In the years that Julie has been a mom my cards have usually depicted Milo either incubating inside her or in the process of emerging from womb. This year, as Milo nears the age when he will regularly attend school (and as he becomes generally more independent) Julie and I will perhaps soon be able to resume a portion of our old life together. I see our love as for each other as having the potential to be reborn but forever changed by the process of having become parents.

On Valentine’s Day morning we went to a new little coffee shop in our neighborhood called Steeplechase. Located on the outskirts of Kensington just before Brooklyn spreads out with Greenwood Cemetery on one side and fast food chains and auto body shops on the other, they have great coffee and pastries and it’s not too crowded. The barista was a pleasantly slackerish fellow. Apparently Brooklyn is so hipster-saturated that now they even live and work the Kensington hinterlands. Remarkable. Julie and I got caffienated. Milo got hopped up on blueberry muffins. Then we hunkered down and set to work, to the sounds of tastefully generic indie-pop, on this collaborative valentine:

This was a collaborative Mother’s Day card by me & Julie. Julie in red, me in black.

Not a typical Mom’s Day card, but she’s not a typical mom! Note Milo with balls spelling “Mother’s” and Frank in his Prius.

It’s a no frills valentines day this year. Little money and even less time. I did these drawings for Julie on a crowded F train coming home on Friday.

It only took me six months to reconfigure and relaunch my blog. I’m so proud of myself. I will be posting new work several times a week so please visit when you can. Here is my drawing for the new year of 2010:

This is what the drawings below were leading up to. All of the small creatures are based on images from various collaborative drawings that Julie and I have done over the years.