Just Breathe Monotype

As many of you know, the last few years of my life have been very trying. Recently, I quit my job and started working on myself and my art. I am taking an art business class, some art therapy classes, and am taking time for my meditation and visualization most days. 

I have found that I am a person that when excited or stressed has a tendency to tense up my entire body, to the point where I forget to breath. It is like in Under The Tuscan Sun, when the Lesbian couple breakup and she asks Frances how do you do it, and she responds with breath. Through out the hardest times, I have found the only thing that was holding me together was breath. Now, I am in this time of healing it is also what is holding me together. 

When I was working, and my co-workers had a rough day or I had a rough day, my mantra was simply Just Breathe, often sung Anna Nalick style. If you know me, you know my voice is not nearly as good as hers. Now, that I am not working a 9-5, I do my meditation practice most days and have added another self visualization practice. These practices are giving me a whole new meaning to that phrase.

Recently, I was doing an art therapy exercise where I imagine myself breathing and thinking about what color my breath was as I breathe in what color it is, as I breath out what colors it changes to as it spreads, and how it moves. Immediately, I thought my breath was purple and blue and spread into green, yellow, and orange swirls. The vision I saw was so beautiful that I decided to try to recreate in my monotypes below.

Just Breath
Media: Monotype
Price: $150

Just Breathe
Media: Ghost Monotype

Breath seems to be such a huge part of our essence as humans. Just by changing the way I breathe, changes so much about about my physiology and psychology. I chose to include both the lungs and the circulatory system in my monotype, because just the act of filling the lungs lets the oxygen travel via the heart and circulatory system through the body allowing a feeling of aliveness and healing. In a way, I have shown what I imagined was happening through color and feeling with the exchange of the oxygen I breath inside my body and the carbon dioxide I breath outside my body. 

Thank you for taking the time to read and check out my work. For more information please email, Facebook Messenger me or text me if you or anyone you know have questions or are interested in my art. Follow my Blog, Facebook, & Instagram to know about shows and more exciting new artwork to come!