Last year I began reading a little book called ‘The Art of Simple Living’ by Shunmyo Masuno who is a Buddhist Monk. The book outlines 100 simple changes you can make in your life to achieve a happier and less stressful life. Although it is a small book, it is one that you have to read and digest over time and return to re-read again. Some of the ideas are as simple as taking time to watch the sunset, planting a seed and watching it grow or lining up your shoes neatly when you come inside. I’m quite sure I have barely adopted 2 or 3 of the steps in the book but even if that is all I achieve then it is still a positive change.

One of the suggestions in the book is to join your hands together to calm your mind. Your left hand represents you and your right hand represents others. When they are joined together, the two become one and can not be in conflict. It is a feeling of respect for those outside yourself and an offering of humility. Masuno says that when your hands are joined together, you can not attack someone and there is a feeling of gratitude. He suggests creating a place in your home to put your hands together each day. In a traditional Japanese home this might be a small shrine but Masuno says it need not be so formal but just a corner or space where you can silently put your hands together.

My reflection on this led me to thinking about creating some artwork to hang in a quiet space as a reminder to join our hands together and be a place to focus for a moment and calm our busy minds. I initially worked only in black and white but decided to complete the series in colour as well. People have sometimes commented that they prefer my colour roughs to my final gouache paintings. So these are created with colour pencil which reveals the texture of the illustration board and a softness of colour with all the imperfections of the graphite pencil lines showing through. I will leave you here with the final artworks and some of the progress photos from the colour pencil versions. Limited edition prints of the artworks can be found here.

Circle of Life, Peace on Earth, Living in Harmony - Colour versions

Circle of Art