As a family, we Picts are usually in rude health. We rarely get sick and until this year one of my sons had never had a day off school ever. This Winter, however, has been a relentless battle against germs. While Mr Pict and I have escaped the various plagues, our four boys have been felled by one thing after another. My preschool students have also been dropping like flies. The whole community apparently needs to be disinfected. This week, my youngest son came down with a vomiting bug for the second time in six weeks. The only slight silver lining to having to take time off work for nurse duties is that, between looking after the little chap and bleaching and boil washing, I could grab some time to play around in my art journal.
This week’s Art Journal Adventure prompt was to transform the edges of the page by shaping them. I was glad of this prompt as it represented a nudge to try something new. I usually operate pretty strictly within the boundaries of the page, neither extending it with a tip-in or subtracting from it by removing areas. I sat at my art table, struggling for inspiration, and saw the shape of my hands on the blank page. I decided that my hands should be the shape I created. I simply drew around my hands and cut out the shape. I painted both sides of the hands with black acrylic. Once that was dry, I used my Dylusions paints to add dots all over the hand shapes. I like those paints for the vivid colours and for the thick texture so they worked perfectly for this particular job. Now I just need to figure out what, if anything, to do with the reverse side of the hands.
A Pict in PA 
Great hand art, Laura. Sorry for your family’s ills…with time, their immune system will build up once again. Take care.
Thanks, Van. I think that is what happened with my youngest – his immune system had not recovered from round one and then he was re-exposed and got sick again. Meanwhile, I must have a super immune system since I have been dealing not only with my own sick kids but also the ones I teach too.
Be grateful for that !
I love ’em. Wouldn’t they make great gloves?
They would be super-funky gloves for sure and would brighten up a dreary winter day.
Wow. Just wow. I see a fortune teller’s hands, by the way.
What a fun interpretation. Shall I ask people to cross my palm with silver?
Well, why not? All they can say is, no. But I’d get some fortunes ready, because they might say, yes!
Maybe I should borrow some of your oracle snippets to deliver as fortunes.
Once for an art opening I was in I gave out a version of snippets (very abbreviated cut out words type of thing) instead of business cards. It was a lot of fun because each person chose one, and that was their only chance – had to take what the oracle said and go with it!
What a fun idea!
It was fun. Even better was listening to how people tried to make the cryptic info (a phrase such as – call for help, or, leave now) into something meaningful.
Reminds me of riverbed rocks, what with the fluid motion. I feel you on the sick stuff, too. We had a week of sickness and now LICE! Lice is the great satan.
Oh no! We had two outbreaks of lice at work. I was constantly asking my kids to rake around my head looking for signs. Thankfully I escaped them. I have never had lice and nor have my kids and it is an experience I would be willing to never have. We segued from being vigilant about lice to having all these weird and awful bugs to deal with.
I love what you did here! It’s really something new for you and I bet it was such a great and exciting time for you making them. So sorry for the little ones. I think the frequent changes in weather has a lot to do with what everyone is experiencing. My husband and I too where at the hospital last week. Who would imagine that I will go see a doctor for cough and colds, but that visit was necessary to not anger the lungs any further. I hope the vomiting had stopped and that your youngest is up and about by now. Sending him a warm hug from miles away! ❤
Thanks. All the illnesses have been violent but short-lived but necessitated two days off school because of quarantining. I’m hoping we’ve seen the last of it now and I’m grateful that none of us succumbed to flu.
Good to hear that everyone is illness free and in good shape.
This is so great! I love the texture that the different-sized dots give to the “skin” on these hands. I think they work great as they are, but since they’re originally your hands, why not fill them with the tools of your trade – pens, brushes etc? Hope all your boys are feeling better, it certainly has been a bad winter for bugs and nasties!
I love that idea! The reverse of the hands is still blank other than being painted black. Maybe I will draw all those tools on the flip side. Thanks for the suggestion.
Beautiful hand art dear. We also had tough time during this winter my LO just about 20 months old kept falling sick… Cold.. Cough… Cold… It was like a vicious cycle
Thank you. It is a vicious cycle because the immune system doesn’t have time to recover before it’s walloped by the next thing. I hope your little one is all better now.
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