Self Searching - A Collaborative Drawing with Myself

I started this drawing in 2005 and after intermittent work, I finished it in 2008. I used Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph pens with India ink on nine pieces of 11 X 14 inch bristol paper. The total finished picture is about 33 X 42 inches (plus space between panels, mat, and frame). This was a collaboration with myself. Why? Because it was easier for me to draw little things at night on a board while watching a movie with the family or whatever. I wanted to do I a series of small pictures that would ultimately fit together as one larger piece.

Here is an image of all nine pieces together

This drawing (or series of drawings) took a while to do, and although I didn't keep up with the time hour by hour, I do know that I have at least 300 hours in it. Crazy, I know.

Before doing this piece, I had done numerous collaborations with other artists, some of the collaborations were done in with hiding most of the work by the other artist under paper until the final image was revealed. I decided to do this one in a similar way in that after I finished the first piece, I lined up the next piece drawing along the edge only, then put the first piece away and finished the second piece without looking at the first. Each subsequent piece (panel) was done in the same way, and by the time I had moved along I really did not remember what I had done on earlier pieces. Eventually, I finished nine pieces and put them together. I decided that I liked individual panels better with some white separating the individual panes or panels, than all mashed together. This better represents the idea that they were done separately (except at the edges), but still shows their strange relationship to one another.

Here are each of the nine individual panels