I started working on various images for this week’s project, but nothing felt right, until I asked myself what I really wanted to say. The answer was suddenly obvious: I just wanted to say it was still hard to shake the sadness off after last week’s horrific events in France, my far away home country. Even attending a commemorative gathering in San Francisco last week-end wasn’t quite enough to move on, so I’m hoping this illustration will be a way of transforming the pain into… something, and will bring me some kind of closure.

I needed warmth, so I gathered the animals I represented several times as my companions during my daily drawing project. We are all seated on a bench, somewhere in Paris, holding on to each other, comforting each other, with plenty of tissues available for every time one of us start crying again. I wish I had had more time for this image, but I’m also glad I was on my weekly self-imposed deadline, or I would have cringed at the wonkiness and never posted anything.

And by the way, the resulting image is also a very direct homage to the style of my favorite illustrator of the moment, Jon Klassen. His wonderful children book Extra Yarn was on my work table the whole time as a direct inspiration.

And now, let’s move on.