Fire and Ice

Stinging and relieving

Movement and Stasis

Heat and Cold

Emotion and Stoicism

Two sides of the same coin

Balance

Anger resides within me. It has grown roots of embarrassment, self-pity and shame with me. It whispers malice in my ear, suggests wicked ideas, takes control of my words. It does not allow me to be happy.

Innocence dwells in me. It closes my eyes to bad news, shields my ears from sarcastic comments, opens my eyes wide at the sight of cotton candy. It forces a smile for no reason.

How much ice and how much fire?

Everyone's mental balance is in a different place. For some, it is a place where they are almost overflowing with emotion for others, when they give them up in favour of nirvana. Just as steel needs both heat and ice - we need to temper our bodies and emotions. When the blood does not boil or freeze from time to time - we miss a very important lesson - that of controlling our behaviour. And I deliberately don't use the term 'self – control' term here.

Controlling one's emotions takes a lot of work. On the surface, it may seem that it is just a matter of keeping calm in certain - particularly stressful - situations. No. It is about making our behaviour appropriate to the situation we are in. Calm is not always contagious. Sometimes it act like a rag to the bull and we need to be aware of this.

Read the room

We are designed in the way that we often lose our balance. But - the more we test ourselves, the easier it is to regain our stability . Running away from stress, but also running away from blissful joy - robs us of important life lessons. And practice makes perfect... supposedly.

It's all @emanate-artworx's fault!

She used candle crayons to make one of her recent works. What's more, she did it brilliantly! I'm not surprised that Emma is so good at drawing, just that she was able to get such a great effect with such an ungainly tool. I remember those wretched crayons from my childhood and hated them with the force of a thousand suns. I thought about it for a long while and remembered the 'Bambino' crayons I used in primary school. I remember that my art teacher was crazy about them. On the list of "school supplies" there were always these crayons with the words BAMBINO in capital letters next to the card stock and poster paints.

Thanks to @emanate-artworx, I was reminded of this medium and thought it would be an interesting experiment to return to the days when I drew people in the form of bulging, clumsy circles.

Bambino crayons are not your typical candle crayons. They are made of kaolin clay.

Kaolin clay, also called Kaolinite white clay, is a powdered white chalky rock consisting of kaolinite, quartz, mica and several other minerals with silicon and aluminium as the base. It is digged in mines. Its name comes from the Chinese town of Gaoling, where there are large and long-established deposits of the mineral.

Although this material is as safe for children as wax crayons - it allows the crayons to be far more strongly pigmented. The crayons produce very bright, vivid colours and allow the creation of soft transitions between colours.

But that's all theory... Time for practice:)

About the drawing

I must admit that the beginnings were terrible. I had great difficulty in sketching accurately because of the form of the crayons - a slim, cylindrical stick. I think if I had switched to a larger format, biger even than A2(42 x 59,4 cm ), I would have found it much easier to work.

For the first time since art school it occurred to me that I might need an easel after all.

I started tw A3(29.7 x 42 cm ) works which I abandoned after about 20 minutes of drawing. I wasn't happy with the result at all, and I was distracted by the excess of colour. Yes, that''s what I said – excess of colour :D

I work very little with colour, and I'm still learning to use with it prperly. My boyfriend suggested using a limited colour palette to avoid the 'rainbow' or 'childish' effect that had really annoyed me before.

I also took it a step further - and used alcohol to dilute and smudge the crayons to get a more uniform colours. I hope you'll forgive me for this little 'cheat' ;)

I'm very curious what you think:)

Have a lovely weekend,
Yours,
Strega Azure

These crayons Bambino, Polish product I would like to point out:)
I was really surprised that I was able to order them in the UK:)

Drawing & pictures are my authorship if not stated otherwise.

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