Knowing When Your Hands Have Had Enough...

I’m SO close!! The second to last illustration, the second most complex of the whole book is almost done, but after almost 4 hours steady of drawing as soon as I got the girls into their jammies, my hands are starting to shake and tremble. It is time to put the pen down for the night.

Knowing when to stop is one of the hardest things for a slightly obsessive personality. So often, when I was younger and more foolish, I would push myself to the absolute limits of my endurance while working on an assignment only to crash and burn once everything was done. I’d get a massive cold or something as my body rebelled against what I had demanded of it.

Perhaps, now that I am entering my 40s (I’ll soon be 41) I am finally getting some of that wisdom that I so admire in a few of my mentors and role models. It is very hard to turn off that Type A personality sometimes, but after the “oops” a few days ago, I am just not willing to take a chance and muck up an illustration.

Since it is well past midnight, that might be another clue that it is time to turn in for the night. I love the silence of working once everyone has gone to bed. It is the only way that I have had my “quiet, alone with my own thoughts time” this summer. I am SO looking forward to the empty house to get my work done in once everyone goes back to school!!!! At least my pens didn’t turn into pumpkins at the stroke of midnight!