I created this piece in 2021, using gel pen and Prismacolor markers on paper.

This piece resulted from a challenge I set for myself. My goal was to make a drawing as symmetrical as possible without the aid of stencils or digital tools. To do this, I divided the canvas in half, sketched the left side of the image, then approximated its reflection to the right side using nothing more than a straight edge and pencil. I carefully adjusted each line by eye until I was satisfied, finalized the lines in black ink, and applied color with markers. The final result was imperfect, as expected, but I was nonetheless impressed with how close I got to geometric perfection using just my eyes.

The symmetry is most obviously broken by a few odd blemishes in color scattered across the final image. In those places, I had tried to “erase” some inking mistakes by scratching away the top layer of paper, which had succeeded in removing the ink, but left an irregular texture on the surface. Those textured spots seemed invisible at first, but became extremely noticeable after color was applied, at which point it was too late to fix.

The challenge ended up being fun and informative. I may try it again sometime using the lessons learned from this attempt.