Well, that was a surprise!

 

The set of canvases I've been working on... I stacked them to one side and waited. I thought they might be finished, but then last week I felt that they weren't done yet. Yes, I liked how most of them looked, but they didn't feel like a series. There were elements of each that I liked, but they weren't cohesive and they didn't have a describable theme.

So I took a brayer to one of them and covered up lots of lovely marks. Suddenly it felt exciting. I dragged out others and covered up various parts of them. Some of the same types of marks started to turn up. They were starting to feel like they fit together.

Here is one of the reworked canvases. I'm calling my series 'The Storms of Life'. The clouds kept turning up, and the lightning marks, and circles (of course!) 

The canvases started out with lots of my favourite marks and bright colour. These were then obscured by the clouds. When the storms come in, they obscure things for a time, but you have to remember that you are still you, you are not the storm and the storm is not you. You are still complete (symbolised by the circles), and the clouds will move on. 

Personally, this is about menopause for me, but it holds for any storm of life - a bad diagnosis, grief, loss of employment, anything that knocks us back a bit.