They Will Do the Same for You…

I have a dear friend that has introduced me to alcohol inks. Oh my! They are very vivid and slide around the page like water on a slip and slide. It’s very cool, unpredictable and a fun new medium to learn. I also experienced frustration and lots of unknowns as you can’t “control” the ink, not really. You can guide it, blew it around with a straw, even add layer upon layer…but control is not really possible. For this background I put pieces of tape on the paper to see how the ink would react. It did not do AT ALL what I thought it would do. Traditional ink would have stayed on either side of the tape. Alcohol ink went right under the tape and bled through it. Interesting. Again, not what I was expecting and yet I like the outcome.

I have people ask me how I produce work for all my blog posts. “You must be in your studio all the time.” Not really. I work in batches most of the time. I make backgrounds like this one and may produce more than twenty at a time. I keep them stored in a waterproof storage box and dig through it when I get ready to do the lettering. Sometimes the quote guides my choices, and other times I like a background and work to find a quote that will compliment the colors and patterns. For this piece I found the quote first.

There is no love without forgiveness, and
there is no forgiveness without love.

– Brian H. McGill

I thought the words were a great compliment to my experience with alcohol inks. There is not a love of the medium without having to forgive it for not doing what you think it should do. And there must be forgiveness when you make in your mind what looks like a mistake, when actually once you accept the unconventional aspects of the ink, you learn to love your outcomes and enjoy the journey.

This love and forgiveness, forgiveness and love relationship is much like how we live and love people in our lives. Over time we love and enjoy them, then the “thing” happens and we have to muster the courage to forgive. They behave, say, or forget what we did not expect, so we love them enough to forgive them. Because there can be no love without forgiveness. Later on, we have to forgive again and again and again often for the same thing. Like being stuck on a hamster wheel going round and round, forgive and forgive. Which means we muster the courage to love even in the face of disappointment and forgiveness. Because there can be no forgiveness without love. And if we are fortunate, these are the people in our lives who do the same for us…love and forgive, forgive and love. THAT is what relationships are all about.

Today in your journey, acknowledge the people you love AND love them enough to forgive them. And if you are fortunate, they will do the same for you…