(Testing the) boundaries…

This week’s topic for Illustration Friday is boundaries, as suggested by Ronni Ann Hall, aka the designing fairy (http://thedesigningfairy.com), and was announced in the context of the following quotation: “Dreams have always expanded our understanding of reality by challenging our boundaries of the real, of the possible” – Henry Reed.

As usual, however, after attempting to wrestle some impressively perspicacious (illustrative) interpretation of the topic from betwixt the many wisps of possibility called to mind by Mr Reed’s wisdom, I caved and – again – scuttled back to the cosily familiar realm of ‘the errant child’ as subject.

In a similar vein to previous IF offerings – where the featured scamp might torment beach-dwelling crustacea, or swipe a tasty cake from their unfortunate sibling’s plate – this week’s character is an amalgam of class mates (of course there’s no direct, autobiographical element – whatever would make you think such a thing?!) from my primary school days. (Here, seamless segue into a news item featuring the establishment responsible for my primary education, Melling St Wilfrid’s C of E Primary School, appearing in regional BBC news this week, and recording a staggeringly select reception class intake [of one] for the new academic year: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-14825292). This child is, naturally, entirely unable to resist the temptation to do the exact opposite of the instruction on any given (highly valuable, unique, entirely irreplaceable, etc.) museum exhibit – encountered while dawdling at the back of a bored group of their peers as they traipse around some stuffy museum, or other, under the anxious supervision of a lovely, but nervy, NQT – and, knowing that to lay so much as a breaktime-biscuit-bestickied finger on the terrifyingly delicate porcelain vase will incur great consternation and curator-shaped wrath, edges closer by minute increments to see just how far they can reach before aforementioned NQT has a mild coronary (or a red/white/purple-faced [depending on precise regard for the artefacts in their custody] museum official comes thundering onto the scene to defend the Wedgwood/similar).

Any minute now...(?)