Katie B. – Hand on Heart

Katie B.

When I started my Hand on Heart piece, I had no idea how I wanted it to turn out or how the final piece would look. So I just took it a step at a time, starting with drawing a heart in the centre of the page and thinking about all the people, things and experiences that felt like they had touched and shaped my heart, whether through love or pain or both. I expressed this by creating a collage from magazine cuttings: I used images, colours and backgrounds to tell a story about my most meaningful emotions and experiences. I think the collage turned out to represent love and joy; the experience of losing loved ones; and the hardship, growth and rebirth that has been happening throughout the years since chronic fatigue syndrome turned my world upside down.

It’s about connection to the people who have helped pull me through my darkest days, and it’s about hope. My heart, and all that’s within it, is held gently, steadily and strongly by the hands of my higher self, or maybe some kind of higher power. I tried to capture a sense of rootedness and regrowth with the hands.

For the background, I chose to layer an explosion of different watercolours on top of a collaged background made from music sheets and magazine extracts that I connected with. I then added handwritten quotes from some songs that are meaningful to me, including a couple written by myself.

I love listening to, playing and creating music for both light-hearted pleasure and for helping to express and release emotions. I’m glad to feel that I have captured this in my piece, background, along with an expression of joy and movement from the watercolours. I tried to layer on the watercolours in a free-flowing way that was fun to apply and reflects aspects of nature, particularly water and clouds. Being in nature helps me to feel calm, joyful and grounded. I also think nature can reflect our life experiences, help us to process emotions and remind us that everything passes. I’m glad that, even though I had no initial plan, by taking my piece a step at a time I feel I was able to create a final image that feels like an authentic expression of my heart.