Art Journal Spread

I finished the 2 page spread that I started yesterday in my art journal today. It started with the page on the left. It was an intuitive flow that surfaced because I was feeling broken hearted. This morning I opened a letter from the Carter Center and read a story about a 6 year old named Sadia Mesuna who had been suffering from the extremely painful removal of Guinea worms from her feet. 6 year old Sadia was quoted as having said, "It feels more painful than stepping on fire coals or being cut." The second page of this spread is dedicated to her and all the healing work that the Carter Center does. 

May all beings be free from suffering.

Winged Creatures

Citra Solve Art (Part 2)

Last week I used Citra Solve to dissolve the ink on tons of National Geographic pages. Since then I have been playing around with the pages and added layers to them. Some of the layers are added with acrylic inks, watercolor pencils, pastels, pens, stencils and stamps. Other's I scanned into the computer and altered in Photoshop. It is very addicting. 

Release

River Birds

Floating Leaves

As you can see by the photos of all the pages lying out in the sun you can do a lot of pages in one afternoon.  The Citra Solv is 100% natural but has a very strong smell so I worked outside with gloves and a mask the day I altered the pages. I left them to air out the whole next day. 

I put pieces of wood over the pages so they would not blow away as they aired out.

Citra Solv Art

I just noticed it has been exactly a month since my last post. I was really struggling with health for a while but things are looking up again. I started the Byron White protocol, time will tell if it works.

Over the last few days I was finally able to get back to creating art. I did some experimenting with Citr Solv on National Geographic pages and then adding to the pages with acrylic inks, pastels, water soluble crayons, markers, stencils, stamps, plastic wrap, and some digital manipulating. Wow, is this fun! I love how serendipitous the process is. I do think I am sensitive to the orange Citra Solv though so I am going to try the lavender one. I hope it is not a strongly scented because I really am enjoying this process.

Here are a few of the images I got from the process.

Redbird in Flight

A bird does not sing because it has an answer.  

It sings because it has a song.  

~Chinese Proverb 

Difficult days have me leaning on my faith. God keeps sending me beautiful gifts wrapped in feathers as I sit and rest on my deck each day. I've been trying to not allow the fear to settle in too deep or to spend too much time pushing away the unwanted, the fatigue and pain. When the fear and pain comes I am training my focus to quickly shift to the current moment and what is happening around me in that moment.  In the moment when I took this photo a stunning, brilliantly red, Cardinal was in flight over the place where I was resting. He landed in a branch and sang me a song before flying deeper into the woods, perhaps in search of some other lost soul in need of God's voice. Thank you Dear Cardinal for being God's messenger for me today. 

Cedar Waxwings Dinning on Elderberries

Cedar Waxwing
Drunk on sour cherries, the harlequin of birds
Lurches through the branches and lisps in bleared content,
While a Temperance Union Catbird shrieks her words
In a scathing, scolding lecture he’s too happy to resent.
~William H. Matchett 

~

The Garden of Eden (Handicapped Accessible)

Even though Don and I had been told by a Rheumatologist years ago what it would look like as my illness progressed it never really felt real to us. We were too busy making plans for the future, were too busy working hard to make our dreams come true. We also had, (and still have), complete faith in my bodies ability to heal and God's promises of healing. But, for now, the fact is that I have become less and less mobile and I spend most of my days in solitude trying to find things I can still do that give me a sense of feeling productive. Since my declining health forced me to close my art studio it is vitally important to my mental health that I accomplish something each day. Unfortunately there are many days when a flare up is so bad that it is just not possible to do anything at all. On those days all I can do is sit quietly in stillness and rest.  So when I find a way to modify something I once enjoyed in a way that allows me to continue doing it I am overjoyed. Such is the case with my "Garden of Eden".

This Spring my husband built me a handicapped accessible deck that is level with the interior floor of the house, so there is no step down. Even when I have to use a cane or walker, or someday a wheelchair,  I can get out on the deck. He also made it huge so that I would really feel the spaciousness of the outdoors, giving me the feeling that I was in my beloved woods.  Because of the slope of the land the deck is higher than normal and gives you the feeling of being in the tree tops. It has been such a joy for me to sit out here listening to and photographing the birds this Spring.

One morning I was sitting out on the deck feeling sad that I would not be able to have a vegetable garden for the second year in a row.  I had asked Don to move my house plants, which included; rosemary, lavender, sage, basil and a lemon tree out onto the deck. They looked so lovely out there that I thought, "Why don't I plant my garden on the deck? It has full sun and southern exposure, and if I plant in railing planters I can tend them standing" 

So that is how my little Garden of Eden came to be, and best of all it is handicapped accessible!

 On the railing; red & green Leaf lettuce, rainbow chard, spinach, kale, romaine

 Red & Green Leaf Lettuce

 Rainbow Chard, Spinach, Letuce

 Tomatoes and Lavender

  On the railing; red & green Leaf lettuce, rainbow chard, spinach, kale, romaine 

 Sage

 Lavender

 Rosemary

 Lemon Tree with lots of baby lemons!

 Basil

  On the railing; red & green Leaf lettuce, rainbow chard, spinach, kale, romaine

Parsley, basil, mint, rosemary, lavender and sage in pots. 

After I took the photos Don built a large box planter where we planted yellow squash and zucchini

Isn't it heavenly? An Eden for sure!