So a good friend of mine I grew close to that I no longer really see any more was sweet enough to watch my cat while I was away at rehab for addiction for two months, for free. She left the money I set out behind and even made me a spread for my birthday, the day I returned. I came home to cake, candy, a coffee mug, a nice candle, a little bamboo plant. Iddn't she the best?! So I'm trying to do something special for her.
Well she loves studio Ghibli and her favorite movie is Howl's Moving Castle ... she even colors and sometimes styles her hair like Sophie. So I had this thought for a painting ...
Imagine real black feathers bordering a canvas, that look like wings encompassing it, in the subtle shape of a heart (tips at the bottom). At the bottom right corner is a fake LED stick candle, the flame of which is made out to look like Calcifer (I'll make it work). Painted on the canvas itself, ghibli-style, is a girl dressed all in form-fitting black clothes (my friend, who always wears black and ĺoves to paint) painting a picture of a candle, the light of which, from the candle she's painting, subtley illuminates her face, just as the candle outside of the painting subtley illuminates the room/art studio that is painted.
Surrounding her are cats (she has a lot of cats). In her hand she holds a paint palette that, looking closely, resembles the dial Howl uses to navigate the world from his castle. And ... that's it.
What do you think? How does it read to you on a symbolic level? I may or may not attach a real paintbrush to the painting, the tip of which attaches to Calcifer/the fake candle flame, at the angle the painter in the painting is painting their picture of a candle ... or do you think that's too much? I'm trying to indicate the candle being painted is the candle that illuminates the painting.