When I started thinking about the new year and what I wanted this year to look like for myself as an artist, I thought about what word could encapsulate what I wanted for 2024. I wanted to re-centre, reflect, go back to the roots, find what truly inspires me and fill my heart and mind with more of it!
To find my true CENTRE- My word for 2024.
And so my first action to CENTRE myself was to eliminate the noise- I have been feeling the need to step back from social media for a while now and have been putting it off for probably a year now. Being on social media working on it everyday to try and boost my art business, definitely floods my mind with too much visual information that influenced me and hence the art I create.
And so I made the decision to take a 6 month hiatus from social media ☺️
In my first week of no social media it came as a total surprise that honestly I haven’t missed it at all! 🤗
I thought I would find myself picking up my phone out of habit and go to search my Insta app… but I haven’t felt the need for it at all. In fact not being attached to my phone every second has been such a relief! I feel like I’ve been freed from being chained to something for too long😅
Now please keep in mind that my relationship with social media was quite different to what the average daily social media scroll for most people are.
Trying to run a business solely on social media and posting daily, coming up with content ideas and creating posts is what took most of my time. Even enjoying life, seeing a beautiful sunset and thinking in panic where’s my phone cause I need to capture it for content.
In this first month, finding a new routine was probably the strangest thing but I’ve been spending time doing bible study in the mornings instead if scrolling social, I’ve enjoyed picking up a new hobby- knitting and finished my very first sweater- which I am super proud of 😋
Art wise I had an idea brewing of creating a painting that embodies something I have always cherished when it comes to my faith.
Ephesians 2:8-9
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
I started by painting these two large canvases with black and used my water soluble oil pastels to draw in the outlines of some flowers.
I love using Procreate to create a rough draft of what I want the painting to look like, and work from this throughout the entire process.
Now let me break down the verse section by section and how it relates to this painting
"this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God"
I chose to paint flowers as the main focus for this painting as they are truly a beautiful gift from God in nature, and placed them within a black background (surrounding them with black symbolising hardship, darkness, uncertainty)
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith"
Covering these flowers with a white band symbolising God's grace, shielding and protecting the flowers. Allowing them to bloom and grow under His umbrella of grace.
It has been like a breath of fresh air being able so focus on just one painting this whole month, and to paint something that I know is 100% from my own creative thought process that hasn't been influenced or shaped through any outsider or social media opinions.
I have also been working on creating something for YOU!
I wanted to create something which allows you to take some time to be mindful, to give you a piece of therapy of sorts - that you can take out whenever you need a moment for yourself, call it Selfcare, call it Me-time, call it Taking a break!
Art has been my greatest therapy, it helps calm my anxiety and gets me focussed and something else, it has been an essential part of my self care and I would love to share that and give you a way to create moments where you can be mindful and get creative too.
Here is a sneak peek of what the art you'll find in these sets...
If these sets are something you would be interested in purchasing, head on down to the comments section and drop me a little message so I can send you the details of how you can purchase these sets ( only available in Norway)
However if you are outside of Norway please reach out to me as I can make these available in digital download form for you.
And that's it for my very first blog post, I will be doing one each month over this 6 month social media hiatus.
I hope you enjoyed reading about all that I have been making, creating and growing on in this blog post.
Can't wait to see what the next month holds.
Thanks for reading and for following me on my creative journey.
Lots of love
Janine
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