Flying Girl in the Land of the Ghosts, or Let it Go

Flying Girl in the Land of the Ghosts, or Let it Go
3/28/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on Paper, 7"x10"

The theme for Inspire Me Thursday is ghost. I thought that would be so easy, to create a kind of Edward Gorey like ghosty of Flying Girl, but instead, it turned into a real Flying Girl who was lost in the land of the ghosts.

Oh, it's the past. It's the scars and the pain and the losses and the could have beens. It's basements and cellars and the roots of things. It's distant sounds and far off wishes. It's empty windows and going nowhere.

When we get stuck in that land of ghosts, we don't do ourselves any favors. Lost there, our liveliness is overshadowed by the weight of all that past. We can be blue skies inside of us, but if we won't let go of that ghost, the rain clouds will keep coming in.

So do like Flying Girl. Let It Go, and fly off towards the hopes that the past gave you. Leave behind the pain. Because it's not all pain. Find the bloom of hope, the bird that flies off, and follow that.

I'd also like to mention that although it doesn't look like it, this painting is actually me playing with color, for CED's April prompt. Yes, it's gray, but I wanted to paint the light and shadows, the color coming from behind. I wanted to contrast the gray of the sky with the sky blue of the dress. And even the gray is both warm and cool gray. White and cream. Black and charcoal. And that's not counting the underpainting. It's bright pink, yes it is. Although the painting itself is gray. Take a look at that sky...see the layers, there?