It All Started With An Opossum

Pigma Micron Sakura .45mm black ink pen on Moleskin sketchbook

I was so stressed over the front page art. It had been a little while since drawing any opossums and now I had this plan to draw a bunch of them moon-bathing!? What if my 10,001st opossum was terrible?! Well turns out it would be. So would the 10,002nd. But by the next, those less-than-ideal ones would evolve to become their own version of beautiful. It was an uncomfortable and honestly frustrating process. This is an important piece that everyone is going to see after all, it has to be perfect! Right?

But that's the thing... no it doesn't. What it "has" to be, is something I like and feel represents me pretty well. I had forgotten that at first, but when realizing the connection to my workshops and this piece, the discomfort faded and the picture started coming together. By the end, that 10,001st opossum had a sweet sleepy baby, and I had a completed piece that I was originally going to abandon but chose to turn into a mindfulness practice for myself, instead.Drawing exclusively* with permanent mediums since 2019 has taught me to see opportunities in imperfection. Sometimes you might just end up drawing unplanned opossums. And that's pretty great.

*Okay so ALMOST exclusively. Hey, if you put a pencil near me and some paper, I'm going to use it! However I NEVER erase. Ever.🖤