Making Sense

I'm still playing with pen and ink.  I want to make a whole series of drawings and find an authentic style in this medium.  My goal is to create a black and white vocabulary that I could use for spot illustrations and any other b&w illustration-y purposes that might arise.  Oh, and in case you're just tuning in, I'm a fine artist trying to branch out into illustration.  

Here's another experiment that I messed around with on Thursday:

In my view, this one is headed in the right direction away from the horror that was troll girl, and toward something interesting.  At least it's not hideous.  But it's still contrived, fussy and awkward.  I was obviously trying too hard.  So I regrouped, looked around, and came up with this:
Not quite finished (I still want to create a more in-depth narrative), but I feel like I'm finally onto something.  

It's an interesting problem to try to break into a new medium specifically for the sake of using that medium.  Usually my choice of materials is directed by the image that I'm creating, so there's always a good, natural reason for my choice, and the finished piece makes sense.  That's really what I'm trying to accomplish in these experiments–to create something that makes sense as a pen and ink drawing.  Otherwise I would just be making a poor man's substitute for a painting.    

My next self-assigned challenge is going to be to illustrate part of a specific text.