Let's dance! (the story of a painting)

This little painting kind of took me by surprise as it appeared very quickly; I usually work quite slowly and take ages to finish a piece of work.  

I take photos as I go along because it helps me to see the painting in a different way.  The camera shows you things that you don't necessarily see with the naked eye.  Because I have a series of photos I thought I would show its development step by step.

I chose a canvas I had already prepped with an underpainting of bright colour and then started to unearth the images already contained in the paint and colour.  I liked the movement in the brush strokes of the underpainting and I wanted to keep that energy.  

I was drawn to finding and painting images of the goddess or feminine energy;  I have worked with the goddess for a long time now and the muse usually (though not always) points me in this direction. 

Different elements such as the trees started to appear.  Orange and blue/green quickly established as the dominant colours. 

I found I wanted to keep the yellow architectural elements and the blue organic swirls at the top of the painting.  The figures became more established and the foreground more developed.  The figures needed some more definition and presence but I like that they are all very different and doing different things.  The final step is sharpening and tidying up.

Painting finished!

What artiness have you been up to this last week?  I would love to hear from you.

From my dancing goddess heart to yours

Rachel xox

Journal pages

Hi - it's been a while...

This week I'm proud to have been featured on The Right Brain Planner's website in Teresa Robinson's series inviting 'art journaling friends to share images from their art journals'.  You can see my story and images from my pages at http://www.rightbrainplanner.com/art-journaling-as-a-way-back-into-making-art-rachels-art-her-story/

Thank you Teresa for your invitation and opportunity to share my some of my journal pages.  It made me realise I hadn't shared my art for a few weeks, so here they are...

Last time I posted I had been delving deep with Tracie Hansens's Journalling Quest class from 21 Secrets (Art Journal Playground).  I have been so gripped and absorbed by this art journaling technique that I have continued to use this journal questing to create my pages.

I have been grounding myself with the tree and rock people...

communing with the naiads and water nymphs...

and transforming some dark matter with the orange and purple fire people...

I'm loving watching my tribes appear.  

My aim is to take this means of painting and journaling and use it on canvas and I have started already, but what has happened will have to wait till next time.

What have you been questing for in your journal pages or transforming in your life?

Have a great weekend

From my transforming heart to yours

Rachel xox

Hi, I'm here

Hi I'm new to blogging, but I'm here!! 

2011 was a big, big year for me.  I started to make art again.  

I originally trained in Fine Art, graduating in 1980, leaving university knowing that I wanted to PAINT.  I did this for 7 years, supporting myself with various part time jobs, but in those days, pre-internet, it was much tougher to sell art and get yourself out there.  I made my paintings, but I didn't sell any.  When I hit 30 I became severely depressed and stopped painting.  I came out of my depression, but by that time I had my first child and then didn't find the desire to go back to my creativity.  Life went on, the years went by; I had another child and another depression and other important life events meant that my creative self went deeper and deeper.

But she was still there, sleeping in my heart, till one day she woke up and I couldn't ignore her whispers anymore.  The whispers became shouts and I knew I had to start making art again.  I began with art jounalling and creating mandalas. Both were extremely healing processes for me.

During this time I did a lot of healing work on myself using Angelic Reiki as my main means of support. This inner healing enabled me to find out what I really, truly wanted to do with my life and I committed to daily art/creative practice; first of all with Louise Gale's Colour Bliss Mini Retreat and then just took off on my own.  I wasn't too hard on myself - if I didn't do any art, I created vision boards, mind mapped to define my dreams or baked a cake.

Slowly, over a period of months the need to make art a  much bigger part of my life grew and grew until I realised that my BIG dream was to stop teaching holistic therapies and live a CREATIVE life - to be the artist I dreamed of being in my 20's.  This would be a giant step - I had been teaching for 12 years and had built up my own training business.  I took Kelly Rae Robert's Flying Lessons and found that I knew in my heart of hearts that I could do whatever I wanted to do...

I've taken baby steps towards that dream - I've led a mandala workshop, facilitated my first creative healing workshop and co-taught two goddess workshops (which are based on soul work through creativity).  Most importantly, having spent a year doing art journalling and mixed media work I started PAINTING again thanks to Flora Bowley's course, Bloom True.

And so...where am I now??  

In the last month I've taken the GIANT step!!  I've given up teaching therapies and handed in my keys for my training/therapy room.  My training business still exists (Amethyst Holistic Training) but now I do the admin but no teaching, therefore freeing up time for creativity.

'You have to put yourself out there, if you want the Universe to come rushing in...' 

Kelly Rae Roberts

I've spent the last 18 months re-connecting to my creative self and at last I've reached a point where I feel brave enough to put myself and my art out there.  And now I really, really want the Universe to come rushing in...

I'm here!!  Here I am...