This journal page just makes me happy…. It has the best grungy goodness! But still has the softness of the flowers.
I really wanted to let out how I was feeling in this season, how I feel like everything is hard and yet how tender and right at the surface are all of my emotions.
How life can feel hard and soft at the same time. How we as humans can do the hard things and still be tender.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a season of hard, where everything feels like I’m sloshing through mud, how even the littlest things can bring me to tears or frustration.
I know it will pass because I’ve been here many times before, but the waiting is hard. And I know that the way through is gratitude…
Small actions of noticing good, of noticing smiles. Small actions like naps and space, like prayer and meditation, small actions like letting the tears fall. Gratitude for friends, kids, Creator and my partner. It’s the small bright lights in each day that help me on this journey.
The hard seasons also brings clarity… that’s one of the things I’m most thankful for during this time. I become very clear about how I want to spend my time, money, energy. How I want to live and simplify things.
So if you’re in this kind of season, know that it’s just that…. a season. And it can have a purpose if you let it.
You are loved!!
Ps… I had a lot of issues with my camera turning off…. ahem….. oh this season…. So I’m sorry and hope you understand.
Supplies
- My hand made journal
- Liquitex fluid matte medium
- Utrecht gesso
- DecoArt crackle paint
- Grumbacher acrylic pale pink, alizarin crimson hue
- Liquitex heavy body bronze yellow
- Golden heavy body – sap green, permanent violet dark, burnt sienna
- Liquitex soft body quin magenta
- Lukas acrylic – raw umber, olive green
- Liquitex acrylic ink – muted gray and transparent raw umber
- Blick matte acrylic – pink medium, yellow-orange light
- Soft pastels- Mungyo, Soho, Gallery
- palette knife, charcoal pencil
Stencils used: THESE WILL BE ON SALE THIS WEEK
This post contains affiliate links from Amazon and Blick at no cost to you.
Art Bundle for good is back# for its 6th season! With lots of amazing artists! All different kinds of mediums and two of my flower workshops are included!
The are doing a giveaway right now and 3 winners will be given the bundle for free! So head on over and enter.
The Giveaway runs from October 28, 11:00 am (New York Time) to November 3, 23:59 (New York Time).
This is an absolutely wonderful piece of art and I love it. The depth and the richness add so much to it! As for having a hard season, remember everybody goes off the boil, sportsmen and women who can no longer score goals or play tennis for example for a period of time. You however, are still producing gorgeous art so be positive, be grateful and things will improve soon. Take care!
Jacqui, thank you so much and thanks for your encouraging words! Hugs and love!
Just beautiful, Shawn! I love the colors and especially the juxtaposition of the grunge background and the flowers. I was sharing with a friend yesterday that I love (here in the AZ desert) how there are prickly cactus that live in and survive the harshest of conditions that also produce some of the most delicate and feminine looking flowers I have seen. Your project brings that to mind again. Ah, the lessons of nature. Peace to you.
I love this journal page. And I love the message you shared. I’ve been heard to tell my grown boys – one of the only benefits of aging is that we come to know, really know, through hard won experience, that this too shall pass. The seasons of hard are still hard. But knowing that the darkness and storms will pass helps me stay calm in the fray. May your faith and your generous spirit carry you through this season of stormy weather and may the mud that slows you down also give you time to just breathe and appreciate the colors of even the darkest sky.
Yes, yes they will pass! and your right time teaches us that. And I always learn and grow so much during these times…. and take things sometimes moment by moment searching for gratitude. Thanks for sharing and being here. YOU are loved!
Hi Shawn,
When you were talking about the graphite pencil being hard and that you liked it as the juxtaposition of hard with soft, and as you talked I was looking at the flowers ~there was a magic moment there.
At the beginning, the main flowers were a muddy mess, with just dark strokes. They were ugly and did not look as flowers at all.
Then came the highlights, and I was “stop! Stop! Too much” I thought now it was too light and the flowers were lost again. JAJAJA!
But when you applied the “hard” pencil, it harmonized the whole so that the dark and the light went into balance to reveal the beauty of the flower.
So this is your hard time. And your heart is soft and vulnerable. And all the problems! So hard! But how could those problems that make it hard be the pencil that harmonizes the dark and the light and brings the shape and beauty of new things into the foreground?
That got me thinking that you as an artist knew this. You knew what you were doing, you knew where you were going.
What if the Divine knows where s/he is going when the hard things show up in the design of your life? What if they are there to expand your capacity, to reveal what needs highlights and lowlights in time, space, emotions, body or resources and to nourish your softness into new beauty and fresh possibilities?
I’m going to explore these questions for myself, so thanks for being the channel.
Thanks again for the beauty, inspiration and for your living from empowered vulnerability ~to help us stay in that vibration.
Maria,
What a beautiful analogy… and I truly believe that the Diving always know the way and only allows what I can handle and what will teach me.
Thanks so much for sharing and for walking with me on this creative journey!! YOU are loved!
You make beautiful things. God carries you true this season! He knows everything you going true! He loves you!
Thank you and I completely agree! Thanks for being here!!