NO. I have to tell you right now, that NO, I will not recreate this for your romance novel, Love article, lingerie store, etc. Sorry.

Michael Biedowicz approached me from Zeit Leben, the magazine of the German newspaper Zeit to do an illustration for an article on mistresses. As well he wanted 2 illustrations for the magazine cover: two, because they do a double cover on every issue: one image on the front, and another related, but different on the first page.

The 2 covers were to say “Er will mich” and “Er will mich nicht” (He loves me / He loves me not) to show the love and the pain of being a mistress.

This was interesting to me because it was not purely romantic, and I wanted to see how I could use basically the same curving forms to create something that was soft and lovely, or sharp and spikey: petals and thorns.

Then, for “Die geliebte” (The mistress) I was able to combine the two.

And yes, it is quite lovely in the end.