever thought they could go.  I'd seen a yellow and white page that made me think I hadn't used this colour enough, and another page which had a lot of scribbles which appealed to me.

So this was the yellow and white page I made - all acrylic paint - to which I kept adding more and more layers.  Then I tried scribbling around the shapes I'd made - which didn't come naturally as you might be able to tell!  The wormhole doodle is more my kind of thing - quite neat and controlled.

Anyway I made myself do lots more scribbling and began to rather enjoy it.  More wormholes too, just so it didn't feel too wild and free.  Then that phrase I mentioned started running through my head "I will walk the ways at sunset" and I had no idea where it was coming from (its not a quote, I checked if it was some half remembered poetic fragment).  Maybe the white circle on the right kind of made me think of a sunset?  A distant winter sun glimpsed through trees ...

Then I got to thinking - but at sunset these "ways" (which in my mind involved paths through trees) would be getting a bit dark and threatening ... and I didn't feel brave about doing that.  When you're disabled you tend to live cautiously, fearfully, and you probably don't take many risks.  A voice in my head was SHOUTING at this point that I might as well go home then if I was prepared to risk nothing ... which is when I added the words "and I will not be afraid".  It seem to me that, if this was my path to walk, then for good or ill I should set my feet upon it.

It was late afternoon when I was doing this - not a time I usually work because I'm often too tired by then - so I surprised myself by this surge of creativity and the sense of journeying into the unknown.  The pictures are a little bit darker than the actual page because the light was poor by then.

I added more tree branches, a face and a few more winding wormholes, and the thing seemed complete without all the dots and doodles I often love to use.  Some grey shadows made it look more complete.

Strange as it sounds, I feel as if this page was "given" to me rather than something I purposely made.  I'm still looking at it in wonder and stretching for the deeper meaning I think it may contain ... I've always said that journalling is writing messages to yourself, or receiving messages from your subconscious.  This one definitely is!
Its also the first page which has made me think that I might reproduce it on a larger board or canvas, as a finished artwork rather than an experimental piece.