Placentas, Wombs, and Birth Pools: Motherhood Art by Maggie

Meet my home-educated daughter, Maggie, and her new motherhood art collection!

Both my girls find it hard not to absorb the message that art is only "good" if it’s neat and realistic. It’s a mindset I find hard to overcome myself, so really wanted to do better with nurturing the start of their relationship to their creativity.

Maggie is a little anxious and a lot perfectionist and can be very hard on herself. I wanted to show her that I take her work seriously - that her art is special, joyful, and worthy, without needing to look life-like to resonate with people (and could even sell!).

Alongside being a great home ed lesson in branding, how to tell a story with her art to capture people's interest and emotions, marketing, and working out profit margins and printing options - (she’s keeping the profit after all the costs, so she’s super excited!), I hope this shows her she’s already a "real" artist. I don't want her to wait until she's 40 to realise she's been capable and talented all along!

I hope you find Maggie's art as charming as I do. Below, she shares a bit about each picture. Thank you in advance for supporting real art and young artists! Hannah :)

How did you feel about making your own art to sell?

"I felt happy and excited when mummy suggested making some art for her shop. It was tricky making the pictures as I find it hard when mummy gives me guidance, but it was exciting to think I could make my own art to sell.

I felt proud and 'official' having made my own birth art. I'm going to make my own shop with my art when I grow up just like mummy—I will probably make it all about big cats since they are my favourite animal!

I think mummy is inspiring because she makes her art on the kitchen table and then she sells it and I think that's really amazing—it's cool that she makes a picture and it's printed on lots of things you can sell, and the way she designs different things.

I really like being home educated as it means I don't have to do things I'm not interested in all day, and instead can do art whenever I like. I'm going to help mummy work out the profit from my art and I'm very excited to have some pocket money! I hope I might sell enough to get a set of Lego!"

Image: "Sometimes when we help mummy with packing orders, I decorate the boxes with birth art as a surprise."

Grow: rainbow womb

"I think wombs are very magical, that they can be small and then grow so large to fit the baby, and then go back down small again! Mummy talks about her womb a lot, and if she has a tummy ache when she's on her bleed, I help rub womb balm on her belly.

I wanted to start my pictures with the womb before baby is in there so mummy showed me some pictures, and told me about what each bit was so I could draw things in the right place.

Mummy says some drawings are wrong because they look like the ovaries are connected to the fallopian tubes, so I drew mine attached to the side of the womb.

I wanted to use bright and happy colours, and once the paint was dry I used a gold pen and acrylic pen to add lots of hearts. I like that I put a heart in the womb and all the colours in the background.

I feel happy when I look at it. We decided to call my painting Grow because the womb is where the babies grow."

Home: baby in the womb

"Mummy loves making pictures of babies in the womb, so I wanted to make my own!

When I think about what it's like for a baby to be in the womb, I think it must feel very cosy and safe and warm.

I painted the baby's head, body, legs and arms with watercolour, and added the umbilical cord coming from the belly.

I painted the womb red with dots and swirly bits and the dark bits of the placenta purple with squiggly bits inside.

Then I painted some flowers and leaves all around the edge of the womb.

Once the paint was dry I used mummy's Posca pens to go around the baby, the amniotic sac, add dots in the womb, and decorate the flowers.

I added lines onto the umbilical cord and made the placenta stand out with the white pen. To finish it I chose bright colours of paint sticks to make a rainbow background.

I really like the baby's smile, they look cosy and peaceful. I wanted them to look like that because the womb is peaceful and a cosy warm place to snuggle up in. We called my painting Home because the womb was my very first home."

Womb to World: home birth

"Mummy and I talked about what kind of pictures I could make that show birth, and I decided to paint a baby who had just been born into a birth pool. I wanted the baby to look very relaxed because it was born at home and doesn't have bright lights and beepy noises of a hospital.

Mummy tried to give birth to me at home in a pool but I breathed in meconium after we went to hospital and had to be in NICU. Mummy is still sad that I wasn't born at home like she wanted.

I painted the baby floating in the water with their umbilical cord still attached. (I didn't draw the mummy but her hands would be under the water).

Some of the painted water bled into the baby's head and hands but I didn't mind because the baby would have water on them if they were floating in the water. And as the baby is still getting air from the umbilical cord they can breathe under the water. I wish I could breathe under water through a pipe in my belly!

I made the baby with a big smile but with their eyes still closed. For the birth pool I decided to do a rainbow pattern for the rubber rings. I used wet-on-wet with watercolour to blend the rainbow together. I used different colour Posca pens once it was dry to make dots in the water to look like the reflections of fairy lights.

We thought about calling my painting Waves because of the water, and also because some people call contractions waves, but we decided to call it Womb to World because this baby has just gone from the womb to the world!"

Mother love: breastfeeding

"I definitely wanted to include a breastfeeding picture in my paintings because mummy breastfed me and Rosie for years and we love it! I think breastfeeding is very magical and lovely, I feel very happy about breastfeeding and I think it's amazing that mummy is able to make food.

Even though we don't breastfeed anymore we still have skin-to-skin cuddles sometimes because mummy says her boobs must miss me!

I started my picture by painting the baby and the breast, with the baby's hand on the breast like one of the photos mummy showed me of us. I made the baby's lips spread out over the nipple as mummy says it's good to show a deep latch.

I made the blanket with lots of stars using acrylic pens, so it looked like the mummy and baby were in bed together, and then I drew a heart around them.

I used wet-on-wet with watercolour to make a blended rainbow background in the heart, and then used paint sticks in a heart shape around them. Mummy suggested it would be nice to show the alveoli inside the breast so with mummy's Posca pens I drew all the little bobbles coming out of the nipple on the milk ducts.

We called my painting Mother Love because the mothers always look really loving at the baby when they give breastmilk, and in all my photos when I'm breastfeeding I look happy too. Mummy also says it's because breastfeeding is such an expression of love, to keep nourishing our babies for years with our bodies."

Life: rainbow placenta

"I think placentas are cool because they give the baby all of the nutrients when they are growing - it's amazing that we grow a whole new organ just for the baby! I think placentas are fun to draw because you could go on forever making all the squiggly bits inside.

Mummy ate my placenta but couldn't eat Rosie's so we kept it in our freezer, then made prints with it and buried it under a tree together.

I decided to keep the background plain on my painting so the rainbow umbilical cord stood out. I had the idea to put my painting upright as soon as I'd put the paint on, so it looked like blood was dripping off.

I wanted to make the umbilical cord different colours so I did wet-on-wet with watercolour and they blended together into a rainbow pattern, which I really like!

I made the umbilical cord way longer than it is in real life but I think it looks fun like this. Once the paint was dry I used a white Posca pen to draw details on the cord and the placenta.

We decided to call my placenta painting Life because the placenta keeps the baby alive in the womb!"

Held: birth support

"Mummy and I decided to call this painting Held because the midwife is holding the baby (and also, mummy says that midwives and other birthworkers hold space for women in birth).

When mummy was pregnant with Rosie her midwife was called Ambra and I got to know her because she came round our house all the time. Even though I was little I do remember her, listening to Rosie's heartbeat in mummy's womb.

Mummy says she was wonderful, and even though they ended up going to hospital again, Ambra was there holding her hand while Rosie was born and mummy sang her out loudly!

I painted the midwife's face and a baby and gave them two big smiles. I drew a heart around them to show how midwives love babies.

Then I drew the baby's blanket. I made the pattern with a pen as I thought about the knitted blanket I had in NICU. So that it looked like a midwife, I drew a scrub hat, a lanyard and a tray behind her with scales for the baby. I added some vitamins and a bed pan on top and a syringe.

I drew some Croc charms on each of her shoes. I added a computer with a pipe attached to it and it also represented some of mummy's birth diagrams and breastfeeding diagrams on the walls. When the paint was dry I used acrylic pen to draw the outline details. I put a bed in the background and below the baby so it looked like a birth centre."

Safe: bedsharing

"One of mummy's favourite baby pictures of us is when we are smiling at each other in bed so I made this picture of a mummy and baby bedsharing like us.

We all sleep together in our big family bed and I'm glad that mummy has never made me sleep on my own (apart from when I was in NICU and she couldn't stay with me). I'd be very scared if I had to sleep by myself in the dark so I'm very glad that mummy keeps me with her in the bed.

Mummy always tries to make her people with different skin and that's why I made my people black and the mummy has an afro.

I drew a bed inside a heart (but Rosie thinks it looks like a pirate ship). I drew some squares for the pillows and used pen to make a waffle pattern on the bed cover to look like our bed.

Then I drew a smiley mummy looking down at her smiley baby. Then I cut out some paper to cover the heart and used a brush to make splashes in the background.

When the paint was dry I used a pink and white acrylic pen to add detail to the mother and the baby. We decided to call my painting Safe because I feel very safe in bed with my mummy and daddy."

You can invest in Maggie's first limited edition art pieces as A5 textured prints or A6 glossy prints with a multibuy offer - see all the options on my Paintings and Prints collection.