This painting is inspired by the quote ‘Rest peacefully, sweet mind. Rest peacefully sweet body’, from the book ‘How to be sick’ by Toni Bernhard.
The quote is from the chapter about compassion, about how to send messages of self compassion and kindness to ourselves.
May we all rest peacefully 😊
A doodle from March, I really like the earthy colours (willow, baked earth, mustard, leaf green and charcoal).
It reminded me a bit of a patchwork of fields, some with bare ploughed earth, some planted with crops. I thought I could use this technique maybe in an abstract landscape.
I drew this in April, by which time I was able to draw for longer than 10 minutes, though still having to be careful not to overdo it and to rest afterwards. It’s so easy to get absorbed in the work, do it for too long and then regret it afterwards! I’m still learning to pace myself.
Living with long covid is a journey of emotional ups and downs. Here are two examples:
11th March 2024
This was the second doodle that I was able to do. Playing with 3 bright, light colours, reflecting the fact that I was able to get up, go downstairs, sit on the sofa and draw. Finding joy in the process. I set a timer for 10 mins to make sure I didn’t overdo it, then rested lying down before doing a bit more. It’s only small, but because I could only work on it for 10 minutes at a time it took 3 days to finish.
13th January 2024.
Still pretty much bedbound. I wrote in my diary
‘Just getting worse, not better. This illness just takes and takes, life shrinks, joy is leached away’.
Followed by:
Again and again
I hit rock bottom,
only to find
the ground gives way
and I
keep
falling.
Immediately after I wrote this I felt emotional, and then I felt a bit better. I realised it was only half the story, so I wrote another verse.
Again and again
I hit rock bottom,
only to find
the ground gives way
and I
keep
falling.And yet
each time I fall,
something tenacious in me
reaches out,
takes my hand,
eases me gently
back
towards
the light.
Things have been very quiet here on my blog recently.
A promotion at work a couple of years ago led to me being very busy and consequently not inspired to write or paint regularly.
And then, in August 2023 I caught covid and never really recovered. The initial infection was not too bad; a mild cough, fatigue that had me in bed for a few days, nausea and digestive discomfort, headache. Then I started to slowly get better. Or so I thought. One week after my symptoms started I worked from home and felt OK, had a walk around the block in the evening, felt fine.
The following day I was back in bed. I gradually improved again but two weeks in, a day after I tested negative, I ended up in A&E. I’d gone for a really short walk around the block for 10 minutes when my heart started racing and my breathing went weird. I had chest pains and dizzyness. We called an ambulance, the paramedics checked me out, and said all my vital signs were normal, but to go to A&E for further tests. Blood tests, chest xray, ECG – all normal.
Again, I gradually improved, although I had no energy, couldn’t work and couldn’t walk further than the garden.
Then at the end of September I ended up calling an ambulance again, this time the paramedics took my blood pressure and heart rate standing as well as lying down. My blood pressure dropped on standing, and my heart raced as if I was running uphill.
After that trip to A&E the symptoms got worse and I was pretty much bedbound for 3 months.
In January I started to slowly, slowly improve.
Now I can walk around the garden, I can make myself simple meals, I can read a bit and do some art. I need frequent rests, lying down several times a day, and my evenings are spent back in bed.
I’d like to get back to writing, to blogging, to document life as it is now, and hopefully record my recovery journey. And to share my art, as at the moment I find drawing and painting less tiring than writing.
I couldn’t paint for 5 months. In March I started doodling and colouring in. I had to limit art time to 10 minutes at a time initially, as I felt so tired afterwards. But it was worth it for the joy I felt doing it. Here is that first piece, it started off as an abstract doodle and ended up looking a bit like a starfish. Pen and Inktense pencils.
This new painting was inspired by my garden, which was a sanctuary during the last lockdown.
The garden is not quite so inviting now in the wind and rain, but it’s still full of autumn colour and wildlife.
I hope this brings some colour and a memory of warm summer sun into your day!
It took a while to paint, I started at the beginning of September when these colourful flowers were still blooming, and finished last week. It got interrupted by a painting of pikachu for my nephew.
Pikachu is on his way to New Zealand. He’s taking his time, I think the post is slow because of the pandemic. I’m hoping he hasn’t got lost and that my nephew likes him when he finally arrives!
This is the result of offering to do a painting for my 7 year old nephew. It was a bit of a challenge, nice to try something different.
I did ask if he’d prefer birds or flowers instead of spaceships shooting one another, of course he said no!
First attempt at collagraph printmaking. The printing plate is made of card, which I then cut with a stanley knife and ripped to make the tree trunks. The foreground is a collage of ripped bits of card and scrunched up masking tape. Then I inked up the plate and this was the result. Now I want to do more!
A mixed media experiment
and a message to myself.
Go deeper.
Life in the Fresh Air 