A Recovery Blog

This blog is about my continuing recovery from severe mental illness and addiction. I celebrate this recovery by continuing to write, by sharing my music and artwork and by exploring Buddhist and 12 Step ideas and concepts. I claim that the yin/yang symbol is representative of all of us because I have found that even in the midst of acute psychosis there is still sense, method and even a kind of balance. We are more resilient than we think. We can cross beyond the edge of the sane world and return to tell the tale. A deeper kind of balance takes hold when we get honest, when we reach out for help, when we tell our stories.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Self Portrait


I painted this portrait last night in acrylics. As self portraits go, this is a rather large one, 16"x20". I tend to do that, paint my head big. One reason I do that is because I need better brushes, so painting bigger is easier than painting smaller. I am also not a good judge of brushes. It's much simpler in terms of brushes with the watercolor/gouache--I use only three--a detail brush, a medium brush with a detail tip and a larger brush. But with the acrylics I use 6 to 10, grabbing them rather impulsively. None of them give me the control of the two smaller watercolor brushes.

I don't think this portrait is a true likeness of my physical self, but it might be representative of my emotional/spiritual self.

1 comment:

Bev said...

This makes me want to give you a hug and have a cup of tea while we chit chat. I miss ya Kate.