Early inspirations were my father's illustrations - tall ships, cabins in the woods, fall scenes - and that gave way to pop culture influences in my teens from superheroes to sci-fi characters. I spent several years away from the easel, but eventually returned to drawings in pencil, comic art in pen and ink, paintings in acrylic, and murals in my children's rooms when they were younger.

The idea to create these drawings was born when I was facilitating a workshop in Nepal about 15 years ago. At the end of the training, participants were asked to complete a written evaluation. One participant wryly noted, "The facilitator should smile more." I took that to heart. The world needs more smiles.

There are two underlying and interconnected messages in these recent drawings. On the one hand, many of them present a message reaffirming our need to reach out to others when we're feeling down; life in the past couple of years has been hard on many of us, and connections to friends, family and others help lift our spirits. The other message is one of self-care and finding comfort in either doing the things we love (which can sometimes be nothing more than sitting in front of a fire) or challenging ourselves to do something different.

The yellow balloon to me symbolizes the innocence and openness of a child's creative spirit - it's a reminder to the character (who is an adult) that you need to remain young at heart. As for yellow, well that was just my mother's favorite color.

For me, drawing means to escape. For others: people have told me that some of these drawings resonate powerfully with who they are and what they're going through, and I'm grateful for that.