This is today’s drawing from my 365 days of drawing challenge. It is from a painting by old master Jean Leon Gerome. In the last few days I have had a little more time to spend on my drawing. We are staying our last week in Northland at my parents and so I have been working in my old room for the last few days which is nice and quite nostalgic and yet seems so normal. I only got married and left here a year ago.

This Sunday we head away to the South Island and to find a home for the year in Christchurch. We are officially homeless at the moment. But I’m not worried that we will find a place soon after we get down there. I am looking forward to settling down into a place of our own for the rest of the year and sorting out a little studio area and preparing for our April baby.

I am hoping to get as much painting as I can before mid April and I’m feeling surprisingly inspired and excited to get to work. I was scared that I might loose some interest in my art with having a baby and just spend all my time thinking about that. It seemed like I was going that way in the early stages of the pregnancy when the whole idea seemed to be turning my world inside out. But I have righted up again and found I am still myself and that there is room in my heart for both baby and art together.

Here is a drawing I did of Caleb’s baby doll from when he was a tot. It is the most realistic baby doll I have seen with so much detail in the features and hands and feet.