Sketches and Plato

I am pleased with my drawing progress. Here are two studies of my main characters, in plain-Jane no. 2 pencil, on gray paper. Next I will try a combination of watercolors and gouache as I did with the last study. But this time I will be letting the gray of the paper pull its own weight. The purpose of the dark paper is so that I don't have to cover the entire surface with paints, which takes time, and isn't the best use of watercolor. 

Most of my story takes place in a cave, which means a lot of dark images. Then I can switch to white paper for the above-ground parts of the story.

Speaking of caves, one of my readers asked me if I was familiar with Plato's allegory of the cave. I looked it up, and wow! I have quite by chance rewritten a story that I had never read. Plato's allegory involves people in a cave, watching shadows.  Mine involves dragons in a cave, with hoarded treasure playing the role of Plato's shadows.

If I were a novice, I would now be quaking in my socks, wondering if this were plagiarism or copyright infringement. Or I would be wallowing in fear that woe-is-me I must be too unoriginal to be a professional. At this, I now laugh! I could certainly have deliberately rewritten Plato's allegory both ethically and legally. As for originality, hah! There is nothing new under the sun. The art of writing lies in making the old stuff sound new.  (Incidentally that was only one of two things I learned from Shakespeare.  The other thing was a list of archaic naughty words.)

No, the me of now does not in any way find this distressing. Let me put this another way: I have unintentionally reinvented a story written by none other than Plato! I mist permit myself, for a moment, to wallow in some fat, juicy ego, because right now I seriously rock.