What do you do for a loved one’s birthday when she says she doesn’t want anything but what you’ve given her already? “How about this. Pick a song you really like, and I will illustrate it, using you and me as part of the illustration. I will spend at least 90 minutes on it.”

She picked John Lennon’s anthemic “Imagine.” So I Imagined from 8:15 to 9:45 PM on 12″ by 18″ all-media paper, using a pen that had almost run out of ink; see above. It is OK as a rough draft of concept but clumsy in execution. But as a fulfillment of a birthday gift commitment it works. She now has (more) indisputable proof that I am crazy about her.