Colour outside the lines...

Again, local graffiti has got me thinking, and offered something to ponder in this sea of beige.
I especially like the way the railing underneath seem to add to the statement, bringing three-dimensional lines into the picture. Bars.

Did you colour-in much as a child?
Remember how hard it was, initially, to learn to colour inside the lines? How frustrating? Yet most of us eventually got it.

Learned to trace the shapes someone else had drawn.
Learned to put colour only where we were told to and not where we ‘shouldn’t’.
Even learned what colour certain things were ‘supposed’ to be.

And not just in a colouring-in kind of way…

For there are many lines drawn for us: in society, in our families, in our habits, in our minds.
Things we ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ do.
(Things we ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ be...)

Some of this stuff can be useful, and even protective, at times.

But sometimes the lines feel like they’re mounting up, banding together, until all around us we find a cage of ‘shoulds’. And seemingly no way out.

What might it be like to question some of these lines sometimes?
To query their place in your life right now?
To possibly break the bounds and spread some colour into untouched areas?
Perhaps even to draw some lines anew?

What kind of lines might you draw?
Where would you like more colour in your life? (inside or outside these lines?)
And which colours? Would you introduce a whole new shade into your palette?

Simple questions, and kind of strange ones.
But important.
For where you draw the line, and where you choose to colour, can impact the evolving artwork of your life…
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(c) Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar 2010
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PS The photo is part of Point and Shoot