True ColoursIn this lesson, I will work with the fairy tale, “The Ugly Duckling”, especially as told by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her seminal work “Women Who Run

With The Wolves”. As demonstrated in your videos, I work with ‘swan’ and ‘swan medicine’ to extract some information from the story & symbol that I might use in my work.

This PDF includes a pictorial step-by-step walk through, as well as a list of all the supplies I used in the making of “True Colours”. Before we dive into that, though, I thought I’d share a bit of my personal story with this fairy tale, so you can get a sense of how I arrived at my final choices for this piece.

“The Ugly Duckling” was one of the first stories I remember from my child-hood. Those of you who have worked with me before know that I experienced a great deal of childhood abuse & bullying, so it will come as no surprise to you that this is my favourite fairy tale, and also the one that holds the most meaning and resonance for me.

The heroine’s journey undertaken by the glorious swan in this tale runs parallel to my own life in the sense that I truly feel as though I was born into the wrong family - either by some trick of fate, or because Universe knew what my soul needed to evolve into the person I am today. Either way, I was that odd duck - that one that didn’t belong. Too big, too loud, too much. As a result, I did not grow up in an environment of love & safety.

Much like the “Ugly Duckling”, I spent most of my life in search of my right people. I wandered far and wide - both literally and figuratively, through many moves, many relationships, and many spiritual modalities, in search of a sense of my own home & people. Like the “Ugly Duckling”, I experienced a great many false starts, experienced ‘tolerance’ vs. ‘acceptance’, and never really had a sense of my own beauty.

Once I found the mixed media art community - and more relevantly, *my right people* in this community, I began to see myself very differently from how I’d been taught to see myself. Like the “Ugly Duckling”, I found people who could reflect back to me, via their own love, kindness, generosity, and beauty, my own beauty, love, kindness, generosity, and beauty. Like the “Ugly Duckling”, when I found my right people, I also find a vision of myself that I could finally

feel good about - a true vision, and one that would inform all my future choices - choices that included spreading my wings in my business life, under-taking things that felt out of my comfort zone, and developing my skills as a teacher & mixed media art journalist. I also started to stick up for my rights for love, acceptance, and safety in all my relationships, and though that did result in the dissolution of my marriage, it has also opened the portal to my finding friendships that offer an authentic intimacy that means to so very much for me.

“The Ugly Duckling” is a story about how deeply we all need to have our own inner beauty reflected back at us. I hope this lesson finds you gazing at your own beautiful soul in love, and pure acceptance.

Supplies Used

Fluid acrylics (your favourite colours!)water in a spray bottlealcohol in a spray bottle

Stabilo All pencilScrapbook papers

Gel Medium (Matte)Gesso

Workable Fixative (Krylov)Stencil

Sakura Glaze PenFaber Castell Pitt Pens (blue, yellow, orange, red, and purple)

Iridescent medium by Liquitex

Step By Step Walk-through

After sketching and doing a bit of research about the focal images you decide to use, do some clustering (as demonstrated in the video) around your key concepts/words.

Create a wet into wet background using acrylics paint. Let things drip and be really loose and free.

Sketch in the focal image you are choos-ing to work with using a Stabilo All pencil.

If you choose, add some papers. I like the mosaic look this creates, but it is absolute-ly optional.

Gesso the spread *thinly* around the focal image.

Activate the Stabilo All pencil with a wet brush. I tend to do activate, allow to dry, add more Stabilo where desired, activate, and then allow to dry. Sketch in the sun and sunrays in the upper 1/3 of the piece using pencil. You can blend this out with a blending stump if you like, but that’s optional.

Spray the piece with workable fixative to ensure that the Stabilo stays put.

Glaze the spread with colours that are meaningful to you. Glazing is just a fancy way of saying “apply thin, transparent lay-ers of paint”. I used Pthalo Turquois in the bottom 2/3 and gold in the upper 1/3.

I covered all the graphite in the top 1/3 of the piece with white to push back the grey.

I stenciled in the bottom 2/3 of the piece with white paint.

I glazed over the gold and white in the top 1/3 of the piece with a transparent yellow. The gold underneath it really enriches the yellow.

Using a Sakura Glaze Pen (black), doodle shapes that are meaningful to you.

I coloured in the doodles using Faber Castell Pitt Pens. Use colours that makes sense to you. I also used a gold Sakura Gelly roll for some of the doodles.

As per the video, insert a panel of gesso in the wing, and then paint & doodle it ex-actly as you did the upper 1/3 of the piece so that it matches.

Add some shading inside the swan with a Faber Castell marker that closely resem-bles the colour of the swan.

Add a layer of iridescent medium (I use Liquitex) to the swan to make it shimmer.

And VOILA! Let it dry, and you are done. Congrats!

Notes