Nyx

I have never participated in official Art Therapy but I would definitely vouch for art being therapeutic.  I personally use it for stress busting and to invest in myself by topping up my reserves by taking some time out of life’s flurry of activity and just doing something focused and creative.  Therefore, while dealing with the aftermath of our basement flood, feeling completely frazzled, and being physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted, I knew that the best way in which I could recharge my batteries was to take some time out for art.  It was just the tool for decompression that I needed.

I used a recent Art Journal Adventure prompt – Celestial – and cracked open my art journal and opened my box of watercolours and got stuck in.  As those who follow my blog will know, I am interested in Greek Mythology so I decided to depict Nyx, the goddess of Night.  In Classical art, she was depicted as having wings or riding in a chariot but I kept the shapes and forms simple and made her body a flowing shape, a sort of cloak of spreading darkness.  By keeping the composition simple and letting wet paint run and flow, other than drying time, this whole illustration was done and dusted in no more than 20 minutes.  It was, therefore, really took no time at all out of my hectic day but left me feeling recharged and ready to battle on.

Soaring through the Night Sky

I should not be surprised that I keep falling behind with Life Book lessons given it is the summer break and I have four kids at home to entertain and chores galore – because kids at home create more mess.  Furthermore, my art time is being invested in working on my History of Art project with the kids.  Still, you know me: Control Freak.  I cannot stand not being on schedule for very long so I had to find time to catch up.

The first lesson I caught up on was one taken by Tamara Laporte.  The thrust of the lesson was about celebrating wisdom and rising above limiting beliefs and negative thoughts.  This was to be visually represented by a soaring figure and various mixed media techniques were demonstrated in the tutorial.  It took me days of stop-start viewing to watch the video tutorial and at one point my 9 year old glanced at the laptop and commented that the exemplar made him think of Nyx.  That was the seed that then germinated in my mind’s eye throughout the rest of the tutorial and by the time I was ready to start painting I decided I was going to paint Nyx, the Greek goddess of the Night.

I used Neocolor II crayons, acrylic paint and Inktense pencils to create my response to this lesson.  I am particularly pleased with how the colours in the background bled in to one another and the spattering with the metallic blue and silver paints.