Hope (Original)

I painted this while I was pregnant, before I knew how it would go. There were signs that worried me, but the same thing had happened the whole way through my pregnancy with my older daughter, so I was hopeful. I chose bright greens, and it was a sort of willing: hold on, little life.

I miscarried not long after. I've come to terms with it, and I've stopped needing to explain why it happened. I'm saying it plainly because it's so often not said at all. What's in this painting is the hoping, which was real when I did it and stays real regardless of how things turned out.

Watercolour and black ink on 300gsm hot-pressed watercolour paper. A4 (21 × 29.7 cm). Signed by me.