Eventually she knew she would have to take the brush back up, and with feeling. She'd put it off as long as she could by meddling with other styles and color patterns. She'd tried figures in the most elaborate hues, flowers mingled together in different spectrum's. She'd even fallen back into still life as a last resort.

Unfortunately, none of those styles were really her.

Shelby had her own eye when it came to art. She tended to see things through different kind of lenses than the normal rose tint. Give her flowers? She'd morph them into an eerie garden graveyard. Bones fascinated her. Anatomy in all stages, complete, half, or lack-thereof. She wasn't terribly shy about it. One book case in her room, though small in size, was dedicated solely to various tomes on human, mutant, and animal anatomy. Cross sections, Dissections, skeletal and muscular structure. While she wasn't really able to look at such things in real life, she had endless books on them. Drawings she could deal with.

An image had been haunting her for the last few days. A female form in shades of blue, skeletal hands clutched around the edges of a blooming, vibrant pink flower where the heart would be. Inside, in place of the pistil would be located normally, a white washed skull grinning. She started by outlining where she wanted the figure to be, and began to paint in the first highlight of blue. 

This was a side of her that she generally didn't show many people. She had a morbid curiosity when it came to death, and most things associated with death. She was also fond of life, but mostly when it concerned what made things tick. Most of the people she had showed paintings of hers to didn't get the subject matter. She'd had one teacher among all her classes that really encouraged her to go for it if that was what interested her. Most others had tried to steer her toward other facets: Abstract, life paintings, figure drawing, impressionism. For the sake of her grades she had obliged, but this.... this was where her heart lay.

Time passed quietly while she was in her own little world. She had earbuds in, streaming her favorite songs as she worked. It was calming. Relaxing, even. So long as she stayed away from the red's for now...

Gathering some dark blue paint onto her finger tips, she forsook her brushes in favor of slathering some of the darker paint on in heavier layers for the shadows. She liked having extra texture in her stuff... not just a flat canvas. She liked to imagine that if you closed your eyes and ran your fingers over it you would get an entirely different image in your minds eye. She liked things that weren't simply one dimensional.

Pushing shadows into spaces previously empty, she started to map out a more defined body pattern. Exaggerated hips and ribs. Arms that looked thin and knotted; like tree branches. Fingers that curled like spider legs. She wedge the same blue into the outline for the lips; full and plump. Then, wiping off her fingers, she reached for a different color. Next was a middle tone blue, bordering on soft steel. This color she would use for the actual skin. Pale like a corpse, or a ghost.

It took a while to smear it in properly and smooth it all out. What she was left with was a slightly of kilter form that looked like it had just come from a coroners freezer. She paused to wipe her hands clean and observe her work so far.

Then came the pink. She switched back to using a fine pointed brush for that one. She wanted the flower to contrast with the texture and style of the body. She wanted it to be pristine and perfect in comparison. The type of flower really dictated why, in her opinion. Stargazer Lilies were a very special flower to her, and she tended to use them a lot in the majority of her work. To her they looked like a beautiful kind of wound. Pinks signifying trauma, white edges where the flesh had rolled away. Morbid? Yes, to most other than Shelby.

Humming, she started to work in the lightest pink, careful to leave a crisp white edge. Then she mixed a little of the light and dark together to get a nice medium tone. That would blend the light outside of the petals into the dark center. She touched it up with while spots and a clean border, and moved on to adding in the stamen with white and a tiny bit of yellow.

Once she was done with that, she took a bit of a break to run down to the kitchen and fetch herself some water.

---

A few hours later, she was done. She sat before her easel with paint smeared on her in various places, tucking her hair up in a messy bun at the nape of her neck. The picture was finished, or at least finished for now. She had a habit of fretting over her work for a few days before finally calling it 'done'. 

The finishing touches on this particular piece had been the addition of dark blue cascading hair that framed the figure, a border of very light blue, and of course the grinning Cheshire in the center of the flower. She smiled, exhausted after sitting rigid on her stool for so long.

The paint, being oil based would take a few days to completely dry. She would hang it on her wall in the meantime, away from any heavily trafficked areas. (haha!) She also contemplated dragging up Saph, or Zinnia... or Jack for that matter to show it off. Ultimately after a few moments of thinking it over, she trashed the idea. She wasn't sure if they knew her well enough not to be disturbed by her favorite hobby.

Instead, she turned to her laptop and camera. It was time to set up a new profile on the website she used to sell her work. She would certainly be needing the extra income now that she had been ultimately forced to resign from her job.

A few days later she was at it again...

This time, with a fresh canvas before her, she set about sketching out two figures. One, a larger form that took up quite a bit of the upper canvas, was tipped over with its arms splayed out to the sides. She sketched in thin wires to hold it aloft. It was to be a puppet... a being not in charge of its own body. Perhaps there was a mind, even, but no control over its physical form left it a prisoner within its own flesh.

From a compartment within the chest of the puppet, from behind two panels that popped open and hung limply on the sides, another figure was suspended below. She gave this one a more realistic shape. Where there were wires attached the skin puckered and pinched. The form, strangely lacking any definite gender cues, was wrapped around the joints and middle by wire, which shot up into the cavity of the larger puppet.

She set her pencil down, drumming her fingers on her legs as she eyed the drawing skeptically. What was the message behind it? What was the feeling?

Confined. Snared. The feeling of being trapped within your own skin, while outside influences urged you to act against the grain.

She nodded, and started to set up her color scheme.