An end ... and a beginning

This is an image of a painting I've had in mind since my art therapy session where I found the snake could well be a personal symbol of mine - despite being fearful of them! I've read a little about the symbolism of the snake, and the snake that is swallowing its own tail is called a 'uroboros'. It literally means 'one is all' and refers to the cycles of life, such as death and rebirth. The death of something old in one's life and the start of something new.

The picture is painted on a stretched canvas in acrylic paints. I made the dots using a small twig I'd found eons ago in a park, and kept for using for the right opportunity. This was it.

I wasn't intending for it to look so bright, but I'm glad it does. It doesn't appear so frightening and gives the snake a positive feel. It was quite uncomfortable for me to paint something that frightens me quite so much, but after I finished it I felt a sense of relief as if I now see the snake in a different light. Still a little fearful (probably very sensible considering where we live!) but also with more respect. An interesting exercise.

In knots!

This is the detail of the Celtic knots I'm painting on a big canvas which I did post about some weeks ago now. It's not my usual colours so I came a bit unstuck and out of my comfort zone, so I left the picture standing against the wall where I could see it until inspiration hit. In the end it wasn't inspiration but necessity that made me put the canvas up on my easel and begin painting again - the canvas has been standing at the top of a small set of steps, and unbeknownst to me somebody had been running up said steps and using the canvas as a braking board! Therefore, I've decided I'd better finish the picture and get it up on the wall where it will be safe ...

It was really hard to know what to tackle first, but when I found a tube of gold oxide my dilemma was over! Orange is one of my favourite colours to paint with, consequently I felt at ease to paint, and the colour goes well with the brown earth colour that it blends into on the Celtic knot ribbons. The paints I'm using are Jo Sonja's artist's colours. It's a slow process but I haven't given up - the finished piece will eventually be shown here!

Healing Avocado!

I've had the opportunity to work from a friend's studio for a couple of days, and today I painted a picture of an avocado lady! You can see her in the top picture. As you may remember I've been having a few health issues of the hormonal variety, and they keep revisiting! So today as it was making me feel miserable I thought I would paint through it and put my feelings about the whole matter into art. The result is my avocado lady looking sad, though I have surrounded her with healing orange light, and re-affirmed that I want healing with the word 'healing' at the bottom of the picture. If nothing else it made me concentrate on something other than discomfort, and I did feel soothed by the time I finished. I just have to keep reiterating how healing art is, to mind, body and soul.

The other beautiful picture is by my youngest who accompanied me to the studio. We painted the little wee man together, although it is mainly the younger artist's work. I just lent a hand to painting the t-shirt! We found some awesome kids paint that was clear in colour but contained glitter, so when it dries you're left with a lovely sparkly surface. That gained top marks from both of us. In fact the time creating art with my children is another thing to be thankful for, precious together time doing something we love.

What's in a name?

'Heading Towards the Light' (copyright Lara Geach)

Thought it was time to put in another photo of one of my paintings. It was painted quite a while ago, it was me trying to describe walking away from an old life to a new one a bit earlier in my journey of self-discovery. The book under the woman's arm is the book of her life. I like it because it's positive and I'm quite pleased how the light feathers out around her head like a halo! It was all accidental, I didn't have a small enough brush to paint right up to the edges of her hair - I'd painted a yellow undercoat on the whole canvas - but liked the effect so much I left it. It's all part of the creativity evolving moment by moment as I talked about a couple of posts ago.

I've also been musing about names today. I'm glad to say I love my name, (thank you mum and dad!) and am lucky enough to have two variations of it. Lara is the name I use everyday, but my 'real' name is Larissa, and only my gran used to call me that, so it's kind of special. However, I've been thinking recently that I would quite like to use Larissa as my artist name because it's just so lovely and I feel I should use it after almost 40 years! Part of me, however, thinks that is being a bit precious, so I'm going to ruminate on it further! I have created an on-line store on Etsy called Larissa Designs, and my mum liked it, which is always good! Don't go and look for wonderful art to buy though, because it's just a store with no merchandise at present! I will make a big announcement when there is something to sell!

OK, I have ruminated further, and think that it is my name, I love it and why shouldn't I use it! Will have to practise a bit though, as LMG is a lot easier to paint than Larissa, but what a nice problem to have!

I've finished my painting at last ... 'Hiraeth'

Here you can see the middle and completed stages of my painting I've mentioned in so many posts I can't remember. I last posted a picture of it when it was just painted pink. It seems that I needed to feel more homesick and a little depressed before I could finally finish it and express my genuine, heartfelt feelings. Felt totally exhausted when it was completed, but very pleased with the overall result, and a bit lighter in my heart too.

The word 'hiraeth' is from Welsh and I think it's quite difficult to translate exactly into English, but I love it because the sound of the word itself sounds like the breath of longing. The quote I used is part of the prose written by Val Bethell, and it's well worth checking the page out as she has produced a lovely slideshow to go with it. But the term really captures how I feel about my home country. I've used part of her work on the front of my painting and the rest of it is written on the side of the canvas (I've used an extra thick canvas, they're great because you can hang them without having to get them framed). It's almost a graffiti artwork with the quotes I've written around the sides! I've also written a few thoughts of my own which pale in comparison, and have used another quote which I found on the web. As they are so beautiful I just have to include them here:

"Hiraeth - the link with the long forgotten past, the language of the soul, the call from the inner self. Half-forgotten, fraction remembered. It speaks from the rocks, from the earth, from the trees and in the waves. It's always there. Yes, I hear it. Yes, I understand what hiraeth means." - Val Bethell

'Hiraeth - A longing or Homesickness. "It is difficult to define hiraeth - but to me it means the consciousness of man being out of his home area and that which is dear to him. That is why it can be felt even among a host of peoples amidst nature's beauty; like a Christian yearning for heaven." - D Martyn Lloyd Jones

Beautiful, beautiful words, they inspired my painting and healed my pain. Thank you.

Do Everything with Love ... Part 2

I can't believe I'm still up and about at this time! I've just finished working on some bookkeeping for tomorrow, and I slightly underestimated how long it was going to take. And I was so pleased with myself that I'd finished my artwork and taken photos of it before 5 pm this evening. Never mind, I'm here now and it will help me relax before going off to sleep. (Might actually nod off over the keyboard!)

Well, here is part 2 of my 'absolute love' theme. It's called "Choose Love" because after saying yesterday that I aspire to dealing with situations with love, but that it must be very difficult, today I realized it is a matter of choice, and it's that simple. I'd had the idea of producing a mandala style heart combination, but initially I was going to draw the heart inside the circle. However, after doing a few doodles to see which looked best, I really liked the idea of a circle of light being inside the heart and radiating out. It became a collage when I rediscovered some of the collage papers I'd made with the other ladies from my creativity lessons, so I just ripped away and glued to my heart's content. Before sticking on the collage papers I'd glued on some tissue paper and 'squidged' it around a bit with PVA glue to give some texture. Where I hadn't stuck collage papers I painted in amethyst acrylic paint (another of our favourites at creativity group), then painted gold acrylic over the top and scratched some patterns into the paint with the end of my paintbrush. Final touch was to add some stamping of a heart, and some gold rings - from a small pot I'd found and turned upside down to use as a stamp in my gold paint. I love it that the heart is so self-contained, radiating out all that love, even though it's slightly chaotic around it.

OK, I really have written enough, my little head is waiting to fall upon the pillow, 'perchance to dream'. So have a lovely day wherever you are, and remember to "choose love".

Rural Inspiration!

It's been another hot day; we cooled down with friends and the rest of Perth at Lake Leschenaultia - even the name sounds poetic, like waves lapping onto the shore! As we were driving out there (it takes about 30 mins from where we are in the Hills) I looked at the scorched trees and parched land and thought how lonely it felt. The countryside here is very primal, it's almost as if man has been here all but a minute and at any time it could revert back to its natural state. I feel that the countryside in the UK is more nurturing, almost as if it could wrap you in its arms and envelop you in comfort. (Maybe not in the cold and frost at this time of year though!) I'm blessed to have lived in both places and experienced both extremes. Lots of inspiration for my paintings and art.

Made up for no pictures yesterday! The top two are taken by the Lake - I was impressed by the blue sky, it was just so blue! The third picture is one that was inspired by a walk into our village - I could imagine fairy folk peering at me from between the gum leaves, and this is the result of my fanciful imagination ...

My Angel

This is what I really wanted to blog about yesterday, but couldn't work out how to get the picture rotated and cropped as it was late, and I was too hot and getting very frustrated. However, the weather has been decidedly cooler today, it's even rained heavily and my brain is no longer over heating. I'm quite pleased with myself actually because I managed to work out how to edit photos in our Kodak program, and the result looks good if I say so myself. The picture looked a bit messy with the frame and a brick wall showing as background, and I wanted to concentrate on the painting. All this learning for my blogging is really exercising the brain muscles which can only be good in the long run!

As the title suggests, this painting is called 'My Angel' and is taken from a gorgeous photo of my daughter. She was actually cuddling a toy, but we both decided it would be better to have an angel holding a baby or small animal, which is why I've chosen the generic shape shown. I really like the feathery effect of the wings, which could easily be cushions in the chair she's sitting in. I chose purple because it's one of my favourite colours and it's also a very spiritual colour; I wanted to give the picture that 'other worldly' feel. It's worked in acrylics on canvas.

I must be thinking about angels more than usual because it's so near to Christmas. I believe angels come in all forms, from the voice of conscience that speaks to you, to someone who smiles at you when you're feeling wretched, or someone who you don't know comes to your aid and you never see them again. Random acts of kindness score highly on the angelic scale too - my children make me believe in angels when they fetch a tissue if I'm upset or make me breakfast in bed just to cheer me up. What makes these acts of kindness so angelic is that they are done out of love and no wish for personal gain. Thank you to all the angels out there - please don't give up on us!

Think I may possibly have one or two more angel posts in mind before Christmas is over ...

Attitude of Gratitude

Had a relatively busy day today, my last job being to clean out the fish tank. Now the filter is working properly again and I can hear the bubbling in the background which I happen to like, and the fish are swimming round like it's their birthday. They're obviously happy to have their bubbles back too!

Well, I promised yesterday that I would tell all about my bush meditation walk. It was run by Linda from Creative Seeds, and a small group of us met at the studio and painted a background on a piece of MDF before driving out to a beautiful spot in the Kalamunda National Park (you can Google it and see just how gorgeous it is here). We stopped at a small stream whilst Linda explained that we would be reflecting on our 'lifestream' symbolized by the stream we were standing next too - basically a journey through our life and into our soul. We started with a short visualization and walked up the rocky path, stopping at intervals for Linda to guide us into meditating on the stages of our life - childhood, adolescence, transition to adulthood, where we are now. We imagined the struggles, the good times of each phase. It was really important to stay in the present moment, to go with the flow of life, and we did this by listening to our footsteps, the nature around us, and we weren't allowed to talk to each other, just give each other respect for our personal spaces.

For me personally it was quite a journey. I was expecting it to be a pleasant walk in the bush, with some likeminded company and some painting at the end. It was all of this and more, so I will just go into the highlights here. At the start I was entranced by the babbling of the stream as it crashed over the small rocks - it was lovely to listen to and I felt energized by it, it seemed to me to mark the flow of my journey through life. Linda also explained to us at one point as we stood on a huge bank of rock looking out over the city in the distance that as we get to adulthood we look at things from a bigger perspective. She also explained that no matter how hard we try to avoid things, our psyche will bring us back into line somehow and reconnect us with our lifestream, which we have probably lost track of through the distractions of life. I had a lightbulb moment as soon as she said it. I have suffered from depression and anxiety at different times of my life, and it seemed to me that this depression = reconnection for me. All of a sudden I could see depression as a means to reconnect with the flow of life, rather than as a weakness and that was so empowering!

Other highlights were an outcrop of rock Linda called a 'temenos' which is a sacred place. As I looked at it I could see a part of the rock that looked like the eye of an old man, and I immediately wanted to curl up and sleep on the rock it felt so safe and restful. As we walked back into civilization we walked through some lovely grass trees which had been burnt in a bushfire last year, Linda held up the grass on top of the plant to show what looked like a perfect pair of breasts!! This gorgeous plant looks like a woman dancing with her hair down, like life is to be celebrated, and is aptly named 'The Empress'. So I've included that image on the painting, and shown it in detail - I love the way these plants regenerate themselves, even after having been burnt they come back. Awesome. I've also painted a rock at the bottom of the board - the little curl is me asleep! Hope you enjoy the painting, I've called it 'attitude of gratitude' because after the walk I really felt like I'm thankful for everything that's happened in my life, even the dark times - just like the burning of the grass trees, they were an opportunity for growth.