So, I got this wild hair, you know? Decided I wanted to do some drawings based on The Odyssey. Don't really know why, maybe I was feeling a bit too ambitious after re-reading it, or maybe it was just one of those late-night ideas that actually sticks. Homer’s story, it’s got all that epic stuff – monsters, gods, a guy just trying to get home after a very, very long war. I figured, "Yeah, I can probably sketch some of that out." Seemed simple enough at the time.
First thing I did was dig out my old sketchbook and pencils. Had some charcoal too, thought I’d get all artistic. My plan was to jump right into the big scenes – Odysseus and the Sirens, or that whole mess with the Cyclops. Boy, was that a dumb move. Trying to nail those massive, complicated scenes straight away? Yeah, that just led to a pile of crumpled paper and a lot of sighing. My first few attempts were, frankly, total garbage. Looked like my kid got loose with a crayon, and not in a good way.
I was pretty close to just chucking the whole idea in the bin, not gonna lie. Spent a good long while just staring at a blank page one evening, feeling like a complete hack. Then it sort of clicked. I was trying to be too fancy, trying to copy those old master paintings. But I’m no Rembrandt, right? I’m just me, with a pencil, trying to get an idea down. So, I changed tactics. I decided to just… simplify. Forget the grand spectacle. Focus on one person, one small moment, one feeling.
I started again, this time just trying to draw Odysseus, thinking. Not fighting some beast, not sailing through a storm, just… thinking. Probably wondering if he’d ever see his home again, poor guy. And that, that actually started to look like something. Still not winning any awards, mind you, but it felt real. Like I wasn't just faking it anymore. It was a start, and it felt more like my drawing, if you know what I mean.
After that, I moved on to other bits and pieces from the story. I tried sketching Penelope, waiting. Not some grand queen on a throne, but just a woman, tired, worn down by all those years of not knowing. I found myself using darker pencils, rougher lines for that. It became less about making a pretty picture and more about trying to show what these characters were going through. Some days I’d spend hours just on one face, trying to get the expression right. Other days, I’d scrap three drawings in a row because they just felt… off. Dead on arrival.
- The Cyclops: My first thought was "make him terrifying!" Ended up looking kinda goofy. Took a few tries to get something that felt genuinely menacing, less like a cartoon.
- The Sirens: That was a tough one. How do you draw a song that makes sailors lose their minds? I ended up focusing more on the sailors' faces, that look of being pulled towards something beautiful and deadly.
- Circe: She was tricky. Wanted to get that mix of charm and danger. Made her look too nice at first, then too obviously evil. Finding that balance took time.
The whole thing turned out to be way more work than I first imagined. It wasn't just about dragging a pencil across paper. I had to go back and re-read parts of The Odyssey, really think about what Homer was saying, what the characters were feeling. I even started listening to an audiobook version while I sketched, just to keep the story fresh in my head. It helped, surprisingly.
So, what do I have to show for it? A stack of sketches. Some of them, I think, are okay. Some are still pretty rough around theedges, to be honest. But you know what? I’m actually kind of pleased with them. They’re not going to hang in any museums, that’s for sure. But they’re my version of The Odyssey. It was a bit of an odyssey in itself, this whole drawing project – though with fewer shipwrecks and angry gods, thankfully. More like a battle with my own drawing skills, or lack thereof, and a cheap eraser that smudged everything.
It taught me a fair bit, not just about how to maybe draw a nose that doesn't look like a potato, but about tackling a big project. You just gotta start, make your mistakes, learn from 'em, and just keep pushing. And sometimes, just keeping it simple is the way to go. Who knew, right? Anyway, that was my little adventure with the Odyssey drawings.
