Jessie Hennen

… I used to draw a lot. I forget this.

I don’t know why I don’t anymore. Probably it’s the sinking knowledge that I’m not as good as people who are really good and really work at it – I was an art major at Morris but bailed after a year of classes had allowed me to fully realize how labor-intensive it was. I disliked being covered in chalk. I was not good at hands.

Still, post-college, I continued to dabble. And, at some point, I appear to have produced a series of studies for a children’s book. I don’t remember making them, nor do I remember why I abandoned them – I was just going through my chest of treasures in preparation for my upcoming move (if by “treasures” you mean “innumerable cards from my grandparents” and “a lot of paraphernalia from ex-boyfriends”) and happened across these semi-delightful watercolors, produced, no doubt, in a post-college state of distress, where I was living in Germany and working as a nanny and frantic with worry that I’d given away all my friends and loved ones just so I could move across the ocean and never amount to anything.

Three guesses what they’re about, and which animal they happen to heavily feature.

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Panel One, I think, with bonus practice hand:

Panel Two, probably:

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Panel Three:

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Panel Four (resolution, probably – or the beginning of a much larger piece?! I have no idea):

Okay, fine, these are pretty good drawings.