I've been fiddling with this print for weeks, in between projects. I modeled the fig tree on one that's in my studio. I bought it this past fall, blissfully unaware that it had contracted fig rust at some point in its journey to the grocery store. Within a few weeks, all of the leaves had given up the ghost and one by one, made their way to the trash bin. I babied the tree, trying all sorts of remedies but the defoliation continued until it stood completely leafless.

They say the only thing you can do after fig rust is wait, so I did. I thought about pitching the fig tree but I'm cheap and paradoxically sentimental, so it's been sitting in a corner most of the winter. But within the past week, almost four months on, there's a one inch leaf starting to poke up from an offshoot. The rest of the plant is covered in green buds and nothing's gone mottled and yellow yet (fingers crossed).

So huzzah for hopeless causes and fig trees and finished illustrations.