The drawing that wouldn't behave.

My latest post over at Every Reds Hall of Famer turned out all right in the end, but boy did it have a rocky beginning.

Anyone remember that tiny little side plot element in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, where Ron's special Spell-Check quill starts malfunctioning, and every time he tries to write "Ronald Weasley," the nonsensical "Roonil Wazlib" comes out instead?

Well, this was kind of like that.  Here's how it went down.  I'd stare and stare at this photo of Ival Goodman:

Photo credit:  theconloncollection.com

Not the hardest guy to draw, right?  He has a distinctive, even caricature-able, look.--that chin, those eyebrows, that lined face. Shouldn't be hard to nail.  But it seemed the closer I looked and the more attention I paid and the more carefully I drew and the longer I worked, the more I got it wrong.  And not just nonsensically wrong, but specifically wrong.  Imagine if instead of "Roonil Wazlib," that quill turned "Ronald Weasley" into, I don't know... "Abraham Lincoln."

Because no matter how hard I tried to draw Ival Goodman, my pencil insisted on drawing Roberto Clemente instead.

See it?

Photo credit:  wikipedia.org

I spent hours on that drawing.  And the thing is, it's a good drawing.  But it's a drawing of Roberto Clemente.  Roberto Clemente was pretty great:  excellent ballplayer, stand-up person, handsome man, tragic hero.  But not a Red, and so therefore not a Reds Hall of Famer.  And definitely, definitely not Ival Goodman.

So I set that failed drawing aside.  Stopped paying so much doggone attention, loosened up, worked quickly, powered through, and ended up with what's posted over there now.  But Ival Goodman, dear Ival Goodman, you were a challenge.  And a weird, mysterious one at that.