Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey in “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind” Pencil Drawing

Whew! This was a project. I started drawing this particular one on June 23, 2006. I worked on it a bit every few nights (I took progress shots with my cell phone camera. I may try to get those up on here sometime), but ultimately lost the drive and urge to finish it about a month later. Around December, I decided to try to finish it in time to give to Amy for Christmas. I’d begun drawing it with the goal of filling a void on our bedroom wall where a 16×20 photo from our wedding hung on one side of the room and nothing was in that spot on the other side. This drawing ended up being bigger than usual – 14×17 to be exact (which is frustrating because they don’t make 14×17 frames OR 16×20 frames matted to 14×17).

As I drew this, it became more and more clear I was running out of reference and not paper, so I sought out other shots from this scene from Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (one of my favorite “edited” movies from Clean Films, and oddly enough, the scene this photo is from is not in the version I watch… I guess because it looks like she’s just in her bra here or something? Not really sure), and basically used some artistic license to fill in portions of the left and bottom of the drawing. I ended up filling the page, only to be able to find an 11×14 mat for a 16×20 frame on Christmas Eve when I had finally finished the picture the night before (Ironically, December 23). I gave it to Amy that night and found a local place to cut the mat wider a few days later. Anyway, the inspiration for drawing them came after watching the film again and just really feeling for the characters. It’s a great film about relationships and this has definitely quickly become one of my favorite drawings (although it kind of bugs me how light this looks in comparison to some other drawings).