Hand, henna, and wrapping my brain around 2011 at last

Hello Lovely Dovelies!
I hope your week is going well so far :)

Check out the henna design on my hand:

a henna painted hand resting on pink patterned fabric

It was done by a gorgeous friend who I’ve known for about 29 years. We’d not seen each other for decades, but it felt like only moments had passed since the last time. Some people are just soul comfort food like that, don’t you think? She is learning to do henna. Me, I have hands, and a love of art on many surfaces even the surface of myself.

The henna is still showing after 6 days, although today it’s cracking just a little. The soft pink patterned cloth you can see is from another friend that very same day. I think it may have a future in a painting with a cat :)

The barely-recognisable-as-a-butterfly printed near my thumb is thanks to my husband. I bought a great book –The Right Brain Business Plan by Jennifer Lee – and I intend to build some kind of arty/cut-and-paste business plan. The old fashioned kind with scissors and glue, not Apple-X, Apple-V (or Control-X, Control-V) this time! To start to prepare for this process I bought stamping markers at ikea! We unwrapped and tested them. Hence, obviously, I got stamped. (By the way, the butterfly has already washed off. Interesting… is that symbolic of transience in modern society?)

Before I have a sound basis to make any kind of business planning artwork though, I’m going to need to get clear on my understandings and intentions for 2011 on a personal level. I know it’s April already – I am a late starter/bloomer!

For that I’d like to make a Personal Intentions/Dream Board, maybe even with a Word of the Year for 2011. To that end, I’ve bought a big piece of purple card, some sparkly stuff and colourful paper. I am collecting magazines (wow – this year I have NO fashion and health magazines lying around) and have cleared a table top (my gosh it almost looks like an interior design magazine in here, haha) ready to set up with the markers, scissors, coloured pencils and a fresh glue stick! More on my this as it develops…

In other ‘positive steps’ news, this week I:

  • … removed cheese from my diet (again). That’s a long story to tell another time if you’re interested
  • … printed up some more Kind Over Matter and Perfect Sentiment cards (sorry no link there, I don’t think they’re offering the ones I have anymore) with sayings on them, and put them in that nice bowl I painted with the strawberries. A cool Free Compliments mini-poster (also from Kind over Matter) adorns the side of the filing cabinet to assist family encouragement
  • … printed up the prompts Vivienne McMaster gave us from our fantastic e-course (Wading In – Dipping our toes into Self Portraiture) and put them in a special jar. I like glass jars, even simple ones, the way things look inside them, their screw-on lids and the way the light looks reflecting off the glass.

So that photo of my hand tells me quite a bit, quite a snapshot of connections and changes and plans going through my head this week. Do your hands tell a story? And the bowl and jar photo is a record of a small step towards even kinder, more creative surroundings. What are your hopes for this year? And do you want to hear about the cheese?

Best wishes and solid love,
Meg x o

4 thoughts on “Hand, henna, and wrapping my brain around 2011 at last”

  1. jealous. jealousjealousjealous. I love henna and have no one to do it for me and haven’t a clue about doing it myself. I’d have it ALL THE TIME given the opportunity!

    My hands do tell a story. They’ve been in clay a lot and my cuticles are a mess despite daily oiling. We must suffer for our art!

    1. Tangerine Meg

      Oh, Tammy – I hope you can put out the word in your art community and see if anyone does henna where you are… I know you would adore to be painted :)
      Hey, who says cuticles have to be a certain way? Like you said, they’re part of the story your hands tell. (They don’t hurt, do they?)

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