Life Book 2015: Week 20 - Unravelling through mark making with Jenny Doh

This was a very freeing exercise with Jenny Doh.  Allowing ourselves to just smudge, doodle, and drip paint onto the page using whatever utensils we had on hand, we then looked at the page from various angles to try and identify a concept or idea that came out from the page.  

When I looked at mine, this cat jumped out.  It reminds me of the cats you see sitting on the counters of Asian restaurants - I see it as a 'lucky' cat.  For me it was a sign of better things to come (plus the part my own kitty cat played in my recovery).

"Cats leave paw prints on our hearts."

Life Book 2015: Week 19 - Stamping shadow and light with Jessica Swift

Emerging from darkness into light seemed an appropriate title given It reflected how I was feeling at the time.  This lesson with Jessica Swift involved creating a shaded background, hand carving your own stamps and then stamping onto the background.  

Using silver ink I stamped the feathers and bubbles over the dark area of the background and the plants and flowers were stamped in black over the lighter part of background.  Each of the stamps was hand-carved by me.

I then drew a pecked border around to frame.

Generalised Anxiety Disorder

Well it has been ages since I posted here.  Life took a different twist earlier in the year when I came down with a virus.  Appearing out of nowhere it took my feet out from under me and I was confined to home for two weeks.  What was even more debilitating was that I developed an anxiety disorder very early on in the piece.  It started off as being a night-time thing to 24 hours a day constantly in a state of high anxiety.  Being an art therapist you would think that I would be able to get myself out of this but unfortunately I couldn't even pick up a pencil or paintbrush as my motivation completely disappeared and I was unable to function.  I couldn't read, listen to music, watch TV, sit at the computer - all I could do was pace like a wild animal.  Being inside made things worse and I just wanted to be outside in the open air AND it was winter - not a good combination.  

I tried going the 'natural' route with homeopathic remedies and these provided some relief.  I also worked through some stuff with a friend of Jan's who is a spiritual therapist and this was really helpful, but in the end I had to go back to my GP and get medication to fix the chemical imbalance in my brain.  Ending up in hospital with a suspected heart attack was not where I wanted to be - my heart muscles were on the verge of serious damage and I could no longer fight it.  

The first medication I was put on was addictive and I quickly became dependent on it.  I tried to wean off it and start a long-term medication but had a violent reaction to the second medication and the anxiety got totally out of control.  I was desperate and ended up seeing one of the other GP's in the practice as my own GP was away.  He immediately doubled the dose of my 'addictive' medication and changed the second one.  It took a few days of some slightly unpleasant side-effects from this drug but slowly things started to change.  I finally also gave in and allowed myself to be referred to the local Adult Mental Health Service.  I saw a Psychiatrist who sorted out my medication for me and reassured me that this was only a short-term thing and likely came about as a result of the virus.  There was also a Psychologist there and I am currently still seeing him - he has been re-establishing techniques I had forgotten about with the onset of the illness.  Things like relaxation breathing, meditation, exercise, and grounding.  He also worked with me to establish what things occurred around the time of my illness which may have been triggers for the the anxiety.  Identifying possible triggers was the turning point - now I knew what I was dealing with and the healing could begin in earnest.  I have one more session with him next week.  

In the meantime I have been slowly weaning off my 'addictive' medication and hopefully will be off completely in a week or so.  At that point I should be able to drive again - I haven't driven in just on 4 months (when I first got sick).  The last few weeks have been an incredible journey.  I have been able to start drawing again and I feel so much better.  It is thanks to this amazing team that have got me through this and especially to my lovely Jan who has been through this with me every step of the way, my rock - i could not have done it without you.

Life Book 2015: Week 18 - Here's looking at you kid with Kristin van Valkenburgh

Still feeling far from well but am prepared to have a go at this weeks lesson regardless. 

Kristin van Valkenburgh took us on a journey to explore our inner child by reminding ourselves how important it is to be present, let go and have fun.  Using a variety of media we created two pages - the first page would form the top layer with a door which opened up to reveal the second layer.    Inside the door flap we attached a letter from the perspective of our “little” selves. 

While the top layer was essentially black & white, with a third colour of our choosing, the second layer was a riot of colour painted from a childlike perspective. 

What more can I say, I did it, it's not my favourite piece, but I did it!

Life Book 2015: Week 17 - Feel the Moment with Jenny Wentworth

Not feeling too flash today, have been laid flat for the past few days with a major chest infection (well, so the doctor says - feels more like pneumonia to me).  Anyhow, after a week in bed I decided to tackle this weeks lesson from Jenny Wentworth. 

The challenge is to work intuitively to paint a face, no sketching it out beforehand, just lay down some gesso, a wash of colour and then move the paint around with your fingers to resemble a face.  Add charcoal to start defining features and then see what evolves from there.  Easy to let go today because my brain is a foggy haze anyway and doesn't want to do anything so it's just play, play, play and would you believe it I actually came up with a half decent face. 

I love how the background looks old and worn and I quite like how the face looks.  She's not perfect but then she's not meant to be.  Her eyes lack life - but that's exactly how I felt as I was creating her - if you look at my eyes at the moment they have lost their sparkle, they are tired, and heavy ... just wanting to sleep.

I will create again using this method - but when I am feeling better.  Then, and only then, might she come truly alive.  Funnily enough, I loved working in this manner.  Thanks Jenny for a fabulous lesson.

Life Book 2015: Week 15 - It's the little things with Tamara Laporte

Todays lesson with Tamara Laporte was focusing on colour and specifically about using black & white in your painting and how that can add real drama and contrast to a piece of art.  She also discussed contrast and about playing with contrasting shapes such as combining triangular shapes with more rounded shapes.   Tamara showed us how to proportion and lay out a 3/4 face.  This was a two page layout. 

I had been watching one of my favourite movies "Lost Horizon" prior to starting this lesson and it's influence is clearly evident in my painting today.  The movie tells the story of five people who are on the last plane out of Baskul (ahead of an invasion of armed revolutionaries) but are unaware that their plane has been hijacked.  It eventually runs out of fuel and crashes deep in the Himalayan Mountains, killing their abductor.  The group are rescued and taken to Shangri-La, an idyllic valley sheltered from the bitter cold. Initially anxious to return to civilization, most of the newcomers grow to love Shangri-La, and the story goes on to follow their lives, loves, joys and sorrows.

Life Book 2015: Week 16 - Be Here Now with Alena Hennessy

Todays Life Book lesson was more about painting in the now and with that Alena Hennessy challenged us to do three paintings - the first over a period of 15 minutes, the second over ten minutes, and the third just five minutes.  These were to be done with just what was on hand in front of us.

The painting to the left has lots of layers and was fun to create but I had difficulty in just letting go and painting freely. There was a lot of mark making but I found myself wanting to make it look like something. 

Mostly this was paint applied with my fingers, with paint markers in black and white to add accents.  I also used a little bit of bubble wrap to add texture.

This was the fifteen minute painting and it surprised me just how long fifteen minutes was when you were clock-watching.

I also struggled with letting go for the other two time limits.  The lion was playing with the circle/rectangle animals from a previous lesson - this was the ten minute painting; and then the flowers below which was a five minute painting.  

While some students added 'extra' items after the time frame was up I stuck rigidly to the allocated times.

I'm not altogether happy with the outcome but in hindsight I was coming down with a nasty infection and am sure this influenced how I approached this lesson.

I think the other thing is that I have had an issue in the past about rushing my art and have been working on slowing down the process over the past few years.  This lesson felt like I was taking a huge step backwards and it didn't connect with me at all.

Oh well, onwards and upwards - I love Alena's work but putting myself under time limits doesn't sit well with me I guess.