Puffing Billy

This year I traveled to Australia to visit my partner, who took me to ride Puffing Billy, an old steam railway that lets you hang your legs out the side of the train for part of the journey - very exciting! I also took the opportunity and proposed to her at the beginning of our journey - a bold move in hindsight, because things would have been quite awkward for the rest of the trip if she had said no. I started the first sketch for this image after the first leg of the journey, my partner and I had just had a picnic and she was taking a nap in the shade while I got to work on the picture. I finished it a few days later, after a good 5 or 6 hours of work overall, and it became a Father's Day card for her dad, who was volunteering for some train-related services that day and had met us halfway up the mountain at one of the stations to congratulate us on the engagement.