mixed media painting: sanctuary

The creative every day theme for March is mixed media, today I am sharing a mixed media painting I finished last month. This one is mostly acrylic paint with some charcoal to darken the words and oil pastel for some added pop and texture to the Queen Anne's Lace flowers. I had a Queen Anne's Lace (aka Wild Carrot) sketch in my sketchbook which was the jumping off point for this painting.

After starting the picture I knew I needed some words. I did a little digging online about the meaning of Queen Anne's Lace and the word "sanctuary" appeared. I worked on this right before my RAW showcase and the words poured out of me. It says "Be still and listen to your magic, the truth is you are enough, love yourself and awaken your secret sanctuary with your soul, trust in your magic".

I think I needed the words of encouragement before my first art show to remind myself that I can do this, I am meant to do this, I just need to trust in my abilities and try not compare my work with others. I am call it my "cheerleader piece".

I love the addition of words on artwork but, they can be tricky to get right. I went over and over the words many times until I was finally happy with them. I didn't intend for the text baseline to be in the final work but, I wasn't able to remove them easily. So, I went with it and made the lines part of the design and I think they worked into the painting nicely, a happy accident.  

Have you created art with words, do you have any tips to help the words look/read well or do you just wing it?