DARLING ILLUSTRATIONS | Affectionate Animals Series: Cards with Envelope

About the Affectionate Animal Series: Each painting in this series is based on a vintage photograph of real people. While all types of love are represented—familial love between siblings, romantic love between partners, the platonic love that sustains meaningful friendships— it is important to note that I feature same sex couples in an effort to commemorate how queer love survives and LGBTQ+ couples have existed throughout history. Too often people have tried to erase the stories of gay men or fix lesbian women or campaign like transgender people shouldn’t exist. This series is a visual reminder that queer love not only exists, it is timeless. Queer love is wholesome. It is tender. It is something to be treasured and celebrated. The more we see images of same sex relationships, the less afraid we will be to express other forms of connection: the love between brothers, between neighbors, between friends. We have survived countless odds, and the people we love along the way are what make