Grief Painting

Over the past year, I have been overcome by a very complicated grief.  Both of my parents died of aggressive cancer 2.5 months apart. It ripped my heart wide open. How does one express that??? I made an attempt...with paint...

Second layer in, and still with a monochrome palate: black, white, payne's grey...very fitting. I let my full expression take up all the space.

And, I feel like I am finished here on this 4th layer. At the very end, I added a splash of red...releasing any excess of pain I was feeling.  My plan is to have a ritual and bury this painting in the ground.  Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of my Mom's death and it would be a perfect day to perform this ritual in the back yard. I am ready to bury the most painful parts of my grief, and to carry on. There is much room for new growth...and I am looking forward to it.

Much LOVE,

Leah xo


Later... April 2nd ....

Rather than burying the painting, I decided to burn it instead. The deepest, most painful parts of my grief have been released!!

A Study

I've always loved "The Old King" by Georges Rouault, and thought, why not combine some Kandinsky energy with it? So I experimented with layering both styles on a sheet of watercolour paper. I used a bit of black conté for the sketching of the King, then painted over top with acrylics.

The Old King layer. Nice attempt, I must say...and a bit too clean looking. :)

I then taped over certain areas to mask them, and added some paint and marks.

Found a Kandinsky painting that I like. This one is "Composition IV" from 1911.

Added the Kandinsky marks here and there and removed the tape. Voila! A layering of two different artists...Leah style. ;)  

When I removed the tape, it ripped a little bit...and I really loved the effect of that and added a clear glaze over the rips to shine them up and hold the paper down. It all needed some bright white anyway! The rips also add a collage effect. 

A fun study... I came up with the layering idea out of the blue, and must say I'll be trying it again!

Happy painting,

Leah xo

Vision Board 2016

February 8th - Lunar Imbolc - New Moon in Aquarius: Perfect day of the year to create my vision board!! It has been 3 years since I created my last one...now is the time!

I joined with a dear friend, and we had a lovely dinner and conversation...and then we cleared the table and got out our supplies. As we chatted and shared, we created our boards. We both had some images ready, and added more as needed. The base layer is where we wrote words about what we wanted to let go. Then a layer of colourful paint, and the images glued on top in appropriate areas. I glued a picture of a flower (which I had previously painted) over a particularly painful event that happened just under a couple decades ago and recently re-surfaced. The flower is a reminder that beauty grows from that pain...over time.

The process was very inspiring and empowering for me. All my images flowed to exactly the right spaces and my finished piece is one that I look lovingly upon...as a hopeful message to myself...to continue to create and express myself in this year ahead.

Much love,

Leah xo

Painting through the Dark Months

This is the bigger canvas... the size I really love: 24x30.  It is hung on my new painting wall and I have been working on it a little every day. The first layer (above) was very satisfying and I wanted to use pleasing colours...gentle this time.

This is about the 3rd layer in... and the lighting for this photo wasn't the best. It looks a bit dark. Things are starting to evolve now... as I step back, I can see images wanting to present themselves. We'll see how it goes!!

Last night I was dreaming about painting, and I have a few ideas that I'm excited to try. Next layer...

xo

~Leah