New beginnings

So I have a new assignment for my creative therapy, which is to just draw what makes me happy and not analyse what I'm drawing. I find this to be very difficult. How do you shut down the part of your brain that thinks about what you are doing and just do...? So I thought I could at least go for the part where I just draw and paint what makes me happy.

Years and years ago, I made a drawing of a picture that was taken of me when I was 24. I love that picture and what it represents. I also loved the drawing. So much so, that I was afraid to paint over it, as was the initial plan. Somehow some coffee got spilled over it and I put it away. Never looked at it since. Now I decided I would make a copy of it and just for fun, play with it in my art journal. So I did.

I even remembered to take some pictures of building the page along the way.

I first built a base layer of red, purple and black. Added some dictionary paper (as I have loads of that) and washi tape.

I then added some dark brown and a lighter brown color.

The excess paint gives a nice start on backgrounds in other journals.

Added some white with some white fabric paint. A real old pot from back in the day when I used to paint T-shirts. After which I stamped with my favorite text stamp and a floral stamp in black, randomly around the page.

Sealed and glued down the copy of the drawing. Considerably smaller than the original. Which is, I believe, A3 format, but might be bigger and on water colour paper.

The original Drawing. I think it says I drew it in 2008...

And the photo the drawing was made from, not the best quality I'm sorry to say. It was an enlargement of a scan from a tiny photo taken a loooonnnggg time ago.

These are the colours I decided on using, but with it only being a tiny picture, I've got way to much...ah well.

And here's the result. It's not perfect and I may go back in later to adjust something here and there. Maybe add an arm to the left, but for now I feel I should leave it alone.

Now I shouldn't analyse, but I think by doing this I feel a little closer to actualy painting over the real drawing. But maybe not just now..... I might practice a little more.

I like how it turned out, it's cute, it's happy. I'm happy with it. I might even enter it in some challenges, when I can find some with the right prompt. I must confess, I am terrible at remembering them after I first see them. I always think to myself I should remember this one, so I can do something with the prompt and then "promptly" forget where I saw it...

Linked to:

• Simon says stamp and show: color
• Art journal every day
• Craft room challenge: So sentimental
• Fashionable stamping challenges #46: sentimental

Thank you for watching and have a wonderful day.