Europe

I started this one yesterday—penciling in the basic shapes, adding a little Pitt pen to define areas, and beginning the Copic marker values. Then I reached for my Pitt pen…and it had just about dried up. I knew I had another one coming, so I put the drawing aside until this morning.

When I first started doing these drawings over a year ago, I didn’t use nearly as much pen work. They really were value studies. Somewhere along the way, they became more than that. They began to exist for themselves.

Much like this little tree I noticed as we were leaving the Acropolis in Athens. It picked a hot, rocky, seemingly impossible place to grow—and yet, there it was. Not just existing, but thriving.

I’m in awe of that kind of persistence.