Wrath and Watercolour while the babies were asleep
How a mother of toddlers learned to draw by hand in an age of AI and iPad art
Some knowledge in the world is far more physical than it is intellectual; one example is art, and the other example is motherhood. Over the last three years, I, an intellectual and cerebral person, have been forced to step out of my mind and into my body to learn both. This is a brief description of my journey.
What you do with your free time when you are a mother is far more significant than what you do with your free time when you are childless. When you have small children, there is no more endless evening or in-between time to read or work on a project; if you have an hour and a half free in the afternoon, that might be all the time you have in the day to do something other than your responsibilities. Looking after small children is sacrificial; however, in this way it also helps you as a parent to realise what truly matters to you. Friends you don’t truly connect with drift away, nonsense has less space to breathe, and you don’t take on projects unless you truly believe in their value and importance either for yourself or for your children.
Even as I write this essay, I am sitting at my desk at 6:00 am. I still have about an hour before my children wake up and then I will be “on duty” until they take a nap. This means even this essay, dear readers, was very important for me to write and I found immense value in it. You’re not merely getting an hour of my life, but an hour that was more precious for its rarity.
This is the context for explaining why, in the world of AI and ipad art, did I take on the burden of learning how to draw with pencil and paper? Why did I learn to painstakingly make anatomically correct water colour illustrations of puffins? The first half of the answer is wrath, and the other half is a love for children.
