Arachne - Sketch

Quite a loose sketch for this one - sometimes I find a piece will just fly off my stylus, other times I have to get in and get very detailed and particular - I don't know why - I just go with what feels right.

In the light of the fact that I'm now painting for a bunch of known print sizes I've upped the resolution on my paintings so they'll hold up better on a 50cm x 70cm print and also dropped in a guide frame that allows me to compose the images for the smaller, narrower prints that will soon be available on my site. (I'm still working to Instagram's 4:5 aspect ratio in the main as that seems to serve me pretty well online on all the social networks and brings a certain uniformity to everything I paint.)

As goes the story behind this one...

Well, about six months ago I started meditating as I'd heard it was a good way to help with stress (especially since for the past 22 months I've been very angry a lot of the time with our government here in the UK). So I started grabbing random guided meditations from YouTube and trying them out.

That has built a habit and I now meditate daily for about 25-45 minutes.

It seems to be having an effect in that I'm feeling a lot more chilled about things. But a nice side-effect of some meditations I've found is that they'll drag up all manner of interesting and unusual (and more often than not, very kinky) imagery. So I've made a second habit that once I've finished meditating I'll quickly scribble down notes/very rough sketches of what I've experienced while letting my mind wander.

Arachne is one such image - a spider-like vision of suspension, inflation heavy rubber and tubes that bubbled up from my imagination.

That's as much context as I can give here, but it burbled up from my head and I just had to paint it.  (It also looks like a real fun way to meditate too - I'm starting to see the similarities between latex bondage & meditation - the two things seem to be a means to the same end...and something I'd like to try more of IRL)

On a side-note, as I'm getting more experienced at meditating this has me seeking out guided meditations that aren't quite so "New Age" - a lot of them encourage you to imagine streams, grass, forests and mountain-sides full of unicorns, crystals and pixie dust. And while I admit that they work in making me feel calm my preference is for scripts that are ambiguous in their descriptions and allow my imagination to kick in because my 'happy place' definitely is the kind of place you're seeing me paint. As a result I'm on the hunt for more general purpose guided meditations and exploring the possibility of writing my own meditation scripts to help me free associate and tease out these flashes of inspiration.

Namaste, folks.

Sending you the very best from the UK and hoping you've all had a little restful time over the holiday.
Take care & thanks for your continued support!

S