After seeing my grayscale drawings of recent posts, my sweetheart had a simple request.

The four elements with the moon. I pondered it in my mind, while we were on the front porch that night, how to start piecing it together. Moments later I was at my desk, outlining the general gist of what I saw. I started with the moon, and the fading gray of the night sky behind it, carefully erasing around the edges to give it that lunar glow.

Then the borders, followed by water and earth, those were the easy ones as I used extreme examples of their power for the imagery. Tidal waves and a volcano sealed the deal. The fire (my sign) was a little difficult, as the extreme of fire usually takes out swaths of trees, a favorite creature of mine. Biting the bullet, I got through it. Then the air (her sign), of which I first considered a typhoon or tornado, in keeping with the extreme power theme. But I felt kinda guilty about the forest fire for my element, so I decided upon the leaves being blown off a young oak tree near the beach. The oak is one of her favorite trees, so for her requested drawing, I decided to include it. Perhaps the air is merely strong gusts of wind…

Then it was touch up time, erasing all that graphite smudging in the negative space. Double checking the shading for the skies. And finally allowing myself to say, ‘Okay, this is done.’