A Mom and Her 4-Year-Old Daughter Have Collaborated On Some Surreal Art

Mica Angela Hendricks, an illustrator and graphic artist, has been collaborating on drawings with her 4-year-old daughter Myla since August, and the results are pretty surreal.

Hendricks used to stick to Rockwellian female heads, replete with perfectly ink-shaded curls, and then pass them along to her daughter for a judicious application of oval bodies and bright colors. But these days, she also draws animal and monster heads under her daughter's direction.

"My job will be the monster head, and Myla will say 'it should have one eye, big horns, and rabbit ears,'" Hendricks wrote in an email to Business Insider. "When it's her turn, I'll tell her what to draw, and that's sort of a fun twist, instead of doing each part independently."

After Myla adds the bodies and colors the background (including extra people, flowers and trees), Hendricks adds details with markers and paint, like scales or fur spots.

"The most important thing I've learned from her is not to worry so much about the end result," Hendricks wrote, "and just enjoy the moment and not to be so rigid with myself."

She said she has a new favorite every time she and her daughter draw together, but she counts a piece called "Sad Chrysalis" (below) as one of the best. It was one of their first collaborations.

Myla took an orange marker and completely covered the woman. Hendricks said it sat around like that for a long time because she couldn't figure out how to make sense of it, until she thought about adding highlights and making it evident that the woman was a caterpillar waiting to turn into a butterfly.

"I keep thinking she'll get tired of them," Hendricks wrote of her daughter, "but she still asks me for heads to draw on."Hendricks has even turned their iconic big-headed drawings into temporary tattoos and shared the project on her blog, The Busy Mockingbird.