Shrink To Fit

reads: Shrink to fit
my life to yours
find

sideways:
...dreams....
...love...
...a new way to fly...
...joy...


This is the painting I did for Inspire Me Thursday. It's made with acrylic gouache, and a bit of gold pigment ink pen. I am not sure how I feel about the flat quality of gouache. I've only just started experimenting. I may go back to plain ole golden acrylics.

It is odd how this is the image that came to me when I was thinking about the prompt. At first, I was thinking Alice and Wonderland, and how only through shrinking could she go through the tiny door into a new realm. But then, I started thinking of my old series of handprint paintings, and G wanted to play, too, so I decided to go with that, and the shrinking became smaller handprints inside the larger one. I also the ladder image, which is an old theme...it surprised me that it popped up. Sometimes I forget that I have been working on this stuff for years, I am not just starting up.

I like the idea of the painting, although I am not so sure about the outcome. I might try to do a different take on this idea later.

My life has definitely shrunk to fit that of a mother to two small children. I barely leave the house. Most of my brain is taken up with the concerns of feeding, cleaning, sleeping and keeping everyone from crying.

But I am seeing things in a new way. I am living for a new purpose. I am finding more inside of myself. I don't know if I would have found these things without having kids, maybe yes, maybe no, but the truth is I live small now. Smaller than ever before. And it is making me look at life in a different way. I am still figuring it out.