Colour Your Life

After going to see The Vagina Monologues at my local theatre, I keep being sent 'what's on' guides for it.  Buried in the last one was an advert for Colour Your Life.  Its an arts programme partly funded by the NHS and its to aid well being through art.

So far I've been 3 times and have *loved* every minute.  There is an artist in residence who will help if you want / need it.  At the moment its Paul who does incredible art work.  If you want him to he will guide you through a project or you can just get stuck in and do your own thing, which is what I've been doing.

They have loads of stash there - canvasses of all sizes, paint (acrylic and watercolour), pastels, brushes, pencils, mod roc, corrugated card and if there is anything you particularly want they will try, within reason, to get it for you.

So far I have completed 2 pieces.  The first is called 'Windows to the Soul'.  I initially covered the canvas (15.5" x 11.5" shallow edge) with mod roc (the stuff plaster casts are made of) and attached the masks with that.  I then took it home and me and the masks had a falling out and they came un-stuck.  So I covered the whole thing with paper taken from an altered book I started at a workshop ages ago.  I painted the background with a weak wash of black Ecoline Ink.

Before I reattached the masks I printed 'art, beauty, passion and love' out from the PC and and traced round the words using Promarkers and stuck the words behind the eyes of the masks.  I then stuck the masks back to the canvas using my new fave glue - Hard as Nails!!!

I painted the masks with a weak wash of ultramarine violet Ecoline and finished the whole thing off with individual letters stamped using a See-Ds tiled alphabet stamp.  I wanted to convey the thought that despite all of the background noise I still have all of these things in my soul.

I'm really chuffed with it :-)

The second piece I've done is called 'My World is full of Colour'.  I started with a 20cm square deep edge canvas and planned to colour the background with a nice smooth layer of DI's but as I clagged them on ready to blend, Lisa and Pauline who I sit with stopped me blending them.  And I'm really pleased they did!  

The colours are Spice Marmalade, Broken China, Mustard Seed and Dusty Concord.

I already had a picture to go on it, cut from a magazine and just need wording.  I used the Artistic Affirmations stamps set from Chocolate Baroque.  I stamped them using Tuxedo Black Memento Ink onto tissue paper.

I used Golden Matte Gel Medium to adhere them all to the canvas and here is the finished article.

I think the picture is advertising a body wash or moisturiser that contains no chemicals but I just *love* the picture!

Pain, Journaling and Art

I've been meaning to post for ages but things have just gotten away from me.

First of all good news - I HAVE NO PAIN!!!!!!!

I've been a lot of pain over the last year or so.  It gradually crept up on me and just didn't go away, no matter what pain killers I took.  The only way I could get relief was to craft but my Muse disappeared.  Think she was scared by the pain lol!!

I've been attending the Pain Clinic for a while and a couple of weeks ago the doc offered me a Lidocaine infusion.  Its a local anaesthetic but doesn't numb when given by infusion.  It just does something to trick the nerves into not giving me pain.  There was no guarantee of it working but I *had* to try.

I had it on 25th January at my local hospital.  I had to go in my wheelchair as I just couldn't walk for the pain.  I went in with a pain score of 10 and came out with a score of zero and could walk again!  I get a little pain at night but the rest of the time its fine and no more pain killers.  Its a really weird feeling.  The first night I couldn't sleep cos my legs just didn't feel like mine.

I've still got very tired legs and I'm having spasms again but my MS Nurse is gonna work it out with my Neurologist to change some medication.

So now that I've written loads I think I should show my completed journal page that I started on new Years Day.

I wrote the wording using a dipping pen and drawing ink.  There were spots of ink all over cos I'm not so good with the pen so I decided to try and cover up the black marks by using Black Soot DI, which of course looked too dark and didn't dry.  So baby wipe at the ready I wiped it off and what I was left with was a darkened version of the original page which I love!

I also promised ages ago to show you my art from the MS Trust Secret Art Show.  There's another one starting in April.  I'm in the middle of doing more pieces for them.

All of the artwork is on heavy water colour paper that the MS Trust send out to the artist.  This one is drawing ink allowed to run over the paper with variegated metal leaf applied in some the shapes that the ink made.

This sold on the night of the first day of the show to the lady who organised the show.  She e-mailed to tell me and hoped I'd not be upset.  Out of all the artwork she saw, it was mine that spoke to her.  I was *chuffed*!!!

This is very obvious to any crafters out there.  I used Crushed Olive and Broken China DI's on the background with some water dripped on to remove some of the colour.  The stamp is from Sir Tim of Holtz.  Its a clear stamp and I got permission from Ranger and Sir Tim before using it.  The wording is printed on the PC and cut up.

This one sold in the first 10 minutes of the show opening!!

This was the first piece I did and I not keen on it.  Cos I'd spent time doing it I sent it in anyway.  I'm not sure if it sold or not.

I used some red paint from Ikea meant for colouring the plain wooden items they sell.  I painted another piece of paper and clagged this piece onto it and it came apart with this lovely pattern.  I used a green paint dabber through small sequin waste and then used yellow paint on a skewer to make the lines.

I've already done one piece for the Spring show and I'm really pleased with it.  Let you see that when its (hopefully) sold.