Moby-Dick by Black Dwarf Designs

Call me Ishmael is one of the most recognizable opening lines in Western literature. But can you find it in this white whale?

A friend of mine recently interviewed Gilbert and George (you can read the interview here endoplasm.org/gilbert-and-geor… ) and she mentioned that she has forgotten how to write by hand because she spends so much time at a keyboard. This got me thinking about writing by hand as an increasingly lost art form, and suddenly the printed word wanted to be written out and become something. And this is what it became.

The Whale has been given form by the first six paragraphs of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, written out by hand, in teeny tiny script, using pigment liners of varying thickness to lend shadow and depth to the piece. He traverses the oceans upon a sixteenth century map from Introductio in Ptholomei Cosmographiam by Jan of Stobnica.

Commissions undertaken. If you'd like something like this, or not at all like this, just get in touch. You can also buy prints of Moby-Dick on different backgrounds on request.

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Copyright Black Dwarf Designs. All Rights Reserved. Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick, and the ocean map are both in the public domain. You wouldn't steal a handbag...