Collection of Janel’s
Soul Portrait Art
All for a Reason
30x40 oil on canvas, 2017
Not for sale
I spent a week in the studio of Mark Carder, portrait painter of US Presidents and other statespeople. I was in search of one of my two early loves in art, portraiture. Hand built pottery was my first love. But I yearned to paint realism too. Mark teaches a mixing and painting protocol for realism that I went to learn. Mark and I decided that I would do one of my “doodles” and not a portrait of a person. Per his instructions, my drawings were never to be called doodles again; and, they have been Soul Portraits since. I’d never done such a large Soul Portrait. Isn’t it beautiful? It was a big deal to begin to paint it.
My first portrait attempt in 2002, since college in 1982. Hanging at Sparky’s Ice Cream shop in Columbia, MO.
My daughter. Still incomplete
Mother Mary Comes to Us
7x10 Pen and Mixed Media, 2018
Not for Sale
9 x 12 Reprints on mixed media paper are available in store here. It is in Vol 5: Evolving of Calm in the Chaos: A Therapeutic Coloring Book for Living with PTSD. The See Feel Do version - done during my art residency @seefeeldodc is below.
30x40 paper with acrylic and mylar
$3000
The See Feel Do version - done during my art residency @seefeeldodc.
See yourself, Feel your feelings, Do Something.
This One Tree Somewhere
9x12 Gouache on Mixed Media
Forgive your Self
7x10 Pen and Mixed media 2019
Original Not for sale
I did this in my hotel room in January 2019 processing my nervous system response to hearing that the man who had pulled a gun on me and threatened “to blow your head off” was at the same funeral. I had not seen him since that day ten years before.
Prints of the black and white and the painting are available in my store.
Shortly after the gun incident I sat down with a trusted birth colleague, and on video, I slowly shared my experience with her; in the context of her deeply listening and supporting me to integrate my experience.
I had never listened to that video so after the incident in January. I listened to it while processing it again on the marking I had done that day.
I would invite you - if you are drawn to this image or the story, or have a similar story - of obstetric, domestic, or gun violence - to get your own Soul Portrait done, OR to engage with me in an intensive session.
