Inner Excavation goodness

Blimey, the last few weeks have flown by and although I had lots of blog ideas in my head, very few of them even made it into note form onto my laptop. However, as I am practicing being kinder to myself, forgiving myself for the actions I deem to ‘not be enough’, I shan’t start with an apology of my rubbishness. Instead I will share with you a couple of pieces of art journaling I have been working on. Both pieces came into being through the work I have been delving into as part of Liz Lamoreux’s Inner Excavation read along. Seriously, there are so many treasures in each chapter that I shall be busy for quite some time ( she rubs her hands with glee). The first piece relates to the idea of being in this moment, stopping and taking stock, capturing the moment you find yourself in and seeing the layers. For me, too many moments recently have involved rain. In fact I have never experienced a summer like it before! It is easy to joke on a sunny day like today - and oh how much have I neeeeeeded this light and warmth- but the cold, dull and incredibly wet days have really affected me. I’ve felt limited, frustrated and just down right unwell. 

Therefore my initial intention was to create that atmosphere in a picture, to give my emotions some closure. But as so often, the piece I created took me on a different path and what I actually ended up with I found quite beautiful really. I created the background using wordle,  using a thesaurus for all those rain related words. Just by exploring words and fonts my frown eased a little. And the raindrops, which I wanted to make overpowering, turned out strangely soothing, with a comforting air of completeness about them. Of course I didn’t have a bird on my umbrella in reality but a bird needed to be drawn and totally by accident it looks like it is sighting land ahead, beyond the droplets. I am not a character artist by nature and in fact I stay well away, thinking that my attempts are rather childlike creations, but the mini me peering out from underneath the umbrella appealed to  me with her glowing cheeks and seeing eyes. 

And so I have learned yet again, that I have many layers, that even frustrating moments can lead to beauty and that I like drawing birds ;)

My second piece came into being by mixture of the prompt to create a self portrait and a recent blog post by Liz, in which she talks of seeing your characteristics as super powers, even the ones you may at first see in a slightly more negative light. And so my heroine alter ego made it onto paper. I love the idea of owning my serious nature, by which I understand that I am taking my life seriously. I have always found humour difficult and struggle to see things in a lighthearted way and until now have thought of this as some kind of failure within myself. But actually it is my serious nature that helps me to follow through on hopes and dreams, it supports and develops my relationships. It means I appreciate things instead of taking them for granted. And so it is in fact a hidden super power.