Mining Tragedy drawing

As the day goes by, the idea I'll work with usually emerges from its seedling form in my sketchbook notes. Today I liked the phrase Hearts and Mines, a play on Hearts and Minds. I imagined a miner and his wife faced with the challenge of going back into the mines after a tragedy like this. The heart and mind at odds with each other.

The drawing of the miner came together easily, but I had trouble placing his wife where I wanted her. (Version 1 shows the wife's figure roughed in, her tummy against the bowed miner.) I'm working solely from my imagination in an office with no models to pose for me, remember. Her figure stood there awkwardly -- after a lot of failed attempts, I blacked her out (Version 2).

The idea insisted on a second figure, though, as this was so clearly a family and community tragedy. I cleared my head with a walk around the block and came back with a new pose in mind for the wife. Version 3 is the way it will appear in the Enquirer tomorrow morning.