love 101 or drawing a heart

Writing about love should be simple. I often write poetry about infatuation, lust, romance. But love is a deeper thing and I started really delving into it by learning how to draw a heart on illustrator.

The way I like to make heart shapes on ilustrator is to grab the pen tool and make a vertical vector with two lines.

Then I like to grab the anchor point tool and bend the lines outward expanding them towards a heart shape.

and bend the lines outward expanding them towards a heart shape.

The heart shape has its earliest tradition associated with the sacred heart of Jesus Christ shown with a central artery to signify the love that Jesus taught that of charity, understanding, imagination and sacrifice. This symbol was then transmuted to signify romantic love as western culture utilized romantic love by way of the troubadours and writers such as Shakespeare as the individual spiritual awakening found in a couple outside of established norms of class, nationality, race and titles. In the 19th century the symbol was further used by romantics. Today we use the heart endlessly in our chats and social media interaction sending this powerful symbol of universal love back and forth.

Sacré-Coeur

Early depiction of the Heart of Jesus in the context of the Five Wounds (the wounded heart here depicting Christ's wound inflicted by the Lance of Longinus) in a 15th century manuscript.

The five wounds are interesting for me they depict the five elements air, water, earth, wind and heart (the solstices and equinoxes )

For me drawing the heart teaches me about love firstly the two internal channels that of the femenine and masculine inside me ying and yang, wisdom and compassion my relationship with my father and mother both internally and externally and in that alignment how I can expand to become more myself how I can give my gift to the world. Always grounding and moving outwards and inwards like a toroid.