I explored the sea again. The shapes stick with me. I purposely composed the piece on the other side of the paper so that it would show through in this one, so it would become a part of this one. 

There are many shapes and colours and words covering up what is underneath. 

My hope is that one day I'll have someone who gets to see it all.

This piece is actually too big for me to be able to photograph fully. I quite like this version of it though, I feel like it might actually by more meaningful with a few of the sections missing. 

I wanted to create a mural of my spaces. It didn't work. I got pissed off. I decided I wanted it to be something else instead. I turned it into this. 

I love ink. I love the way it can be controlled but also the way it has a mind of it's own. You can let go a little bit in this sort of work as you'll never have full control anyway, so why not just go with it. Get physical and let it become something else, something you probably couldn't create if you tried to.

Presented without commentary. 

I feeling a bit exhausted right now. Can't quite figure out if it's physical or mental. Putting this stuff out here, I do think it affects me. Or maybe it isn't even the putting the art out as much as it is writing about it. The funny thing is I have thought about these pieces a lot, I've said the things I'm typing to myself, I've already had these thoughts. But there is a big difference between a thought in your head and words on a screen.

This piece is pretty important to me. The inspiration was my childhood, much/most of which was spent at my Gran's flat. Her living room window overlooked the beach and the sea. When I think of my childhood, I think of the beach. I think of the sea and I think of the waves. I'm not sure if it's overly analyzing to say I probably have a deeper connection to the sea than I would have by just living near it.

This is the image that comes to my head. Not calm water or sunny days or not so sunny days. The image is stormy and violent and beautiful all in one. I cherish the image but when it's put there in front of me it's a strange mix of scary and pretty. Which pretty much sums up my childhood, if I'm honest.

There were good moments but they were much further apart than they should have been, especially when I got older. And there were ugly moments. Horrible, terrifying moments that seem more horrifying the further I get away from them. 

But I also see my bad experiences as some sort of twisted blessing. I gained empathy and selflessness and an awareness that I don't think I could have gotten any other way. I'm in no way grateful for the ugliness but I think it has to have a purpose. It has to have a reason and I have to give it that.

If I were to throw everything it gave me away, it would just been for nothing.

I don't want my experiences to be nothing.

This piece is a development of a style that I found to be really interesting. One of the first pieces I created (discussed and pictured here) looked at a word that meant a lot to me. I then explored my feelings about the word through colour and texture, using the word as a sort of template. 

There are a lot of similarities about how I feel about the word in this image and the word in the first one. I'm extremely conflicted on both. I have a lot of contradicting feelings, ones that seem to cancel others out. I also have lots of extremely strong opinions about both words as subjects, specifically about how people are treated and thought of by society when part of either subject. 

Visually, I'm drawn to this style. Not only in my own work but also in art in general. I like colour, I like texture, I like art that has a physicality to it. I like to be able to see the artists motions and movements through their art. I like to feel something, and I like to see that the artist felt something when they were creating.

I haven't returned to this style since this piece, but it's definitely something I would like to revisit. 

I'll admit now that I was not sure I wanted to post this piece. It's an important one, but it's also extremely personal. Although it's strange that I find this to be more personal that others since a lot of other pieces are about subjects that I keep a lot closer to my chest than my eating disorder, which is what this work is really all about.

I guess it's because it's largely expressed through text. Colour and shape and form are all ways of expressing things too, but they can be subjective. They are arguably much harder to understand than words and sentences. 

The work is made up of layers of plastic. Within the first two layers is a lot of ink, enclosed inside with spray glue. There are also layers of pastels and oil pastels. The front (shown) and back are covered in words. I decided to enjoy show the view of the front of this piece as the back contains information I'm not quite ready to share yet. But it essentially works as two sides of the same coin. Both sides contain only facts. Things I know to be completely true. I made this at a time where I was struggling with my own truth, with what I believed to be true.

There are things I know and things I believe. Sometimes I have a hard time telling those things apart. 

Since I've got quite a backlog of work I have decided to upload a few select pieces from the past few months. I'm uploading then chronologically, so this is the first. This was not the first piece I created, but I feel like it's the best place to start.

I tend to work in a cycle of doodling and full pieces. This was the first full piece I created in this cycle, and the image below is of the doodle in this first cycle.

Visually I personally don't see many, if any, links between the two pieces. However I think the way I've found my head works best is if I do sometime very scribble like first that doesn't really have much shape or form, and that clears my head so I can figure out what I'm really thinking about. The main piece as pretty much just done on instinct. I wanted it to be bold and I think it fills that requirement. I also think the physicality of it is just as important as the other elements, although it's hard to really see that from a photo.

It was quite hard work, physically. A lot of blending. It's actually pretty therapeutic, this sort of work.

Almost like the therapy is in the making of it rather than in the end result.