New painting and a new class

I have just finished a commissioned painting for someone.

Mixed media on 12x12" canvas

I used watercolour crayons, acrylics, ink sprays and stamping. The pentacle, raven and triple swirl are my own stamps that I have made stamped onto vintage book paper. I used flocking powder on the flower and the black part of the corset to make it look like velvet (which you can't really see from the photo).

I don't have a name for her yet though.

I have started a new class over at Wild Precious Studio called 'To see us through the long dark'. We are using the book 'life is a verb' by Patti Digh as the inspiration for the class. The book was written because the authors step father died just 37 days after being diagnoised with cancer, which made her examine her own life-'37 days to wake up, be mindful and live intentionally'. It is a wonderful book full of art, challenges to help you live a better life and to examine your own life. Effy Wild is running the class and asked us lots of questions after the first chapter, one of them being-'if your story was a house what would it look like?' We were then asked to do a collage journal page on this particular question.

 So, this is my house. Not a great work of art but I wanted to concentrate more on the meaning of it and answering the question rather than create a piece of art work. Some of the images I chose because they are symbolic, others just because I liked them.My family influence the house greatly, my kids and my hubby (who is my hero, hence the superhero image!), my spirituality, transformation and creativity. The attic is the darker area where skeletons lurk, innocence has been put away, people of the past reside, caged birds (thoughts and dreams) are held and that scared little girl still sometimes wanders. The clock has no time on it to encourage me to live in the now. The white bubbles outside the house represent letting go of things.

I am really enjoying this class, the book is a wonderful read, the questions are thought provoking and everyone on the site is so supportive of each other. I was just going to follow along with this class quietly, in the background, without posting my answers or my art, because I don't really like revealing stuff about myself but I am so glad I took the plunge and fully participated, It means I am 'inhabiting my own story'.

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend,

TFL

Sami x