My Dream Board

Today I went for the second chapter in Tamara Laporte’s Create Your Life Book and produced my own Dream Board. Also known as a vision board, it serves as a tool for a visual representation of one’s hopes, needs and goals in life, The aim is to remind ourselves of them so when clear in our mind, we can focus on what is important to live a healthy life in mind, body and spirit.

This project involves creating acrylic transfers from photographs but I didn’t have access to a printer and also preferred to create my own character from my imagination. And thus I designed the Mini Me firstly in pencil.

The first layer of the painting was with oil pastels. I like Cray-Pas by Sakura as they give a velvety appearance and are smooth to draw with. Besides I like their range of colours. Here I scribbled some words and symbols of love and peace with the Japanese character for “peace” on top. With three different shades of brown, I drew in some streaks for the hair.

And now the background. I randomly brushed a variety of blue shades of inks all over, including my fave brand, Ecoline, And for the first time tried out some of Dr Ph. Martin’s India ink but found them overpowering so I ended up dotting it around the area.

Now time to paint away! Before that I added an extra layer of ink stamps and collages of newsletter bits. I then painted the face and hands. The hair was painted over in streaks combining Daler Rowney’s acrylic ink in Antelope Brown and Dylusions Chocolate Brown paint. For the dress, I used Dylusions paints again in Bubblegum Pink and shading in Funky Fuschia. I further worked on the blue background with, for the first time, Dina Wakley’s heavy acrylic paints in Ocean and Turquoise. These paints also give a smooth even coverage like the Dylusions paints except they come in a squishy bottle as opposed to screw top jars.

In order to lift the subject out a bit more, I applied some acrylic ink in Emerald Green around it. Then I proceeded in adding my origami paper collages all over the hair and some in the background. And then on top of it all, the crucial part. Before embarking on this exercise, I jotted down my goals and self-reminders on positive living. Embrace Life, among others. Boost self-confidence by believing in myself (I’m Worth It) and tangible goals like seeing the world more by traveling. With my boyfriend of course!

I finished off the painting by adding in some details like the eyes (permanent black ink and white acrylic paint), prayer beads (gel pen), designs around the hand-written collages (India Ink) and hearts along the Third Eye area (gold India Ink). Tamara suggests that if we want, we can also further add finishing touches with white markers or paint or even gesso but I am already pleased with the result as is and figured no need to fix if it ain’t broken. And here we are:

Very enjoyable, this exercise. Not only did it give me a clearer perspective in life but it was also quite meditative and relaxing. No hang ups about making it look perfect. Or stressing about what colours to use or which stamps or collages go together. I simply went with the flow and realised how time flew. Besides it was also a great chance to try out my new art supplies like the India Ink and acrylic ink both of which I hadn’t used till now. I’m further pleased with myself for having taken the initiative to wander out of the box by starting out with a different method from as instructed. What counts is that the purpose counts and it sure served it! My Dream Board.