Still drawing, albeit with slow progress. My only “empty time” to fill as I see fit (I hesitate to call it “free” because there are 6,998 things I should be doing with it) is between when Paulo goes to bed and Nuno comes home, so art gets done slowly these days. I don’t mind. Building momentum slowly but surely is the best way to avoid burning out, so if it means I only get one drawing done per week – it’s better than nothing, and way better than doing a lot and then hitting the wall.

The first drawing requires some explanation. I’ve heard the phrase a lot that being a mother is like “wearing your heart outside of your body.” I was mulling over one day exactly what would that look like, were I to draw such a thing. What I came up with is this…

In case you can’t tell, that’s her blood vessels being knit into a sweater. That is then being worn by the child. Perhaps the clunkiest metaphor ever to be drawn by anyone ever, but so it goes. The only thing I would change about this, were I to redraw it, is to make the figures different colors. The pink and blue is too literal and while I also chose them to echo the red/blue of the blood vessels, it doesn’t read that way and I think I would do an orange for the mother and green for the child – neutral, but still bright to offset the blank background.

The second is a tree of life. And is a tiny bit morbid/creepy. Drawing dead bodies AND fetuses! In the same drawing! OH BOY!

I’m pretty happy with how it came out. Very seriously considering getting some canvas and doing a full on painting of it, though the logistics of that process would be tricky at this point. If I can acquire an easel and a few hours of free time, I might give it a go.