Therapy canvas and the woman

So life seems to be getting back to a place of normalcy- kind of. This has been a very rough year but things are looking up a bit. The depression is finally beginning to lift and I actually feel like doing more. I don't know about you but when I'm very depressed, working and painting is extremely hard to do. I've reached a point now where I don't have to force myself to go into the studio. I actually want to and am excited about painting again. Yay!

One of the things that helps me get out of a funk is throwing paint at a canvas that I'm not worried about- meaning I don't have to think about that piece going to a gallery or being entered in a show. It's just there for me. I have a couple of these at the moment and I call them my therapy canvases. I have one that's 48x48, quite large for me, and it's the one I use when I'm angry. It's great to throw paint and get out some aggression. That one is stashed in my studio in a not so convenient place so I haven't thrown anything at it in a while (I guess if I get pissed off enough I'll dig it out of the corner where it lives). I also have my blue canvas. That one is not as large and it hangs in my bedroom. I just take it down when I need it, add a few more layers of paint and just don't think about anything while I do it. When I feel through with it I hang it back up until the next time I need it.

Since I was feeling very blue through most of this year so far I decided to take the blue canvas down and play. Pushing paint around without an agenda can be so relaxing- just what I needed.

I don't even know how many layers of acrylic paint are on this thing. There's also tissue paper, handmade paper and glass bead texture gel. I got done playing with it and hung it back up on the bedroom wall. Later that week I was sitting in the room talking with my daughter-in-law and she stops, looks at the painting and says.... "there's a woman in that painting" or something to that effect. I don't remember her exact words. I said, what painting? She pointed at it, I looked, and suddenly there she was.

I don't know if you can see it too but now, that's all I see when I look at it. These things fascinate me. Where did she come from? Is it my subconscious or is it coincidence? Now when I look at this painting I see her profile facing to the right. I see her wearing a cape with a hood, I even see her wearing a jacket with embellishments that look like they match the cape. 

I guess I've lost one of my therapy canvases because I can't bring myself to touch this one again. I think I have to leave her alone now.