Going to a Very High Place

 

New neurographic drawing, yay!

I've been spending a lot of time learning, processing, and comforting myself with books and movies after the passing of my beloved sister and mother less than a year apart. When I'm processing that much emotion I tend not to work because thoughts and memories come frequently and I find myself sort of staring and just looking at things like trees and birds and the rainbows my crystal in the window decorates my studio with on sunny afternoons.

So it is with relief and gratitude that I find myself finally able to focus on output rather than all that processing and putting painful things into a more comfortable context. Last night I found myself bored with television and reading and I didn't want to think - dishes were done and the kitchen was nice and clean, so I padded into my studio from the living room and grabbed a brand new block of watercolor paper and one of those gorgeous Pigma Graphic markers I love to use for neurographic drawing.

If you have an interest, there's lots of information available on neurographic work, and methods vary according to who is doing or teaching the concepts. I tend to like learning the rules about various subjects/techniques and lots of times I enjoy bending or breaking them, as I love to be creative in many ways without too many firm guidelines. So I'll share my process here, though it does deviate from the formal procedures developed and taught by Pavel Piskarev.

Once I had settled back into my comfy chair in the living room, I left the telly on but turned the sound down low so it would feel comforting but not distracting. I lit one small beeswax candle because I think having the elements around (fire, earth, air, water) invites inspiration. Generally I sit at my drafting table with its efficient task lighting and proper seating for most of my artwork, but the fun thing about neurographic drawing is that it can be done in very informal settings. So, using a pillow to prop my watercolor block upon my lap, I followed some of the rules as I began crossing the page with simple looping lines traveling in various directions.

Remember doing this as a kid?

I've been working on a series of paintings based on my own style of neurographic drawing and the series is called Love Prayers. Right now there are almost 10 paintings "finished" and about 20 more waiting to be done. I write the ideas for new Love Prayers in a text file and pick out whatever seems like it wants to fit once I've done about this much loose work (photo above). But last night I knew I wanted to do the one that says, "Sometimes I just wanna go to a very high place," so I deviously drew my starting lines with that in mind. I liked the subliminal message of rising above all the negative B.S. we're dealing with on our beautiful planet right now - so many of us are doing that any which way we can and I'm right there with ya. Well HA! HA! HA!

Ya see, this is the magic of art: it has a mind of its own! And the best laid plans, even those made with precision and knowledge based on the application of rules - are not completely predictable! So I continued, still thinking I would place objects as originally intended (a person standing with their hands folded and their head sort of tilted to the side, on top of her high place - the mountains). And the rule abiding part of this is of course, to round out the parts where the lines meet. So I did.

All points nicely rounded.

As I looked at it after rounding out the sharp corners, a different image implanted itself in my mind. The one shape that inspired this image is the central one that just begged to be the person's chest. And above it, the face, and it looked like the arms were spread out - no folded hands at all! So I worked on the chest first, then the face, then the outstretched arms.

She looks at this point like she's standing,
 looking down upon us, and I wondered
if she was asking me to draw her wearing a tutu.

My female figures nearly always have boobs. 

At this point I'm worried about that loop that interrupts the flow of her outstretched arm, but with art I've learned to play instead of worry, so I just let it tell me what it wanted to be, and TA DA, we got a gorgeous dragonfly up there in the sky with her!

She's becoming....

So now she's got hair, hands, legs, shoes, her dragonfly, and a voice she's using to let us know what she's thinking. At this point I didn't like the hands, but they didn't tell me what they wanted for finishing until the very last. And I was surprised that she's not standing at all, but sitting on top of her mountains.

Ah, her happy place is becoming populated.

Along with her friend the dragonfly, she now has her hometown among the mountains, and it includes a church with a graveyard. Why? Because she's meditating and getting in touch with her Higher Sources and Lovies in their Heavens! So she's in a high place in more ways than one. She's up on top of the mountains, but also way high up and in touch with the Celestial Beings. And what is in the sky up there with her? The sun of course! She's so happy she's radiating love from her heart out into the universe.

All the things!

And of course her universe includes the stars and moon and Celestial light from above, and love, and her hands finally told me what they wanted - that middle finger gently touching the thumb to indicate that she's meditating.

It'll "read" better when it's painted. And it'll be gorgeous. Can't wait to get started applying those irresistible colors! I'll post some more when it's done.

So I'm a project person rather than a "clock" person, and I tend to work until the work tells me it's at a stopping place. I knew the drawing for this one was done because it was ready for me to sign, and I always do that last. So at about 5 a.m. I decided to wind down and go to bed, but took a little extra time to download photos and crop them cause I knew I'd be sharing this with you on the blog today. 

I tucked myself into bed after the first birds started to sing the trees awake, and the first fingers of dawn snuck through the lace curtains in my room. Sweet sleeps came along with dreams of the colors I'll be playing with very soon, and I didn't get up until 1 p.m. If I'd gone to bed "on time" like a "civilized" person, I'm pretty sure this little gem would never have been born because the peace of the night is marvelous and I feel blessed to be able to enjoy it at last, with no clocks to do other than sing their chiming songs to me. Time, it is quite precious indeed.

But Lord, I'm grateful there will be no pop quizzes today, cause I'm tired! This kind of silly, fun, stylized artwork gives me so much good energy and I'm very grateful for that too! May you experience the good energies of creativity in your days no matter what you find yourself doing XO

Namaste,

~Jen