Lately, my favorite line to draw is a long, vertical one that angles slightly and ends in a slight spiral. That’s how I started today. I added a flourish of spikes around the curve at the bottom of the page. I echoed the tail the other end of the line in three quick strokes beside the original line. To counter the imbalance, I added a dark disc with a broken ring surrounding it. I meant this figure to be spikes in negative space. I included a ‘C’ shape for good measure along with its interlocking partner.

Sometimes I overwork a sketch. I proceeded to do this by turning the work surface by 180 degrees and repeating most of the original figure, with a rectangular spike figure in place of the round one.

Stepping back from this piece, I was surprised to see the semblance of a portrait.