What is it about ordinary objects scaled down to dollhouse size that we find so appealing? Miniature tea sets, matchbox cars, plastic action figures, and tiny barnyard animals entertain children, but even when we have outgrown them as toys, they still beckon to some of us. Mary Norton, the author of The Borrowers series, was nearsighted as a child and focused her gaze on low-lying vegetation rather than open vistas, and liked to imagine the lives of small creatures living in the bushes and puddles. The main characters in her children’s fantasy novels are the Clock family: Pod, Homily, and their somewhat feisty pre-teen daughter, Arriety. The Clocks are diminutive versions of people and live in a large house in the British countryside, under the kitchen floorboards. They “borrow” discarded matchboxes, buttons, thimbles, safety pins, and stamps from the household to repurpose and furnish their quarters. The tension centers on their fear of being discovered, particularly by the evil cook Mrs. Driver or the human boy whom Arriety befriends.
The pictured pastel is a tiny 5x5” still life of a Limoges tea set that was given to me as a child, and would be perfect for the Clock family. I decided to paint it as a miniature and focus more on capturing the essence than on every minute detail.
