Suggestions

Suggestions can lead to whole stories.  

This page suggests a landscape to me, even though it is nothing like a realistic landscape. The colours aren't even correct. But my brain takes a few shapes and the composition and says, 'landscape'. 

It can be the same when we only have a few of the facts in a situation. We take them and make a whole story out of it. For example, my husband is a vicar and he has a lot of ear piercings. When he turned up at church without any of his earrings in for a couple of weeks, stories started to go around that 'someone' had told him to take them out. The 'someone' changed, depending on who was airing the opinion. For the few who actually asked rather than putting together their own story, he had an X-ray at the dentist's and needed to take out his earrings. He just hadn't got round to putting them back in. 

This is a fairly innocent example, but the result isn't always so innocent. Reputations can be harmed by gossip, so let's not take a few scraps and make a whole garment out of them.

Patchwork

The patchwork of life. 

A few of the marks on this page made me think of stitching, which led me to think of patchwork. All our lives are a patchwork of pieces. Although our life fabric may contain some pieces with the same pattern - when we have some similar experiences - the size and shape and the way they are put together is unique to us. There might be parts of your life that you wish didn't happen, but each piece adds to the overall cloth, and the dark parts only serve to contrast with the light parts. When you look at a piece of art, it is the play of contrasts that brings interest, so don't regret those dark parts, but also remember to celebrate the light.

 

Glimpses of light

 

This page started out with lots of colour, not that you would believe that now. Everything I put on there only made it worse. So I covered it up and went for monotone instead. Sometimes you have to go outside of your usual pattern to get back into the groove. The glimpses of light on this page are the patterns - circles, squiggles, dots, and the high contrast between black and white. Reminding myself what elements make me happy, ready to use on my next page. 

Knowing where you're going

It's okay to not know where you're going. 

Sometimes you just have a direction to head in, and it takes a bit of faith to just keep going. It's okay to not have a step-by-step plan for achieving a goal - the way you get there may not be the same as the path as someone else takes. The thing is to keep going, even if the steps are small. 

 

Happiness

"Happiness depends more on how life strikes you than on what happens." Andy Rooney.

Attitude is so important. It doesn't mean that we don't take things seriously, but that we have a mindset that means our joy is not dependent on our circumstances. 

Adjusting

Trying to adjust to the changes.

When anything in life changes, we have to adjust, and that can be difficult. As a woman, I had to adjust to a 'new' body at puberty, when I was pregnant, as a new mother, and now in menopause. I'm hoping to settle in to the 'new normal' eventually. In the meantime, I'll struggle a bit, just as we all do when we face changes, but I'll also try to be gentle with myself. 

Perspectives

 

"Be a tourist in other perspectives." Questlove

I'm reading Creative Quest by Questlove at the moment and this line stuck in my head. We can look at perspectives - or opinions - other than our own and try them on for size without packing up all our belongings and moving there. But if we don't 'visit' in them, how will we expand our understanding or change our minds?

Yes, I suggested we might sometimes change our minds. It's not a sign of weakness to change your mind or your thinking. Only fools hold on to views and opinions that have been shown to be on very shaky ground without at least considering a different way. If we 'tourist' in varying perspectives we can round out our thinking and make considered decisions. We may end up back where we started, but at least we've looked at other ways of thinking and made a choice rather than just landing somewhere by default. Plus we grow in empathy if we look at other perspectives. 

More play

 

I'm having so much fun playing in this slim hardback altered book. It only has 13 spreads, but I can see myself returning to it when I want inspiration in terms of palette but also composition. I don't love every page, but even if you don't like something, you can learn from it, even if it's 'never put those colours together again!'

I love the simplicity of the heart page above. The layout of nine hearts in a square is so pleasing to me. These are the endpapers, so were black rather than creamy, making the gesso work as one of the colours. 

The colours above are unusual for me in that they are all fairly dull colours, but I'm happy with how they look together. It's fun to try things you wouldn't usually do and opens up new opportunities.

These are more like my usual palette. Both have bits that I like. As you can see, I'm loving doing dots at the moment, especially of different sizes all mixed together. They just give a bit more depth to the page. 

What season?

 

It's important to know what season you're in.

I'm not talking about the weather/climate/time of year. I'm talking about your life season. And that's not your age but which part of the undulating timeline of life that you're in. We all go through springs where we seem to sprout up in all directions. Summers, where the growth continues steadily and fruit starts to set. Autumns where we harvest, followed by winters where we rest and prepare for new growth. 

It's important to know what season you're in because if you're expecting to gather fruit, but really you're in winter, it can feel like you're doing something wrong, that you're missing something. You're not. It's just that your expectations are misplaced. If you know that you're in winter then you're not expecting growth, because winter is the time to replenish reserves and prepare.

So check what season you're in and take stock.

And here are some more of my limited colour palette experiments.

Limited colour palettes

 

I found this slim A4 size book on my shelf, just ready to be altered. The pages are a bit thin, so I've glued pairs of them together to make them more usable. Now I'm just playing, using a small palette on each pair of pages. This one is Payne's grey, quinacridone magenta, and golden yellow.

There is no agenda, no idea of outcome, just play. And I'm enjoying it immensely. The left hand page of this pair is my favourite, and I particularly like the black dots. Must do more of that :)