Hello, It’s Been Awhile…

Hey doll hey!!! How have you been? Great I hope. Sorry I’ve been MIA for awhile. I was going through a heap of things. I had a really bad fibro flare that lasted a few months and then because of the flare I ended up having a super dark depressive episode.

As with most chronic illnesses, when you are seriously ill and not ambulatory for an extended period of time, especially when you have mental illness, you tend to get depressed…often deeply.

I changed medical coverage and had to wait almost 2 full months to get qualified for new coverage so I was without my Seroquel and that had a major role in my depression getting so bad.

Thank goodness for my hubby. He was patient and supportive and really did all he could to help my get through this dark time.

Along the way I discovered art…. as in I started painting… I learned how to do fluid art and it’s been such a joy and such a wonderful outlet since I had not been able to play with my makeup. I hadn’t been in my makeup room since 2 days after my last post in July… it was so utterly upsetting. But art… art helped catapult me out of my darkness and happily I was able to get into the makeup room for my birthday.

I’d like to share the painting that I made over the past several months with you… I’m still a novice so I’m not super great at it but it’s been fun and it’s helped spark life back into me so I’m proud of it…

I do what is known as fluid art… mainly Dutch Pour painting. Dutch Pour painting is where you flood the canvas with a base shade and then pour colors into a puddle or a line and then blow (with a blow dryer) the colors over the canvas. I have tried ring pours (similar to dirty pours) and dirty pours (that is where you layer the colors into a cup and flip it onto the canvas and then move the canvas around to create your painting).

So let’s see what I’ve created…

These are the first month’s paintings… Some were sloppy and some came out better than I expected… however the composition on all of them are not really thought out. The first one was a dirt pour painting… I didn’t really like this style of painting so it’s the only one I did.

The next month I started to get better at planning out composition and color palettes. The last two paintings were ring pours. Ring pour paintings are a bit more fun than dirty pour paintings but still not really something I gravitate toward in the fluid art realm. I also tried my hand as a split base painting… it wasn’t the best but I really love it.

Last month’s paintings I was getting so much better. I really like the compositions of these ones. I learned how to create shadows and I learned how to create balance in my work.

These are the ones I made this month. The first one is a gift for my god daughter the second one was me testing my hand at a large canvas and I am absolutely in love with it. The final painting was a split base flow that surprised me that I could create such a beautiful piece.

These last two I did a few days back. They represent the journey I went through this last time with my mental health. I see mental health as being in a dark place and coming out of an episode as rising above a stormy sky. The grey is the stormy sky (my darkness) and I chose the rainbow because just as with the sky after a storm coming out of an episode is like a rainbow breaking through the storm. This first painting with it’s turbulence represents me struggling to get my head above the clouds and the second one with it’s light and feathery flow represents my finally getting my head about the storm and into the sun. I made these with metallic paints to represent the beauty in both acknowledging my pain and finally pushing through my pain.

Well dolls… this is what I’ve been up to the past few months… and my hope is that I will be back to makeup posts more often…. however I will also be posting some art content.

I hope this post finds you, mental, physically and emotionally is a good place. For those of you who suffer with mental illness as well… please remember that through the darkest of storms always comes the beauty of the rainbow… you my friend are that rainbow… just hold on for the storm to pass and the sun to show you the way.

XOXO, Nita