Bonsai #2 The Beauty of Time, Original Ink Painting.
Ageing is a gift we often take for granted.
Modern humans seem so obsessed with youth that we often overlook the value of something that has been around for a long time. The amount of knowledge and experience acquired over time is so special and precious but, like trees, we often take it for granted. The more context we have, the deeper our understanding is and the richer our life experience is. The superficial joys of life can be found in the new and fleeting but true magic can be found in things that tell a story of how they lived and what it means to exist.
Every crease and mark adds depth and information that help us develop our understanding.
Studying the details allows us to look deeper. Here we can find answers to our questions. Here we can find meaning and purpose. Here we can come to appreciate all the creases and marks we ourselves have acquired through the years and understand their value when we realise that they are earned and that they form who we are. When the veil is lifted we can see the true beauty in the world.
Crafting the Artwork
The original artwork is 57x38cm Hahnemuhle 'The Collection' Water Colour paper with a deckle edge. The paper was stained with lightfast, pigmented acrylic ink to create an aged look, which in itself is quite beautiful. The ink was applied using a dip pen for the leaves and a fine brush was used to draw the bark and moss.
Inspiration
Inspired by bonsai's grown on top of unusual bases, this subject has the tree grown on top of an older and larger petrified tree. The distorted scale creates a confusion to the actual size of the tree. The title calls the tree a bonsai but the elements in the drawing suggest that it is full grown tree. This suspends reality and creates a fantasy quality to the realistic depiction almost as if it is an old documentation of a tree in another universe.
The original artwork is available here: https://www.thesalsacreative.com/product-page/bonsai-2-the-beauty-of-time-original
And Timed Limited Prints are available here until midnight 16 October 2023: https://salmapricenell.com/pages/bonsai
Prints were released in an edition of 15xA3 and 5xA1
If you were inspired by this article, please leave your thoughts in the comments, I'd love to hear them.
Take good care of yourself,
Salma Price-Nell
Updated: Sep 25, 2023
'The Charmed Tree' Original Ink Illustration was inspired by the Rowan Tree (Sorbus aucuparia)
I always thought that there was something magical about a Rowan tree, so I stretched my fingers, took to the keyboard and went to learn more about them.
I discovered that they are, in fact, quite magical.
Also known as quickbeam, wicken or witchwood, no tree has more mystical and folkloric association than the rowan. In mythology the Rowan tree (also known as the tree of life in Celtic Mythology) is seen as the tree of protection, particularly protecting against witchcraft and enchantment. Planting a Rowan tree beside a home is said to protect its residents and keep evil spirits at bay. Its old Celtic name, 'fid na ndruad', means wizards' tree.
The wood was used for stirring milk to prevent the milk curdling, and as a pocket charm against rheumatism. It was also used to make divining rods.
We have 2 Rowan trees in our garden and I’ve always been fascinated by them. They change through the seasons from white blossoms in the Spring to beautiful dark green leaves and bright orangey-red berries in Autumn. I’m really happy to know that they have this meaning and are protecting us ☺️
I was going to name this artwork 'The Tree of Protection', but instead named it 'The Charmed Tree' because I want it to symbolise magic and the belief that trees may have spirits that operate beyond our understanding. That there are layers to existence besides physical matter that are at play all around us. To quote Arthur C. Clarke: “Magic’s just science that we don’t understand yet.”
I love the festivities that come with Autumn and Halloween and having these trees around really enhances the spirit of this time of year.
The Charmed Tree Original Ink Illustration was a prize in a Giveaway I hosted in September 2023 for my amazing email subscribers as a thank you for supporting my work.
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Take good care of yourself!
Salma
Updated: Apr 18, 2023
While staring at the stars one night I marvelled at the vastness of space, as you do...
The stars seemed unmoving and peaceful, just happily twinkling away in the night’s sky. It then occurred to me that they were, in actual fact, all hurtling through space at great force, and if sped up in a time-lapse over millions or billions of years it might look like living, moving organisms whose functions will only be clear when observed in their own time.
It made me wonder about our experience of life and time’s effect on our perception.
Take a fly for example, we experience it living a very fast life because it buzzes around at speed, where as it’s experience might in reality be in very slow motion to ours. Flies see at 250 frames a second, where we see about 24. So for the fly, perhaps our 24 hour day feels more like 250 hours (that’s just over 10 days). And to them we may seem to move as slowly as the clouds in the sky. Could our perception of the cosmos may be, in a way, like a fly's perception of us - times a million? And to the cosmos we are the fly, only infinitesimally smaller and existing in just a blip of all time. It begs the question, are there things around us right now that move so fast that we can't perceive them? That to them we are the unmoving star?
For our bodies, time is a constant, but our mind can perceive time that has past and can also imagine time that is still to come.
We can essentially live outside our time. In this day and age where phrases like ‘move fast and break things’ is boasted about by the leading companies of our era. Companies that greatly influence how we think, and in turn feel. It’s no surprise that we are moving so fast that we end up missing what’s important. We can’t physically change our frame rate (yet) so we are moving faster but still only have 24 frames a second to perceive. What does this mean for the human mind and for our experience of life?
I find myself scrolling through my feeds faster and faster these days.
People are urged by these media companies to produce as much content as possible, but who has the time to watch it all and give each creator the attention their work deserves? I find myself speeding up my process videos more and more so that viewers can devour my hours or days of work in a few seconds just so that they won’t scroll on to the next thing before my video ends. I don’t want my work to be influenced by these things, but if you don’t adapt you get left behind… But how true is this type of thinking?
One thing I’ve learnt is that living outside of your time (rushing) doesn’t yield the best results.
It is a gamble. You might get lucky and hit your target by taking as many shots as possible and you might not, but if you take the time to learn and practice the technique, aim and most importantly breathe a steady breath you will hit more targets long term and you will hit them consistently.
Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier to take your time.
The gravitational pull is strong when things move at speed. The rushed mindset creates greater resistance to do focused and patient work. When everything around you is ‘urgent’ and demands your time, pulling you toward the someone else's star - how do you stay true to your own natural orbit?
The first step is awareness, recognising the turbulent energy. Recognising that you may unconsciously be governed by immediately reacting instead of first watching, considering and then responding. Try taking a step outside of your perceived time, zoom out and maybe think of all time and space and how your current task’s ‘urgency’ relates to the grand scheme of your life. In as little as a year’s time, would it still matter? How would you respond to the situation from this perspective? This concept is nothing new and yet we stress ourselves out daily for made-up deadlines and other urgencies. That’s because it’s something that takes lots of practice. And I feel like my practice is only beginning.
I hope you enjoyed reading this article. If you have any thoughts on time perception, urgencies, staying true to your own path or anything along these lines, please share them in the comments. I'd love to hear them.
If you are struggling to do deep work, I have some lovely book recommendations for you (which is not an ad, I just enjoyed them or found them helpful).
Take good care of yourself, Salma
