Meditate

I created this 8x10" canvas panel for a "word of the year" art challenge with Marabu Creative and Stencil Girl. Using products from both companies, ten artists are making something to celebrate their word for 2020.

My word is meditate. I need to do more of it every single day! This piece started as my "wipe board" during a Marabu demo I was doing at a local art store last summer. It was filled with random spritzes and splatters of Art Spray colors. The great thing about Marabu Art Spray is its permanence when dry - you can work over it later without reactivating.

I rubbed black Marabu Art Crayon all over the left side of the painted board, then removed some of the black through two Stencil Girl stencils - Closed Leaves and Rooted in Nature Grass - with baby wipes.

Then I rubbed white Art Crayon across the tips of the bristles of a large round stencil brush and brushed the color through the 3-Ring stencil in a repeat pattern on the right side of the board.

I finished it off with some splatters of metallic paint.

I wrote a poem about meditation that this piece illustrates:

In the darkness behind my eyes
Bits of light pop with glowing colors
Random thoughts are floating adrift
Like autumn leaves in the wind
Snippets of conversation link together
Some real…some imagined
My mind wanders as weary travelers do
Searching for focus, that emptiness
The simplicity of being nothing but present
And I marvel at the moments of clarity