Follow your bliss...: January 2007

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Winter Song

Winter Song is a fitting image for the blustery day, Lake Effect snow, I said earlier in the day: "The snow devils are thick as thieves out there, they've got us surrounded!" Along with the blowing and drifting snow I've seen patches of blue sky and sunshine...it's been a beautiful January day, a good day for staying inside and making something beautiful.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Epiphany

Well, this is the finished product from an earlier post...her name is Epiphany, I finished last night...stayed up later than I should have, but I can't resist the drive to work when it's there...

The process is as follows...

The paper is 140 lb cold press Arches watercolor paper (15 x 11 overall size, image is 13 x 9 1/2"), it has a nice "tooth" to it to create texture when using dry media. I taped the sheet down to a piece of matboard with artist tape to make a clean margin and hold it in place. Then I took my raw graphite chunk and scrubbed it over the paper allowing the crumbles to make random lines as well...then using a paper towel I softened the overall image area, grading dark to light and carefully maintaining the curving lines that developed. Then lifting the black and gray with the kneaded eraser creating fluttering marks and light gray lines. I've carefully defined shapes with hard pencils, the 5 H, 4 H and 2 H, again touching off details with the eraser. Once I finished I misted it with fixative to prevent smudges.

How do I know I'm done? Well...sometimes I don't...but last night I knew...so far it's been a productive new year!

Me and Fibromyalgia...the good news is, it's not going to kill me.

I was finally diagnosed with Fibromyalgia in 2007 after years of being told my illness was all in my head. My Fibro is everyday fatigue with body aches, mostly tolerable, but when I have a flare-up, which can be triggered by stress, hormones, or being over tired from over-doing it, I get the full body pain, including chest pains (yes, these are scary, like an elephant standing on my chest.) Thankfully, it doesn't hurt to take a breath, but I feel breathless, I just do yoga and breathing exercises to stretch and breathe to ease through the worst of it, NSAIDs help to cut the pain, and naps are always a necessary thing when needed (but hard to do while at the day job!) It's a balancing act to manage, I take advantage of the good days, lay low on the bad ones, and very often, push through in spite of the bad days...some mornings I wish I could stay in bed, but I'm glad that I get up and about, very often 'the kinks' work themselves out. I refuse to take the recommended pharmaceutical band-aids on the market, I tried one once, and I don't like feeling like a zombie. I keep active with my creativity, I think that's the key to my overcoming this obstacle every day...and I have my Fred and our son, five cats, and one dog named Max.