The Singer of healing – Start Hummmmmming

Today’s card is The Singer of Healing from The Faeries’ Oracle.  This card is all about healing of body mind and spirit. Much like a holistic healer this singer sings his song over every part of our being, to heal our injuries and restore our balance. But before he can sing for us we have to accept there is something amiss.  The next step is to be willing to receive healing. To open ourselves up; to ask for help. Perhaps this is the most difficult part of a healing process; admitting we need help.

Sometimes we aren’t even aware we do need help. We have become so proficient in hiding, denying or numbing our pain to a point that we have become unaware that there is something wrong .

I have discovered that accepting I need healing  in an early stage of my affliction is definitely speeding things up  for the better. I am more susceptible for advice and suggestions on how to move forward and away from my feelings of depression.

This time around I have been (at first reluctantly)participating in an IG challenge to create your own oracle deck. by Kristen from @otmoraclecards

It was  a bit scary because I hadn’t painted in months. Then it became almost addictive and I painted several cards a day. Now things are settling down again and I feel  so much more confident and less downhearted.  Again, I had to make the decision get better, to start painting  but after that The Singer of Healing started to hummmmm….

When art has a mind of its own

A few days ago I wanted to play in my artjournal and this time I felt like making something abstract: no pretty faces or flowers or even a jumping dolphin. I just wanted to get  some colors on the page and maybe add few marks. Everything about this page would be playful and intuitive. So I started to paint with hues of red, yellow, orange and brown.  

After the first few layers had dried, I noticed the shape of a cloak behind a tree and immediately all my intentions with this page where gone, like dust in the wind. The painting took my hand and guided me into a darkening autumnal forest where a little girl and her dolly came across  a cloaked woman with a lantern in her hand. .. I added some oil pastels to enhance the shapes which were eager to be found.

Then the only thing to do was to add some details and this is the final result:

Although I really enjoyed working on this page, the next one might be an abstract. But then again nothing is certain when you start playing in your  artjournal

The Emperor and the Nine of Pentacles - Practice makes… Happy

Yesterday I’ve pulled two cards from the Rider Wait tarot for my daily draw. One to answer the question: what is preventing me from experiencing creative freedom and the next would be telling me what my gift would be if I could embrace this freedom, which is already within me, waiting to be found.

The first card, the challenging one, was The Emperor. Look at him sitting there in his armor on his concrete throne. If he would only look behind him, he would notice the mountains, symbolizing the blocks he is experiencing. But no, he just sits there being high and mighty and if he would sit there much longer I think his armor would immobilize him because of the thick layers of rust.  The Emperor in this position is rigid and controlling and is certainly not in the mood for a  playful and open minded approach of making of art.

If I would discover my creative freedom my gift would be the Nine of Pentacles: a feeling a success. fulfillment, happiness and tremendous self-worth. This card is a perfect follow up of the Eight of Pentacles, where we see a guy practicing his skills.

Together these two cards have influenced me enormously yesterday. First I went to the gym because I knew I had to get out of my chair and out of my head and that I had to start moving. Then after a refreshing shower I picked up my watercolors and painted a part of the Nine of Pentacles in my Tarot journal. That was a big step for me. Instead of writing a blogpost about it (the wish of The Emperor) I also painted a Sunflower which was so much fun to do. Sometimes it feels like I have to open the floodgate to my creativity, which can be so heavy and is sometimes almost nearly impossible to do but when it is open creating feels like the most natural thing to do and it makes me so very happy.

Portrait of Jesus in Oil Pastel

Yesterday I read the following journaling prompt from Journaling Sage on IG: “If you let go of expectation, what would you start doing?” And I wrote: “I would draw and paint all day long!” That was indeed an eye-opener for me. All these expectations of creating the perfect artwork prevent me from doing anything at all. It is not so much that I think I can’t draw, but more that everything I draw (or paint) has to perfect, otherwise what is the point of drawing it anyway....

Now this made me realize how much I  undermine my creative playful self by putting such high expectations on the result of my efforts. And then I picked up my oil pastels and drew a portrait of Jesus. 

For me a logical follow up after my renditions of Mother Mary.  He is a lot on my mind lately and for now this feels very familiar and comforting. While working on his portrait, it felt so liberating to have none of those negative thoughts. Only after I was finished these nagging voices tried to disapprove of my work. They saw so many flaws and mistakes but I was able to let everything slide and focus on the contentment and fulfillment which making this portrait has given me.

This felt remarkably strong and confident. Yes making art and to be able to be grateful for whatever you create is all that matters!

Oil pastel of Brigid

This year I wanted to celebrate Imbolc by making an oil pastel painting of Brigid, a Celtic fire goddess of poetry, smithcraft and healing. 

Brigid is also sometimes called Mary of Eire. The similarities between Brigid and Mary has been the cause of my renewed interest in her. Both are benevolent protective aspects of the Divine Feminine. Especially Brigid’s aspect of Hearth goddess and her inspirational creative fire are both very appealing to me.

After some more study I’ve discovered that that Brigid was also revered in the southern parts of The Netherlands. Just a few kilometers from my home town, in a small village there is a St. Brigida church with a statue of Saint Brigid. They also have St. Brigida school and a St. Brigida street  You can imagine I’m going to visit that village any time soon now.

By sharing this painting with you I want to wish you all a blessed Imbolc or St Brigid’s day.

Hugs Ellen

Oil Pastel Painting: “full Moon Song”

It's quite obvious, I can’t get enough of my oil pastels. For this painting I’ve used some photo’s which I’ve found online for reference, to be able to draw the wolf and the woman in the right pose. The whole painting is made with shades of grey and blue in order to create a nighttime feel.  So far it has been a great oil pastel adventure…

Mary did you know?

Today I wanted to share with you my first attempt to paint with oil pastels. I was pleasantly surprised by the versatility of this medium. I suppose the subject of my painting doesn’t come as a surprise to you, because lately Mother Mary appears on every drawing or painting I create. I find it so easy to relate to her and in doing so to relate to the Divine Feminine again.

This particular painting is inspired by the song “Mary did you know"

This song tells us about how little Mary knew up front about the future of her baby. In the song the importance of his life is highlighted but it also got me thinking about the hardships she had to endure being his mother. I can't help but wonder...if she would have known, would she have said; “Behold the servant of the Lord”

And that brings me back to my own life:  if I would have known the sorrow and the pain, the struggles and the challenges I would have to endure in this life, would I chose for this life again, say yes to the complete package? 

Truthfully? Yes, yes and thrice yes! Simple because I couldn’t bear to miss out on the love I receive on daily base from my beautiful family!

Wishing you a wonderful New Year filled with Love and Happiness!

Playing with watercolors

Nothing is a soothing for a restless agitated mind than playing with my drawing pens and watercolors. I am so grateful to have remembered this when I needed it the most.
The Divine Feminine in her aspect of Mother Mary keeps inspiring me and for that I am also truly thankful.

My Painting of Mother Mary and her Child

As some of you might already know, lately I have been working a lot with the Mother Mary Oracle by Alan Fairchild and this has inspired me to create my own rendition of Mary with several different media. Her presence in my life has opened the door again to connect to the Divine Feminine. For me she is a very familiar representation of the Mother of all things. She is gentle and loving and her being a mother, I suspect her to be strong and protective too. The Mother Mary oracle highlights so many more different aspects of her, which I am very eager to explore.

During my shadow work in October I’ve come to embrace the creative fire of my inner Knight of Wands and this has resulted in picking up a large canvas and painting Mother Mary and her Child. It took me quite some time to finish it because when you create something, fear is always looking over your shoulder…

(inspired by peggy apl seeds) 

Learning to appreciate the Knight of Wands

After nearly a month of shadow work, how do I feel about my least favorite tarot card of the deck: the Knight of Wands? Honestly my feelings couldn’t have been more opposite and if you would have asked me this in the beginning of the month I would never ever have believed my opinion about this knight could changed so much.

In my previous post about him I wrote how much I disliked his high spirited and adventurous nature and I even confessed I might be a bit jealous of him.

Well this month he has slowly come out of the shadows and I really came to appreciate his qualities. It is so easy to forget the positive aspect of a card you dislike. As always an aversion to a card says more about us than about the card itself. It is only natural when a card represents a shadow aspect of ourselves we are not prone to like it. But this month’s work showed me I was more afraid of this knight than that I actually disliked him. If I would dare to embrace him I might have to face my creative drive, embrace my passion and be vulnerable because I could fail or maybe even worse; be successful….

So carefully I’ve started to draw and paint again and I love it. It is still scary but I don’t feel anxious about it. For the first time in years I have started a painting on canvas. Rarely did I consider my art worthy enough to do so. Yes participating in this challenge has definitely opened some doors and windows for me and now a fresh breeze is caressing my soul

Painting Chestnuts

This month the shadow work challenge  on Instagram is taking up a lot of my energy. Although it has been  only eight days ago since we've started, it's been a pretty intense experience so far. It feels like this challenge has entered my life at exactly right moment.
But sometimes I need to take a step aside and do something entirely different otherwise this challenge might get too overwhelming fro me
So I picked up my pens and drew some chestnuts which I colored with watercolors
That sounded so much more easy than it actually was :)
Three days ago I got the idea to make this painting and today I finally did it. I faced my fear of failing and enjoyed the process of making this so much, I thought share this one with you.

Diving for Light

For today I've pulled “Diving for Light” from the Sacred Rebels Oracle. We see a beautiful dressed and coiffured lady, who has taken the leap and plunged herself into the waters of her subconscious. She has wheat in her hear and seahorses as adornments. For me it says that she is still awake and aware while being guided on her spiritual journey.

This card calls us to find our inner Light deep inside us, in places where we will expect to find them the least: In the dark corners of your heart, in the shadows of your soul and the cobwebs in your mind. The places you've “forgotten” all about but still have a strong grip on you during your daily life. Each difficult experience and period of your life brings also gifts beside the grief and the hurt they carry. All too often these gifts get overlooked because we are so busy trying to coop, to forget or to repress.To discover  them we have to find the courage to dive deep, to accept the darkness, embrace the pain and gather the gifts.

Yesterday I felt inspired by Kerry’s post on Neopagan Priestess where she told us she was inspired by me talking about mandala’s.  Right there and then I picked up a piece of paper and started drawing too. First I drew three concentric circles and a few lines as guidelines but  I found the courage to skip the drawing of a “perfect” mandala with pencil and started right away with paint and crayons and colored pencils. It was so much fun to do . 

Feeling creatively blocked is kind of a dark place for me. Not feeling good enough, feeling unsecure and afraid of failing is always lurking in the corner of my mind. I feel like I have dived deep and found a little fearless gem by making this mandala. J

Mixed media collage: Brigid’s Fire

Yesterday I have finished a mixed media collage which shows my interpretation of Brigid, goddess of Fire and Inspiration. Here she is faceless and fiery, caring for her eternal flame with nurturing attention, She inspires me to rekindle my own fire and start creating again.... 

The quote says: "From a small spark comes often a big fire"

My Painting of the Femine

Yesterday I've finished my painting of the Feminine. I was inspired to make this painting by Connie Hozvicka from  Dirty footprints Studio. She promotes an intuitive way of painting called Fearless Painting®

First I will show you a few pictures from the painting process, so keep scrolling for the finished painting. The painting is made with acrylic paint and oil pastel.

Note how I've turned the painting. I originally was going for a landscape with mountains in the shape of a woman. It literally “turned” out differently 

And here she is; my rendition of the Feminine. Now she has a face! And again M has made this beautiful picture with her camera!

My Painting – Reclaiming freedom!

Today I would like to share my painting with you. It is quite different than what you expect from me. Because of that it is rather daunting for me to make this post. But since the process of making this painting has given me so much pleasure and an enormous sense of freedom I  decided to take this last hurdle too.

I've started out with a simple line drawing without thinking beforehand what I wanted to draw. Because the large shapes did remind me of monsters, the last thing I did was drawing the eyes.

From there on it was a playful experience with paint, palette knifes and brushes. Is the painting finished? I don’t know. Perhaps in a few days I will add another layer. Or I might start a new one. Or I'll paint a few simultaneously. Everything goes, everything is allowed! Isn't that amazing! 

(Ps Sorry for so many pictures but otherwise I wasn't able to convey the process properly.)

Six of Cups: Closing the Gap

Druidcraft Tarot

A while ago I received a comment from Prince Lenormand about my creative blocks, in which he had added a link to the Six of Cups from the Druidcraft tarot. That card really hit the mark because it felt if I was torn between parts of myself and not being able to connect them: The man is inside the house, looking outside longing for the time when he was young and everything was still simple.The children are playing outside and having fun together. The only thing I could do was to go upstairs to my room and pick up my paint, some scraps of paper and make a mark  I was inspired to try this by a post from Sharon form the Wishing tree. 

It felt so good and it was much more easy than I had expected. I used to do a lot of Art journaling and what I have made this time is quite similar: I've started with pasting pieces of paper on a white sheet, added some paint en crayon and  I printed out some sentences I had written and the children from the Six of Cups. It is funny but after I had finished the collage bit, I noticed the gap between the two parts. And there and then I decided to use that as the theme for this Art journal page.

Bridging the gap between me and myself

In the end

We're not that different at all

Meeting at the playground of my mind

Where the gap between fantasy and reality is closed.

This was a careful start. I am not there yet, but I know now I am still able to create something. This wasn't about the result but merely about me humming, singing and playing without fear. I would like to thank everybody for their kind and encouraging words. They have meant so much to me.

Hugs Ellen

Painting intuitively with watercolors

In this post I would like to share how to make an intuitive painting with watercolors. For me it is a very relaxed way to paint because you have very little influence on the final result. The  technique  I’ve used is called: wet in wet. This means that you paint with wet paint on wet paper. The paint washes over the paper and is going its own way. You can of course guide it, but you can’t paint detailed shapes.

I have made this painting in three stages:

I've dripped and pressed the paint on the paper and moved the drawing board back and forth so that the paint could find its own way. This time I've even turned it around because it made me think of a forest.

      After the painting had dried fully, I've  put another layer of paint over it. But now I was looking more consciously for shapes and lines. This can be compared with the interpretation of a tarot card; I search for images and meaning in my painting that are waiting to be highlighted. My “forest” could use some branches and trunks.


 In the final stage I picked up my pencils and added a few touches in my painting

I want to stress, this way of painting is not about the end result but more about the process, It looks to me a lot like meditation. You are completely present in the moment. Is relaxes me and gets me in a flow. I always find myself humming while I’m painting like this, so it will surely do me some good. Perhaps you like to try it for you self some time. J

My painting of Strength from The Hidden Realm Tarot

Yesterday I was inspired by my daily Tarot card the Five of Vessel - Ecstasy from the Wildwood Tarot to make art today. Due to my neck injury (which I am happy to say is gradually improving) I haven’t been painting or drawing for too long. So I've set  some time aside today for myself to play with my watercolors and pencils. I took the picture of Strength from The Hidden Realm Tarot painted by Julia Jeffrey as an example to work with. Although my skills aren't comparable to Julia’s I am very happy with the result and even more happy with the wonderful time I've had. I was humming and singing and painting and it felt like heaven. For today no tarot cards but some pictures showing the process of my painting adventure

First a drawing

Then some paint

A little bit more paint..

Followed by pencils

Finished!!