Girl and Her Lady Bugs

A while ago, a family from the Peninsula came to me and asked for a family portrait. They told me theirs was a family intertwined – two families had become one.
 
So, I gathered my paint brushes and Girl and Her Ladybugs was born.
 
Families come in all shapes and sizes. As long as there is love, there is family. In the case of this family, a beautiful little girl named Lillie is the one who connects everyone together. She stands in the middle of her family, catching and releasing ladybugs in the garden.
 
In Celtic symbolism, if you catch a ladybug and let it go it will find the person you love and let them know by landing on them.
 
This is what Lillie is doing – she lets go of all her ladybugs and they send a message to those she loves in her family. The message is of how lucky and grateful she is to be part of such a beautiful, entwined family that gives her so much love.
 
When Lillie’s parents met, two families came together. They each had children in previous relationships and discovered true love when they finally met.
 
Lillie’s parents are shown in this piece as the black swans, beautiful birds who are known to only mate once in a lifetime with their soulmate. I believe that when some relationships don’t work out, it means your soulmate black swan is still out there, and hopefully you will find each other one day, like this lucky couple did.