This has been an odd month to say the least. Like everyone else I have been busy getting ready for the Holiday, and then the energy of this month has really been wacky. The mix of Venus in Scorpio making me feel sorry for myself with Mercury Retrograde blocking my abilities to communicate my feelings has been tough. I have been feeling completely uninspired in some ways, and that is where the feeling sorry for myself comes in. I keep trying to start paintings and then getting angry because I can't do what I want to do and trashing them. I started a Rhiannon and I was struggling making her look right.
Sometimes I have trouble when I try to put too much into one painting. Although I would like to do more illustrative scenes, I seem to be better at doing portraiture and keeping the backgrounds simple. When I try to add too much to the scene the work just seems to become a jumbled mess, and this is what happened to Rhiannon. I had to walk away from her, but I had this overwhelming desire to paint something and I was out of canvas. I found one of the faeries I started a couple of months back and didn't finish. At the time she was just a faerie with a sort of Klimt like cloak over her. A couple of months ago I got completely bored with her, and yet suddenly I looked at her and fell in love with her again.
I started working on her again and finished her within a couple of days. I added a barn owl, and then felt like I was looking at my co-walker. In the Faerie Tradition you meditate or journey to the Otherworld or Faerie realm as a sort of Shamanic practice. One of the practices is to meet and work with your co-walker, or Coimimeadh in Gaelic. This co-walker is like your double on the otherside and by working with them you form a sort of symbiotic relationship in which you both grow by bringing the energies of the other's world into your own.
I am actually a little shocked that I was able to bring her forth right now. I think it was because I needed to see her right now, to bring her into the physical. I am feeling my inspiration coming back now. The barn owl is also my spirit animal that I often meet on my journeys to the Otherworld and she appears in many of my paintings.
So I am starting to feel the return of the light, but still Mercury Retrograde bit me yesterday. The ignition switch on my car went out in the YMCA parking lot. Although it is a bad time of the year to deal with car trouble (like there is ever a good time) part of me is laughing.
Hope everyone else is dodging Mercury this time around, Merry Yule!
2 comments:
she is beautiful and very hypnotic. i almost can't stop looking at her face, it really seems to have a soul somewhere else...
this painting is beautiful tammy. isn't it a great feeling when a painting that has been sitting around collecting dust can finally come together? I also feel a connection with owl's. something about their magical, mysteriousness that captivates me. happy new year!
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