An Eble a day keeps the doctor away

I’m going to extend my little art thievery project. I’m going to timebox it too, let’s try a week. I started yesterday, a Tuesd’y, so we’ll go ‘til Mundy. After that, we’ll see what felt good and perhaps find someone else to mimic/mutilate. For now: Seven days, seven attempts.

Attempt #2.

This one differs from the first in that I didn’t have any reference material in front of me as I did it. I think it is less balanced than yesterdays but I enjoyed feeling freer to experiment with different shapes and combinations, as well as broken lines.

The big swoop is similar to yesterday’s, but I chose not fill this one, gave the fill to a smaller, less assured swoop just below.

The pen I’m using (just a cheap office ball point) feathers1 a bit and doesn’t dry well so I smudged it a few times. Most of the smudges I covered up with more in-filled bits but there are a couple spots where it’s still a bit messy2.

When looking at art, I’m trying to look closer, tease out component parts of a thing rather than just looking at the whole. Trying that with a drawing of my own is challenging because it’s hard to credit the artist (myself) with any artistic depth when I know he doesn’t have any (yet). But the attempt did yield one thing: there are parts of this drawing that, to me, are better than the drawing manages to be as a whole, sub drawings that could stand alone.

The bottom left is, I think, the strongest part of the image. Interesting, because it didn’t feel right as I was drawing it, probably because I was looking at the whole. Compared to the rest of the drawing, it has a much higher concentration of curves and of short lines.


  1. 1Had to look up what the word for ink spreading about is: feathering. I thought it was ‘bleeding’ but apparently that’s when ink soaks through one page onto the next. Soon I’ll be steeped in all the jargon
  2. 2I’m wary of any premature optimisation but I may look into buying some better quality paper and a good pen or two.