The Heart in My Art

Hello Friends!

One thing I discovered during lockdown, if later rather than sooner, is that my days always go better if I start them off with something creative.  This can be anything.  Writing Morning Pages, making art, crafting, baking, photography, blogging, or gardening. Anything that gets me creating, making something useful or pretty, and, importantly, that distracts me from the trials of the world.  It clears my mind of those unwanted thoughts, the voices that disturb and distract, it sharpens my focus.  Getting creative with housework doesn't count.

For some time, I have put my creativity mostly into baking, which probably hasn't done me any good.  All those yummy, calorie laden cakes and fresh baked bread which require consumption! {which reminds me, today it's scones}  I think we've all done our fair share of comfort eating in recent months. 

Quite simply, even though I am not very good at it, art used to be my world, but my heart has not been in my art for some time; it's always been on the periphery, but never where it truly belongs, which is at the centre of my being.  As my life's purposes changed over several years from art student, to a string of jobs including National Trust employee, to full time care giver, I have gone from being in an art studio all day long to barely having enough time to shower, brush my teeth and comb my hair.  

Slowly, my heart slipped out of my art and, while there was little I could do about it, I missed it and grieved for its absence in my life.  Sometimes you have to be engulfed by the dark so you can see how bright the light shines.

Recently, as the need to create through the media of art returns to my life, I have been doodling, and playing with colour and {mostly} paint and watercolours.  I tried to get myself back into the swing of things during ICAD 2020 but fell by the wayside so quickly that it shocked me to the core.  I have no idea why, I have always enjoyed, and completed, the 61 day challenge. 

Here are some of the pieces I did, and considering I have done little or no art in years it was like going from nought to sixty in three seconds.

I enjoyed doing what I did, but knew there was no point in forcing myself.  {note to self:  Hearts, sunflowers, and mushrooms seem to be a recurring theme in my work}  Nothing good ever comes from forcing it.

So, time passed, my creativity continued to channel into baking, inclement weather governed my spasmodic gardening, and then there was baking, and more baking. Until a few weeks ago when cleaning some shelves, I found some old colouring books and I pulled out my paints again.  I am not very good at drawing, so colouring books give me the lines to play with my paints.  I love few things more than pushing paint and colour around on paper.

Here's a few of the pages I did from the Johanna Basford "Enchanted Forest" book.

These first three images are a two page spread I tried to colour in a graduated rainbow

her work is so intricate and detailed, sometimes I struggle to complete a page, so this one sits awaiting my patience to return!

I thought about participating in Inktober but it didn't speak to me.

Here's some pages from my on the go A5 pocket sketch book.  I love how the media sometimes bleeds through and gives a different look from the other side.

This stylised tree is a motif I return to from time to time and work through in different ways

So, for now, as the gardening winds down and the soil and borders and pots and containers are put to bed for the Winter; as the calorie laden baking has to be reconsidered; as mask making continues; and as I once more turn to the daily practice of Morning Pages, so I will make time during the day for art.  I know my heart has returned to my art, and I know I will be all the better for it, no matter how small a piece I do each day.

Do you have any creative practices that keep your mind and soul together? We all need a creative distraction in these peculiar times in which we live.

Until next time,

Stay safe, Stay well

Deborah xo