I had the idea for this project when I started to think about books and how they make me grow and I compared it to some friends I have, who take a lot of protein to gain more muscle mass. I find that reading is incredibly important for everyone, as it improves your writing, your speech, your vocabulary, and, most of all, increases your knowledge.

 

Note: I do realize that the brain is indeed not a muscle, but an organ. However, I was willing to bend the facts a bit to achieve this piece.

So I began sketching things out, measuring and laying out my piece:

Eventually coming to this:

Then I started the lengthy process of inking.

Finally, I had finished inking in every letter (I didn't get a photograph of it). So I began erasing it, and, to my dismay, the ink started lifting off of the page! I tried several letters, and the results were the same. I just could not get the pencil lines to erase without the ink as well.

 

Frustrated, I thought that it was perhaps my eraser (even though it had never happened before), so I ordered a different one. When I finally got it, it gave the same results. So I did the only thing left I could do.

 

I erased the lines. And with it, some of the ink.

 

I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to re-ink the whole piece and began putting down ink. A long time later, I got this:

Hopefully, you like it (even with the whole brain/muscle thing). I had a lot of fun creating this, barring the re-inking part (although it does look better now in my opinion). I know I still have many technical aspects to work on, and I'm looking forward to creating more pieces.