Face #12 for the 29 Faces Challenge and Letting Your Inner Child Play

"Jess," by Dayna Winters

The twelfth face I've decided to draw is derived from an older photograph of my daughter.  I struggled a great deal with trying to get the mouth and eyes correct.  I know I'm biased, but I think my daughter has a beautiful face - she looks so much like her grandmother and there are some features that make her look like her great aunt as well.  Despite the minor struggle I had with a few facial features, I otherwise felt the drawing went rather quickly.  I'm feeling more confident in my art the more I practice.  I'm satisfied with the outcome of this piece.  I look forward to every new drawing and find myself thinking about the next drawing while I'm working on the current one.  In fact, I'm a couple of drawings ahead of myself, even though I was too tired to post anything yesterday.  I figured I had a day's wiggle room and that I would still be able to meet the guidelines of the challenge.

In between drawing time, I had a chance to pick up some craft materials.  I look forward to creating some fun pieces.  I gotta say, I love the season just before and around Halloween - you can find some really cool things to work with! I got some nice pre-cut wood pieces very inexpensively, some inexpensive glass beads, and a couple of decorative skulls I plan to play with - not quite sure what I'm doing with them yet, but I know I'm going to have fun doing it.  I'll be using some of my acrylics on the wood pieces and I have some magnets so I might be able to make some cute little refrigerator pieces.  As far as the skulls, I have a pretty good idea what I'm going to be doing, but the idea is still in the experiment phase.  I'll definitely post more about it if I can get the process to work.

Craft supplies I recently picked up.

 

Another thing I'm enjoying is coloring.  Yes.  I said it - coloring.  I get a chance to let my inner child play and I can just relax as I color.  I got this very inexpensive book of patterns and I started coloring them with colored pencils.  The Roger Burrows' Image Travel Pack book came complete with 8 colored pencils.  I had some extra color pencils laying around and picked up an additional box so I'd have plenty of colors to play around with as I filled in the cool designs.   

 I'm not at all sure what I'll do with all of the patterns once they are completed either - of course, that will be a while since I only do them when I'm not working on something else or when I need a break from a current project or task. There is about 50 images in the book, all of which consist of unique patterns.  The images remind me of the Spirograph game I used to love when I was a kid.  I could play with that game for hours on end!

 

  I got it in the bargain books section of the store and picked it up for as little as $3.00.  Considering the book goes for more than $17.00 on Amazon, I think I got a great deal indeed!  Here's the first picture I took time to color:

Pattern I completed reminding me of turtle medicine.

(It reminds me of the Native American stories where the Earth is a giant turtle and perhaps it is my subconscious speaking to me and telling me the turtle is my totem or that I need turtle medicine).  When I was working on the piece, I was trying to make a few flowers in the design - the turtle shape is completely unintentional - that's what makes it so cool!  Looking at the symbol as I sign I might need turtle medicine in my life, I began to think about turtle symbolism in stories and in various cultures.  Off the top of my head, I thought of the story of the turtle and the hare - the concept of "slow and steady wins the race."  Since turtles were considered the world in Native American cultures, it becomes a symbol of Earth, earthy energies, and the element of Earth.  If I take in consideration turtle medicine, it means I need to remain grounded, balanced, and I need to slow down, take things at my own pace, and to learn how to pace myself. Long before and just after being diagnosed with primary biliary cirrhosis, I have been dealing with fatigue, which is sometimes mild, sometimes debilitating, and I've been struggling with the notion of not being able to keep pace and do all the things I used to do.  I am now in a stage of my life where I have to relearn a new pace, to adjust to various conditions (however undesirable,) and to learn how to do what I like doing without pushing myself too hard.  When I push too hard, I find myself down for a few days, and then I feel even worse.  It's still very difficult to not push myself on days I feel pretty good, but I'm starting to learn that achieving an easy balance is going to be the best policy for me.  Ironically, the turtle symbolizes understanding, emotional strength, persistence, and determination too - so, I best pay attention to what the turtle is trying to teach me!

I'm not at all sure what I will do with all the patterns once I complete them all.  My husband had a good idea and suggested maybe making the images into bookmarks later.  It would definitely give me a good reason to pull out my laminator from the recesses of my closet! Still, there are a lot of patterns to work with (50 or more) and way too many to make just bookmarks, so I'll be looking for some crafty ways to put them to use.  I'm thinking if I paint some of the patterns and push them through a kaleidoscope feature in a photo editing software program, I might be able to create some cool graphics for poster art or something along those lines.  I absolutely love Photoshop, but I've also been playing with the online photo editing option called Pixlr.com.  It's a great resource for anyone who doesn't have Photoshop who would like to experiment rendering graphics or for someone looking to edit some photos.  It's also a money saver for someone who doesn't have the funds to invest in an expensive software editing program.

When I color in the patterns, it's like I'm meditating.  I can spend time just filling in the spaces or creating what my mind's eye sees, all while I enjoy the silence and alone time with my own thoughts.  It's definitely a peaceful activity, and I'm finding I'm learning a lot about myself in the process.