LifeBook Catch-Up Week 23: Two Angels (Strength and Tranquility)

Our Lifebook hostess and overall mixed media goddess, Tam Laporte showed us how to draw a male face in the magical form of an angel in week 23. I can tell you it's a lot more tricky than drawing a female face, so no wonder that the majority of art journal pages and mixed media projects tend to feature the female form. The reason I find the male form more difficult is because you have to deal with the ears, short hair and bushy eyebrows. You also have fewer options to use certain elements to make the page more engaging, although it can also create opportunities you otherwise wouldn't have with a female theme, I guess.

Before diving into the project, Tam challenged us to think about why we create in the first place. For me, this passion to create started soon after my son was born. I'm not sure what brought it on, but I'd tried numerous creative outlets before I stumbled upon mixed-media just over a year ago. I think I had a lot of pent-up creativity in me, that never had a chance to manifest itself, going back to my childhood. I grew up behind the iron curtain where creativity, independent thinking and self-expression was frowned upon or at best discouraged. I'd never been "arty" as a child or a young adult. Instead, I was always 100% committed to my studies and later my various jobs, so perhaps those were an outlet for my need to assert myself. When I became a stay-at-home mum, I had this uncontrollable urge to become creative and it grew from there. Perhaps it has also got to do with the fact that we women, when we get married/have children, lose a great deal of our individuality and desperately need to feel like ourselves again. I certainly felt that way when I became a wife and mother. I know now, that mixed-media is not just a passing fad for me. It is a way of life and I don't ever want to give it up!

Today I'm sharing two pages with you. One of them is the aforementioned male angel and the other is a female angel from LB2014 that Tam released as a bonus lesson for us. The female angel represents my "art guardian angel", who has opened the cage of my creativity setting it free. On second thought, I could have named this page "soar" but at the time "tranquility" was the word that came to me, because art also helps me combat anxiety. I named the male page "strength" because, to me, that's what the male archetype represents. In case you're wondering why my angel is wearing a hat, it is because I messed up his hair and this was the only way I could fix it, LOL! So no hidden meaning there, though if I thought about it long enough, I'm sure I could come up with an explanation! Enjoy the slide show!

Disclaimer: I just want to emphasize again that I'm not making these paintings public because I think they are amazing, but because they are part of my creative journey and I did have a lot of fun making them!