As I described in detail in my blog entry “Painting as Therapy or My Story Part II”, Ella is a part of me – “the wild one” to be exact – that had been hidden deep down inside of me for protection and that I had set free through intense healing work.
This is a portrait of Ella I created while stacking stones without having had the intention to do so. I just went with the flow and she happened.
This was the beginning of a series of pictures she has inspired or in which she is a vital element that I’m going to show you in this blog entry.
I painted this picture of Ella with watercolour pencils from one of the many photos I had taken of her just a few hours later sitting on my hotel bed:
This is a large version (A2) of Ella with granulating watercolours to make it look more like stones.
The next picture with Ella was this collage which has a special meaning. For more details on that, please read my blog entry “Painting as Therapy or My Story Part II”. Thank you 🙏🏻
The Text on the picture is a spilled thought of mine that came up in connection with it:
"The paths I walked.
The mountains I had to climb.
The comfort I sought elsewhere.
The healing I found inside of me.
The many breakthroughs that...
…untethered the boat,
...helped the butterfly emerge …and freed Ella - the wild one…"
This about sums up my healing journey up to that point. Makes it sound pretty easy and smooth, but it was and still is anything but...
Just to make this clear: I am her. She is me. We are one.
Another picture that is described in detail in my blog entry “Painting as Therapy or My Story Part II” is this one:
The text on the picture is a spilled thought that popped into my mind
in French no less! I can't explain it, but to me "Liberté" has a slightly different meaning than "Freedom" or "Freiheit" in my German mother tongue.
Ma Liberté à Moi
peindre ce dont j’ai envie
poser des couleurs qui clashent l’une à côté l’autre
peindre le monde comme il n’est pas
peindre des cercles qui ne sont pas ronds
et des lignes qui ne sont pas droites
peindre sans contraintes, sans
« fais pas ci ! fais pas ça ! fais comme ça ! »
bref,
peindre comme je le veux, moi
c’est ma liberté à moi
and the English version:
My Freedom
to paint what I want
to put colours that clash next to each other
to paint the world not the way it is
to paint circles that are not round
and lines that aren't straight
to paint without constraints, without
"don't do this! don't do that! do it like that!
in short,
to paint the way I want
that's my freedom
Among my unfinished paintings I had a background I had painted in gouache without having a picture in my mind until I had the idea to paint Ella on it with soft pastels. After I had painted her I spritzed some water on it and let the pastels and water do their magic.
“Enfin libre! Ça se fête!” (Finally free! Let's celebrate) is the title of this picture. I used Caran d'Ache Neocolor II to draw Ella, my Fleur de Liberé and some other marks like the words “Enfin libre! Ça se fête!”. After that I felt like doing some loose lines on top of everything.
When I had finished drawing I took a spritzer bottle and sprayed some water onto the picture and let the Neocolor II do their magic. It was my way to celebrate that I left my childhood conditioning concerning my art behind me.
The latest picture of Ella is this. I bought some new watercolours and instead of properly swapping them I just drew Ella’s outlines, coloured them in and added the white, metallic blue, copper and black details.
So far that’s it, but I have an inkling there will be more…
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