Plumcot is maybe my new summer favorite fruit.
I am trying to participate in Susannah Conway‘s August Break 2012.
She invites her readers to blog one picture a day, with or without words to accompany them, everyday for the all month of August. I have been willing to try last year but did not. SO trying again this year.
I don’t know yet if I will add comments or just a picture, we’ll see how it goes. I will probably post pictures taken with my phone and use the WordPress app I have on it, to make it quick and easy. I don’t like complicated these days. And I want to keep it fun fun fun !
Here is my picture for our first day (actually taken yesterday):
Trist is one of my newest Nixies. She is here to tell you that it is okay to feel what you feel.
I am one of those chicks who firmly believes in the power of thoughts. That believes in the fact that our thoughts build our worlds, both inside and outside of us.
Thoughts and emotions are closely intertwined (thanks my dear friend Sweety Falafel for saying that to me again and again (and again and…)) and we are not the slaves of our thoughts.
OK, I have no idea where this was leading to, I guess I just had to write it here (this is the downside of starting a blogpost and coming back again several days after)…
I don’t hide anymore that I used to be what I call «Spleenic» (in the Baudelaire’s meaning nothing to do with any organ, but it seems like something you don’t learn about in the US as he was a French Poet in the 1800s. It describes an everlasting state of Melancholy without any reason. *if you read french, here is a good article about it*). I woke up sad, felt it all day long and would go to bed crying without really knowing why.
It was a vicious circle, my whole life was evolving around this sadness (the music I was listening to, the movies I adored, friends that would understand, a boyfriend that was as broken as me…).
My Nixies have all an important message to deliver (even when I think I am not quite ready yet to hear it, to work through it at that moment). Sometimes, however, this message is quite unexpected to me. I like that they are all someway positive, this is something that matters a lot to me. Even if sometimes they touch sensible points, like Amelia’s.
It never fails to make me nervous to share them when it happens. However, I do know that there is a positive reason behind everything, including these messages around difficult areas of Life.
Trista is about sadness. She is here to remind me that sadness is just an emotion that passes through me, that yes sometimes decides to settle in for a while, but that always eventually go away.
I used to fight it. Hard. And the harder I tried to push it back, the longer sadness stayed. I never really won against her on the long run, to be honest. This is how I learned to embrace it, to make peace with it, and then to let her go.
Trista reminds me that sadness is not a fatality. It does not define me.
Your emotions DOES NOT define who you are. Repeat after me: «My emotions are not me». Good !
Original SOLD
Prints available here
Here is the video (click on the little gear button to watch it in HD):
I am in a period of letting go. Letting go of my expectations, letting go of my perfectionism, letting go of what i think my art should look like.
I open myself to possibilities and to whatever may appear on the surface i am creating on. It means that I also have to let go of what «normal» is, how a kitty should look like, how a face should be this color and not that one. Letting go of all the SHOULDs that fill my brain all the time.
This new Sprixie is called Mindy. Her message is pretty straight forward: be who you are because you simply are exactly how you are meant to be.
Mindy loves to dress up as weird animals that exist only in her imagination. She does not care if a kitty is not supposed to have wings. She does not even care if both wings do not look like the same. «Weird» is her «Normal».
As lots of other Sprixies, she adores being out in the magnificent Nature surrounding her. Her friends are lovely but pretty shy, Mindy is one of the only Soul able to see them and have their trust. She would do anything possible to protect them.
The painting is made on 11×14″ canvas board. I used acrylic paint, stencils and gel medium, inks, pastels, lots of love and much more.
Mindy’s 8×10″ prints will be available in the shop soon and the original painting is now looking for a new home ($89 +shipping). Contact me if interested 🙂
Ok, as you may know I jumped on the train and signed up for the live version of Mindy Lacefield (from Tim’s Sally)’s online class «Paint Your Story».
I committed this year to really be careful when deciding about a class I wanted to take. Because honestly, last year I signed up for way too much classes, did not follow properly most of them and so it felt like I was wasting my money.
I often speak about how I feel like something is missing in my artwork, how something is kinda off. All of my Nixies have a story to share, but I was feeling like writing paragraphs of them was boring (I am bored very easily). I was lost and confused and needed direction.
This is what I found in «Paint Your Story». A new way to tell my stories, to fill my art with my own symbols and non sense and wildness. It helped me to accept that it does not have to look perfect to be meaningful, that a face does not have to actually look like a real face to be expressive. Acceptance is the key (I should count how many times I’ve written you that mantra in here ! ;)).
I will tell you more about them, but I have now a new… genre of painting, that I am calling «the Sprixies» (thank you Anu for spending time with me brainstorming to come up with this name). They are not human looking neither beast like, they are something totally different. I know I am just chanelling whatever comes. Maybe are they from a different Universe than ours ? Who knows ! Each have a strength to share.
And I would have not dare sharing them without what this online class opened for me.
So… back to Sonya 🙂
I created her on a 11×14″ canvas board. I used color I don’t use much like this red *Pyrrole red* for example. But love how it came together. From Chaos comes Calm.
I had lots of fun seeing her emerge from it. But at first, I was a bit confused by the paradox between the sadness I feel coming from her and the message she gives: PLAY.
And after thinking of it deeper, I realized that her message is more than that. She is there to show me (you) that no matter how sad you are, no matter how beaten by life you feel, if you keep a sense of playing, it will be better. Lighter on your Heart. Don’t let the dark part of you take over, give it some love because it needs it for sure, acknowledge its presence inside of you, but know that it does not define you entirely.
About the video… I finally was able to record a voice over, not without sweat and hair pulling (I am blessed with a wonderful husband who can help me when it comes to technical computer stuff). It makes me really nervous to speak on a video but i did it. FEARLESS I am. Uh.
So here it is:
If you have questions, and/or want to know more about the supplies I used, just tell me 🙂