Life Book 2015: Week 24 - Happy painting with Juliette Crane

This is a real 'mixed media' painting - it uses multiple papers and washi tape collaged to form the base of the painting followed by both oil and water paints.  There was no sketching involved in this painting - it was just painted direct onto the background.  Self portrait ????  Thanks Juliette Crane for an interesting lesson.

Life Book 2015: Week 23 - Magic, Vulnerability & Courage with Tamara Laporte

Again, another challenging lesson from the lovely Tamara Laporte.  This time - looking at the masculine archetype.  Right through this year we have been painting female faces and I did not want my male to look effeminate - he had to look masculine.  The concept was about vulnerability and how this requires having strength and courage - it certainly took a lot of courage to put pencil to paper.

In typical Tam style the background was created with collage, colour, stamping and gesso.  Stencils and doodles added, then time to paint the face and body. Finally the text was hand written on and I was done.  It took me a while but pretty happy with the result really - if I do say so myself.  I think he looks masculine - do you?

Thanks for looking.

Life Book 2015: Week 22 - Reflections of you with Jeanne Oliver

When this lesson from Jeanne Oliver was released I was not ready to face it, so I put it on hold for a few weeks.  Anything that had to do with looking at myself and/or my emotions was just too hard.  When the time came to start it was a challenge but one I knew I just had to do.

We started by taking a photo of ourselves then sketching it with charcoal and white gesso.  From there we photographed the sketch, printed it, cut it out, and used gel medium to transfer the image onto a blank page.  I added torn up pieces of wrapping paper and adhered to the page for the clothing.  We painted around the image with white gesso followed by paint and etching patterns with a skewer (I sponged gold paint to mine to give it an oriental feel).

It was then time to paint the face over the existing image and make any final changes - I added the flower embellishment and text to complete mine.

Life Book 2015: Week 21 - Black and white cookie with Lynn Whipple

This weeks lesson came with a bonus from Tamara Laporte where we were invited to paint an apple, complete with shading.  The actual lesson with Lynn Whipple I had difficulty following the concept (given my health at the time I'm not surprised) and so I focused on the bonus lesson instead. 

Seems funny that somewhere along the art journey there is always a still life drawing of an apple.  In the past I have never been too successful at this but I really enjoyed this lesson and came out with a reasonable looking apple.

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.