I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains. – Anne Frank

It’s been really great having a deadline for my art projects each week, as I find I have a specific goal to work towards and this way I can’t make too many excuses not to start or finish things. I still find myself procrastinating though and that’s been no different this week.

I’ve been trying to limit my screen time (you know, television and internet use) but of course when I was avoiding other tasks I didn’t want to do, I opened up pinterest and started scrolling. I was both happy and extremely disappointed I’d done this.  Happy because I discovered a beautiful quote by Anne Frank, which I found incredibly inspiring. And disappointed that I had seen some horrendously graphic pins of the atrocities currently being carried out in war torn countries. I’m certainly not one to bury my head in the sand but I’m still not sure how or why these images where allowed on a site such as pinterest. The internet can be a great tool but also a very destructive one too.

As this week I have been working on a portrait of baby C, I started thinking about the world we have brought her into. And quite frankly it terrifies me. As soon as I became pregnant ever fiber of my being was activated to protect this new life. Now that baby C is here, it’s not just physical protection I want for her but emotional too. Which is why I feel it is so important to hold on to hope and see all the beauty and goodness that remains in this very volatile world of ours.

Creativity is certainly one of the beautiful things we all have access to.  For this project I was inspired by a simple watercolour portrait (unfortunately the source of the artist is unknown). To complete my work I decided to use graphite aquarelle pencils. You can go over your lines with a paintbrush and water, to create a finish resembling ink and or watercolour.

Don’t you just want to squish her little cheeks. Until next week…. happy painting!

What beauty has inspired you lately?