The effects of the past

This page was a long time in the making. It went through an awful lot of layers before ending up like this. Whatever I did, I didn't like it. It was looking messy, bitty, not of a piece. So I gessoed over the whole lot, but the colours were showing through and I just wasn't happy with it.

Enter the gelli-print. I stuck this in the middle and that covered most of the problems. A little stamping to blend the edges and I was starting to feel better about it.

A spray of red ink and it looked wounded.

Oh dear.

But as I thought about the page and what it had been through, it started to come together. The blue border peeking through, the 'bloodstain', the transfer of paint from one part of the print to another, all spoke to me about the past leaking through to the present.

No matter how much you paper over something, the effects of the past will show up in your life, even if you have been fully healed. There is a residue that has affected your thinking, your habits, your way of dealing with situations. Everything you have lived through has left its mark. The person you are today is because of what happened to you in the past and how you dealt with it.

All the frustration I had with this page resulted in something that I am actually pleased with now.