Personal Power

Dragons and flame keep coming up in my art and meditation lately... for me these are potent symbols of raw power.

Women often tend to give away their personal power, taught to remain silent when they are in pain.  I certainly tend that way myself.  Whenever they turn up in my psyche, it's a sure sign that I need to reclaim some of that power for myself... and remind myself that I possess it.

This is a 6 x 9 watercolor painting that you can buy on the For Sale page of this site.

Six more hands today for the 50 Hands/Feet challenge.  I had a good bit of difficulty settling in today; I'm still a bit out of sorts.  I almost didn't fill this page but here they are.  They're still a pain in the butt :)

Challenge: 30 Paintings in 30 Days

I've been thoroughly enjoying Leslie Saeta's podcast, Artists Helping Artists.  Through it I discovered the concept of Daily Painting and it's been great for keeping me focused and motivated to keep going with painting as often as I can (life happens... I can't paint every day but I can shoot for that as an ideal).

Because I paint in layers, and my paints take days to dry,  it's been a real challenge for me to finish a painting every day.  I've been at this three weeks now and haven't really finished much of anything due to drying time, holidays, and I'll confess it, a little bit of artistic timidity ("Not quite right... I'll have to wait for this layer to dry and work on it another day").

So, when Leslie first talked about the 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge, I thought, that's unrealistic for me, with my painting style.

But because of the aforementioned timidity, and because I can't seem to loosen up enough to paint something abstract without fussing about it, I decided to go for it.  I'm going to be working on a lot of ACEOs, and playing with watercolor and abstractions, maybe some drawing and maybe some other media.  I'm going to rough some stuff in on the same day I finish things so that I can keep up.  But I think I can do it, so... I'm in!  I'm hoping I'll loosen up a bit in the process.  I figure if nothing else, I can do a Zentangle in a day, right? 

Maybe on top of watercolor.  Hmm...

This starts January 2nd and goes through the rest of the month.  Ready, set...