Ukulele Girl (2025) Original Ink Drawing by Ryan Louder

Indian ink on paper, and ink is a one-chance medium, you commit or you carry a grey smudge forever, so I committed. She arrives out of the white of the paper, edges going soft because that's how she looks to me, not leaving, arriving, there's a difference. The ukulele is the lucky one in this picture, it's the one thing she touches. Four strings and a hollow body and the strings don't do the work, the body does, it takes the vibration and hands it back bigger, that's the whole trick of any wooden instrument. No ears and it doesn't miss them, the vibration reaches it before the sound does, wood is faster than air, and it can't get enough of that, every thumb, every chord, it never gets enough. She isn't playing for anyone in particular, that's why it counts. A small sound behaving like it's enormous.

Materials used:

Ink

Details:

• Ink drawing on Paper
• One of a kind artwork
• Size: 20.32 x 30.48 x 0.1cm (unframed)
• Signed on the front
• Style: Expressive and gestural
• Subject: People and portraits