Studies for "Entablature" 1975

Roy Lichtenstein made these studies for "Entablature" with pencil and colored pencil. I like to imagine the act of drawing itself: how the artwork has come into being, shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. I sympathize with the artist and imagine what it might have been like to create. What was he thinking when he made it? There's something about the ruled lines that makes me think of architectural drawings, and technical precision. But then the squiggles in the lower design have a very different feel. How do these elements shape our experience of the drawing and contribute to the emotional and intellectual resonances of the work? I'm interested in how artists are in an ongoing conversation, an exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. To me, drawing is a form of embodied expression which embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations and meanings over fixed or definitive readings.