Great Round of Mandala stage 6 - Igniting the Inner Fire

Much bigger piece of artwork than I've tackled since well before I left school - and that's appropriate because it's about a big dilemma!.  Trying to find the balance between my corporate side and my energetic side, my highly regarded well-paid and exceedingly stressful job and my softer, more flowing side where money isn't important and quality of life comes first.  

It's a struggle.  The first part, the idea for the background, came easily though my normal workbook didn't feel big enough when I tried to put the cut out words and images onto it.  So I sketched a rough outline on wallpaper lining paper and left it alone for a couple of days.  I started painting it this morning and had a blissful time, filling in the moon, then the night sky, then the sun and day sky.  And then I got stuck.
I found the envelope which had all my magazine and newspaper clippings in it and started trying to put them onto the background.  And none of them felt right.  So I went on the internet, found more images and quotes, battled my printer to get them on paper and went to add them.  And they didn't feel right either.  Resizing, trimming, overlapping, spacing - nothing made them look right.  So I took a break.
I posted the picture of my work in progress on the Mandala Magic site along with the Choosing your name mandala I made yesterday, and waited to see if anything came to me to determine what was wrong. 

Stage 6: Dilemma mandala

 And staring at the image on the screen, which looks somehow different to the 50cm x 50cm version on my kitchen floor, it suddenly struck me that the balance is already there.  The sun and moon are both part of the cycle of day and night.  There are times when the moon is in the day sky and times when the sun is out during traditional night hours. They are opposites and contrasts but they are not mutually exclusive.  When one is in the sky, that doesn't mean the other can't be there.  It is not having both that is wrong, it is trying to make one into the other.  Moonlight doesn't give the depth and richness of colour that sunlight brings, sunlight is too harsh for bats and owls and other night creatures.  So there's no use hunting for bats at midday, and there's little point in looking to take a stunning picture of an open rose at midnight.  Each has their time and place.  

So my dilemma is possibly not so much about ditching the corporate world entirely, though that works for some people.  It is about ditching THIS job, this particular nightmare, and not being sucked in by the flattery that entices me to stay where my heart bleeds every day for the pointlessness and the bullying, for the lack of control and direction, the waste of my efforts.  It doesn't diminish the fact that I am very good at what I do, that I deserve recognition, it simply states that this does not make my soul sing, it causes me to resist walking out of the door every morning and this is not living, it is surviving.  And the treasures that the money buys are not enough to make up for it.

And that decision has already been made, and declared.  The challenge will be in sticking to the decision and not to permit my reasoning mind to let me sidle sideways into another role that will bring the same pain and despair, whilst bringing in the income.     

Round 6: Choosing your name

Stages for creating the Dilemma mandala:

Gesso for texture on the moon

Squiggles of ready mixed paint

Sponged the squiggles give intensity & depth

More paint spots and sponging for the sun

Blue and white paint for the day sky

More catching up and a momentous decision

The decision first - I will not be renewing my contract at my current job at the end of July.  I am going to take some time to find out what I really want to do with my life, and I finally think I have some tools that will help me to take positive steps rather than drifting rather aimlessly, dabbling in various pursuits.  I have just signed up for Julie Gibbon's Art Journal Adventure to learn more about making mixed media storybooks - I am not a great fan of collage as an art medium for myself, probably because I'm not very good at it, lol, but I love the look of it in other people's art journalling.  And since I'm already doing some fairly deep work in Julie's Great Round of Mandala I'm hoping that learning a new technique with storybooks will help me determine what to do next. And if it doesn't, I can always find another contract, lol.  But in the meantime, I will make a concerted effort to really delve into what my true heart fire & soul passion is, rather than just going with the IT contract work that I am good that but which is, quite literally, soul-destroying. 

And on to more light-hearted stuff.  More playing and experimenting with the ICADs, still not really following any of the prompts but allowing things around me and other people's postings to inspire me :-)

#25 and #26 were done using foam stamps with acrylics on watercolour backgrounds that I made right back at the start of ICAD, when I was experimenting with the rainbow prompt.  Facebook is having hissy fits today so is posting images in all sorts of random ways, despite how they appear on my PC.  #25 is actually upside down, as the green glitter gel pen should be stems for the flowers.  

ICAD #25

ICAD #26

 #26 was an attempt to marble colours, but I was too impatient and didn't wait long enough for each layer to dry before adding the next one, hence the slightly muddy effect.  Glitter stars from a pack of card-making decorations from the 99p shop :-)

ICAD #28a

ICAD #28b

ICAD #27

 Another blog random - all of these pictures were taken at the same time in the same orientation but my blog (and Facebook!) won't put #27, or #28b in landscape mode, however I have them on my computer 8-/  And despite moving the first ones around without any problems, I can't change the order of these on the page.  Maybe it will correct itself over time, or once I publish the page!  # 27 was finger-painting with ready-mixed children's paint, then a rub-on transfer from a set (99p from The Works), whilst the rest were inspired by another posters ICAD where she put splots of paint onto one card, then squashed another card on top and peeled them apart to get interesting textures.  28a and b were the pair that I did this way, though I lost a lot of the lovely texture as they dried - maybe I need thicker paint or a less absorbent card.  I could try using gesso underneath or maybe a shiny paper. 29 was done by lightly pre-folding the card in half to mark the centre, then dabbing paint onto one half, before closing the fold.  I was aiming for a butterfly effect but Facebook wouldn't turn this image around and once I had viewed it in portrait mode a few times, I suddenly saw this as trees at sunset, reflected in water :-)

ICAD #29

ICAD #24

Very quick ICAD today - couldn't find my fibre tip pen and the nearest equivalent handy was one of the whiteboard markers I use for my wipeable fridge magnets :-D  Very thick tip so difficult to get any detail but quite like some of the overall effects.  Trip to the art shop tomorrow to get more fibre tip pens :-)

Like the effects I've created on our tiny patio/balcony at the flat too, with my pebbles from Cornwall and my new baby dragon sculpture - he's now cradling a heap of 'treasure', tiny crystal chips from a lovely little shop in Tintagel :-)  

My sunflower plants all survived, though a couple are looking a bit droopy (they drooped as tiny seedlings and seem to be continuing to grow that way!), and my lavender is finally coming into flower.  

Not sure why dragon picture turned out so red-tinted with the flash but love the way his treasure sparkles :-)

ICAD #23 and some holiday photos :-)

ICAD #23 - I am free to live joyfully

This ICAD was inspired by patterns in the paving at the retreat where we were staying and the affirmation came from an exercise that we did in how to move forward from a 'stuck place'. 

The paving slabs looked like this 

- and this was how it looked when I drew it in the sand (difficult to see the scale here but those are my footprints around the edges, so it was about a metre across).

I am free to live joyfully

I loved how much more I saw around me in terms of inspirations for art because of doing the ICAD and how much more creative I have become just from a simple daily practice.  For me, it is still not the quality of the end result that matters, but the process itself and what I am learning from it :-)

Close-up of stream running down to the beach

Ripples from drops of water

Sand zentangle with pebbles and crystal chips

Sand zentangle with seaweed and shells

Framing wildflowers at Tintagel Castle

My version of zen rocks :-)

Catch up time :-)

So a few days away with barely a phone signal, let alone internet access and it's time to catch up.  ICADs are up to date so I've got a few to post, plus some lovely images from our break in Cornwall !

First up is ICAD 18.  This was done on a background I created before I went away when I was playing with sponging.  The rusty brown shades made me think of autumn so I wanted to do a leaf print.  This was a piece of bracken picked up on one of our walks.  It didn't come out as detailed as I was hoping for, so yet another thing to practice.  

ICAD #18

 
Next is an experiment seeing whether I could make layers of paint stand out on a dark painted background (more explorations in using black!).  Didn't really like the effects for this one so decided that perhaps very strong backgrounds need collage or similar on top, or at least paints that are less translucent. 

ICAD #19

 So having learned from ICAD #19, this time I used the dramatic background for a mini-collage, inspired by the recycle theme.  The card was originally one of a series that I had used to log books I had read and I was curious to see how much paint, and which colours, would be needed to cover the writing.  This colour scheme made me think of bright summer fruits so I used a piece of junk mail from a local farm and recycled it into a positive message "Pick your own dream to feel good".

ICAD #20 Pick your own dream to feel good

 ICAD #21 continues the theme of collage to cope with strong backgrounds - this one says "Make room for sparking creativity now!"  The words came from a variety of junk mail, as did the mandala which inspired the phrase :-)

ICAD #21 Make room for sparking creativity now!

 Another strong background playing with black - the image of a stack of books came from an Open University magazine, which has a section entitled OpenMinds.  The word books came from a flyer catalogue for a local theatre, so I had to cut an 's' from a different word to convert the word Book :-)

ICAD #22 - Books open minds

 

ICAD #17 and a road trip :-)

Very excited to be going on a trip down to Cornwall this week for a reiki retreat near Tintagel :-)  Even more excited that my partner is coming with me and is fully prepared to play with energy with me!  After all the derisive 'dolphin nonsense' comments from my previous relationship, I still can't quite believe I've found my true soul mate, who not only supports me and actively engages as well.

My ICAD for today was quite a challenging one - I am a bit afraid of black paint and rarely use it for fear that it would swamp the whole image.  So I decided to try and paint some cards as black as I could as backgrounds to see what the effect would be.  And it's actually quite hard to make a background really black!  Here's one of the cards I like the most....

It really reminds me of clouds moving away after a storm :-)  

Got to scoot now to load the car :-)

P.S. and it is actually 07:45 am on 17 June so not sure why my blog has suddenly started to use a random date/time stamp (currently indicating I wrote this at 23:39 on 16th which is presumably an American date/time stamp???) 

P.P.S Yep, it had reset to US Pacific time so now it's back on Greenwich meantime, my posts are all back in the correct place, lol

ICAD #16

This is one I've been thinking about doing since I first saw the prompt "sewing" but never got around to it.  Didn't turn out quite how I was planning, but then, most of my ICADs don't, lol. After taking this picture I realised I'm missed some 'stitches' on the right, so I've corrected that now. This was watercolour pencils, 'painted' with water, plus a fine fibre tip pen for the stitches.

Grass-free lawns and ICAD #15

Non-grass lawns!  Possibly a controversial topic in my neighbourhood since mine mostly consisted of dandelions and moss until recently.  Having actively encouraged some kind of ground-cover plant with tiny yellow flowers, similar to chickweed, I now have a fairly good covering over my front garden which is pushing out the grass (hooray - no more mowing!).  At the back, I have left half of the long grass to be meadow-like (very fine grassy stems with tiny seed heads at the top) and have scattered wildflower seed into it, in the hopes of encouraging poppies, cornflowers and the like to grow too.  Much better for the bees and insects than boring grass that I never walk on except to cut it!  Rethinking the traditional grass lawn is not a new idea, I have wanted a Victorian camomile lawn for a few years, but the cost has always put me off (plus grass will push it out again). Having recently seen an article on research about flower lawns, I was inspired to try to find more ground covering plants that will be happy to be left alone for long periods of time without turning into a hideous tangled mess.  So I now have lots of packets of seeds and a plan for sculpting out defined areas of my front lawn to plant pink and yellow flowers in patterns :-) 

Today's ICAD comes from experiments with sponging colour onto cards in a further attempt to get results I like for blending colours.  Had several goes at this with different colour schemes - this one was created deliberately to complement the colours in the temporary tattoo, then I added extra water to make paler patches to make the tattoo stand out more.  Really like this effect and a good way to use up a tattoo I would never put on my skin, lol!

For some reason Facebook and my blog are playing silly buggers with my photos today.  It is incredibly hard to get them to display in landscape mode, even though they are displaying fine on my phone, in my Picture folders and in Photo Viewer.  As soon as I try to upload them, they turn into portrait mode or upside down.  Rotating the images on my PC doesn't fix it!!  Soooo frustrating.  Managed to edit the uploads on Facebook to rotate them in situ, so they currently look ok (though may get messed up if the glitch is fixed!), then had to copy and paste the rotated images back from Facebook onto my PC, then upload them again to get them to display correctly in my blog.....

 
  

ICAD #14 and a challenging day

My last day at work before my holiday and it turned out to be very busy but very productive.  It was the first day in a very long time that I was busy in a 'normal' way instead of being beasted by the customer and by other departments/ individuals who are supposed to be supportive. It started with an early phonecall with my boss, who recognised that I was very stressed and fed up with the diabolical environment and the frequent unwarranted verbal attacks from the customer and who wanted to be reassured that I wasn't going to walk out on very short notice (unlike Andy who decided on Wednesday not to renew his contract on Friday!!). 

It turned out to be a challenging day in other ways - after last nights trauma of the couple on the next table explaining the horrors of planning their wedding with hideous family members, leading to them cancelling the honeymoon and moving the wedding venue, tonight's distress came from the couple on the table behind us who were quite obviously splitting up because he was an arrogant insufferable tosser who wouldn't compromise and she was trying to stay true to herself and steel herself to break it off.  Their 'discussions' were loud and very emotionally charged, and she was in tears several times.  She was projecting her distress very strongly and I actually ended up in floods of tears myself (she was literally back to back with me, our chairs were practically touching).  When she excused herself to go to the ladies, I actually left the table to go and see if she was alright.  She told me she was fine and thanked me - she was very surprised and touched that I had approached her.  A strong woman!

We got home late but I still wanted to paint so I used a quote that had appeared on my facebook wall earlier in the day - as with yesterdays photos, the camera doesn't really do it justice, but I'm pleased with the effects.  I may play with this some more in a larger version and spend more time on it :-)

 

My sunflower seedlings are doing very well so I decided to take a chance and plant them out this evening, instead of dragging them back home with me and coddling them for another couple of days before putting them out.  Transplanted 15 seedlings into individual pots, watered them all well, put them onto the sheltered side of our patio and left them to their own devices for the week, hoping for the best, lol.

They're a bit spindly and weak, and I had to gently remove the seed husks from the smaller ones so the leaves could spread out and catch the light, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed they survive the next few days without me :-)

ICAD #13

Was in a bit of a rush today so used stamps to create images to play with.  I was experimenting with water colour pencils and how to actually gently blend the colours to keep the textures and patterns I created, rather than wash them all into one muddy mess!  I still need to practise this but overall, I was pleased with the effects.  The borders were done with glitter gel pens though the brightness of the colours and the sparkles don't really come out in these photos. 

Today was a horrible day at work so it was great to come home to discover that the sunflower seeds I planted on Monday evening had already not only germinated, but burst into life so vibrantly that they had pushed the plastic cover up in the air.  Nearly 3 inches tall just 3 days after being planted and left in the airing cupboard to keep warm!

ICAD #11 and #12

Loving the zentangles so two cards in a row inspired by the new doodle patterns I'm learning :-)

The first one was started in the muffin bar in Lewisham shopping centre, lol, though it took several hours in total to get it this far.  Some patterns are copied and others I just went with the flow.  There are lots of more complex patterns that I want to learn so zentangle could be featuring quite highly over the next few weeks :-)

#12 started from a video on Youtube "How to grow a mandala", though my version is nothing like the version that was illustrated (which is actually the point!).  I then used zendala inspired patterns to fill the empty space around it - when I'd finished, it looked to me a bit like it was floating in the clouds :-)
 

ICAD #10

Another card inspired by the weekends activities, with a little help from a couple of the week 2 prompts :-)  This one is a collage of a map of the treasure hunt we did around Greenwich on Sunday, with a gold foil background from the wrapping of some rum truffles we bought on the way around!
The bird and number 4 is recycled from an old Christmas card, to mark Lucy's 4th birthday on Saturday.  Although the colours don't show up too well on the photo, the lilac bows and the pale green of the weather symbol are close to the colours Rich and I painted her bedroom.  The weather symbol was from Saturday's weather - warm and overcast, with occasional sun (sun was another prompt), then the pig was because I met a pet pig for the first time on Friday, at my beauty therapist's house, of all places :-)

 

ICAD #9

Another day of highs and lows, though hopefully (if I run to bed in the next few minutes, lol), it will end on a high.  Was back at home in Berkshire this morning and got up early to strim the grass as it was way too long to attempt attacking it with the lawnmower.  Plus I wanted to keep the little yellow flowers in the creeping ground plant at the front, and the primroses and clover at the back.  The front was fairly quick and easy, the back required some weeding around Pippin's grave which triggered lots of memories, and some tears.  I'm welling up again now, just remembering.  I left half of the back lawn as meadow grass and plan to throw in some wild flower seed so hopefully will get poppies and cornflowers to go in the fine grasses.  The other half was strimmed down, leaving my yellow primroses, lots of clover and making the purple poppies and flag irises around Pippin's stone visible from the sitting room.  I pulled out loads of sticky weeds, not sure what it's called but it has square stalks and later in the summer would have little round seed pods that stick as well.  I filled a complete bin bag with it and still wasn't done!.

Hurtled back to London to be in time for acro-yoga but by the time we got here, I really wasn't in the mood.  Instead we wandered over to Greenwich to look for the 'sausage lady' to get some salami but she wasn't there.  So we ate Japanese teriyaki salmon, Italian cakes and bought rum truffles and ingredients to make raw chocolate.  We also did a Treasure Hunt quiz to win a watch and jewellery (not too bothered about winning but it was fun finding the answers!) and had a lovely chat with the man behind the counter in Johnny Rocket's jewellery store. 

Finished up with a soak in the jacuzzi and a splash in the pool back at the flat, hence the inspiration for the ICAD Day 9 card :-)

 Background drawn in watercolour pencils, inspired by the tiles in the swimming pool.  These were then 'washed' over with a brush dipped in water to make them look more paint-like and watery, then the "splash" logo was drawn over the top, firstly outlined in pencil, then inked in with CD marker pen.

ICAD #8

So today is Lucy's 4th birthday - where did the year go??  Had a lovely afternoon over at Caroline's, where Rich and I painted Lucy's bedroom in lilac and pale green, to go with her new curtains and duvet cover :-)  

The morning was spent with a reflexology appointment in Theale, followed by my ICAD, then a trip into Reading to find Rich some hiking boots for our holiday the week after next (need to figure out what I'm taking with me for ICAD supplies whilst we're away!).  Boots duly found, I couldn't resist popping into Hobbycraft a couple of doors down and ended up with two new stamps, one of a curlicue bird and another of two love-birds with a heart :-)

This morning's ICAD was inspired by a post on Facebook a couple of days ago with a picture of a forest with the statement "This is a community too".

The trees are stamped from the same set that has the penguins on a sled (there are 3 different sizes), and they are coloured in with water colour pencils.  I haven't yet decided whether I will add water to make them more painted, or leave them as they are.  I like the effect of the fainter stamps where the ink was running out looking more like background trees. 

And a bonus card today with one of my new stamps -