Journal Fodder 365 - Prompt #26

The prompt for this week is hopes and fears. 

I'm really pleased with the background in this. I just pasted down a few bits and pieces, gessoed, then scraped some acrylics - both liquid and thick - until it felt done. 

After that a bit of black stamping was needed. I knew the words 'hope' and 'fear' would be next and I wanted them writ large. They were a little lost so an added shadow dragged them out of the background. 

Then came the thinking part. What did the prompt bring up? 

I thought about the shadow cast by fear in contrast with the light of hope. I don't want to be chained in the shadow of fear, unable to move forward, living in the dark.

I want to move towards that light at the end of the tunnel, the flame of hope. 

I choose to live in the light.

A few projects

As I write the floor in my art room is scintillating.  As is the ironing board, my clothes, and even parts of my face. Here is the reason:

This is the fabric my 13yr old daughter has chosen for a long flared skirt. The cobwebs are in gold glitter. Which gets everywhere. 

Continuing in the black theme, my husband bought a black sketchbook for me. Here is my first doodle in it:

And I came to yet another page I had prepped in black in my current journal (what was I thinking?!)

So I lightened it with some black and white patterned paper I picked up recently. Then it was crying out for some red, so I added a heart. Then I needed some words so, rifling through my book of miscellaneous useful stuff I found a quote by Henry Vaughan:

Sickness and death you are but sluggish things and cannot catch a heart that hath got wings.

 Of course, now wings needed to be added to the heart.

It set me thinking about what makes a heart fly even in the face of difficult circumstances. 

For me, it would be hope and joy. In the words of the old hymn, I 'have a hope that is steadfast and certain' in my faith, and a joy that is deeper and more long-lasting than simple fleeting happiness. These things I have irrespective of my circumstances.

What makes your heart fly?