I’ve started writing a post about the past year a couple of times already, but every single time it feels like too much, too negative, and too depressing, and I log out without finishing it. I feel compelled to describe my journey for other people who have PMDD, but I think it’s still too early, too fresh. That post (or posts?) will arrive at some point, but suffice it to say that it’s been a hard time, and that I’m immensely grateful that I’m finally on the way out of that deep, dark hole. PMDD is a horrible thing, and the solution that finally works for me is suppressing my hormones entirely with GnHR-A injections and adding a stable level of hormones back in (aka chemical menopause). I’m still recovering, it’s slow-going because the whole ordeal has burnt me out. But I’m (sort of) back! And I want to write here more, especially with the way things are on social media these days.
In the past year, I haven’t spun or knitted much at all. I didn’t have the ability to focus. But I did still feel the need to express myself creatively. I wanted to sing, to paint, to do photography, to do fibre arts…
And I made blobs. That’s right, blobs saved my mental health this spring/summer/autumn.
I was at home, couldn’t work, couldn’t really read (maybe half a page before I couldn’t focus anymore), everything felt too difficult, too active… I took a walk every day, but that leaves plenty of empty hours. I *wanted* to do things, still. My best friend gave me an awesome idea. Why not just play with water and ink, and create blob paintings?
A blob painting is where you splash some water onto your paper – with a plan or not – and then drop ink in there and let it become something, whatever it wants to be. It’s a little like wet-in-wet watercolour, and you can get great effects with it. In my case, the goal was to give my creative mind something to play with without the pressure of having to be detailed/focused. Because the water and ink don’t want to be controlled, anyway.
I started with a little bottle of black ink and a cup of water, and tried making a blob cat. It was actually fun to do! I tried more shapes and looked at how the ink behaved together with the water. It was fascinating.
After a while, I wondered what would happen if I were to try to do this with watercolour instead, so that I could also play with different colours instead of only with black. That worked, too, but the pigment concentration wasn’t as high. The result could become muddy quite easily, but that was okay. I wasn’t looking for perfection, just for expression.
Then I figured out that I could also make blobs with my old fountain pen ink. That actually worked really well! Those inks have multiple pigments in them, and when put into water, some of the pigments travel further than others, creating a nice effect.
And Talens Ecoline also worked – of course it did, because it’s very similar to watercolour in composition.
I discovered that I could also add glitter to the blobs and it would stay put. Glitter blobs!!
I used 12×12 cm paper to make my blobs, and that’s just small enough for it not to be overwhelming. On the worst days, I’d repeat certain shapes (cats, flowers/trees, reflections, etc) or just make abstract things with one or more colours. Seeing the ink move around, doing its own thing, and getting inspired by it was slow enough and quite satisfying for my brain. I also felt as if I actually accomplished something that day instead of it just being empty.
As I started to feel a bit better in the past few months, I gradually moved back into painting simple watercolours first, and more complex pastel paintings later. And sure, those are great to do and worthy of being displayed, at least some of them. But the blobs… they are my special little treats now. I only made them on bad days (days with brain fog) so that I wouldn’t become ambitious with them or beat myself up for not being able to do what I could do on better days. So, they are exclusive looks into a foggy mind that was longing to express itself.
