10 years of drawing the Titanic every day

Day 1. A side profile in black ink. Day 115. Another side profile, this time with the Solo Jazz Cup design. Day 292. Hand turkey. Day 657. Cracked in half, smoke stacks like discarded cigarettes. Day 1394. Iconic Hindenburg disaster with a White Star Line twist. Day 2100. The Trump ship sinks (for now). Day 3089. Steadman-esque precision. Day 3344. Submerged in flat, teal strokes.

“A few years ago, someone called me out in a comment for my drawings ‘never getting any better,’ which I was kind of floored by,” the anonymous artist behind Every Day I Draw the Titanic wrote to me via email a few weeks ago. “I’ve never intended to get better at drawing the Titanic. This project is about drawing the Titanic every day, full stop.”

And so they have, for over 3654 days now—the project celebrated its tenth anniversary on February 8th. I can’t remember how or when I came across Every Day I Draw the Titanic myself, only that I was immediately struck by it. There’s a remarkable consistency to the project—not only because there’s a new drawing every day, but because, by nature, many of the drawings are similar. A simple side profile, in marker, or the Titanic’s rear end sticking up in the air. The occasional left field interpretation adds to the thrill of following Every Day I Draw the Titanic (EDIDtT for short, which is also how the anonymous artist signed their email).

“I really cherish the anonymity I’ve been able to maintain,” EDIDtT wrote. “Not that it’s some shameful secret, but it’s more important to me that, from the viewer’s perspective, the drawings happen rather than this person (me) makes them each day.” Internet fame isn’t the goal—EDIDtT hasn’t promoted the project, and didn’t even tell real life friends about it until they were a year in. Instead, EDIDtT wanted to force themselves to “do something creative once a day, every day, even for only a few seconds,” and posting the drawings online helps them hold themselves accountable. “By posting the newest drawing each day, I have to draw and post the next day’s drawing, too. I owe it to myself and to the few people engaged with what I’m doing.” Some followers have told EDIDtT that “they take comfort in the regularity of the drawings, which I’m very touched by. I don’t want to let them down.”

Drawing the Titanic didn’t start in 2015—EDIDtT became obsessed with the Titanic as a kid in large part thanks to Robert Ballard’s The Discovery of the Titanic, which documents the author’s decade-long quest to find the lost ship. “That book has it all—period photos, wreck photos, artifact photos, maps, diagrams, charts, Ken Marschall’s vivid, gorgeous paintings.” EDIDtT still has the first Titanic they ever drew, from when they were around eight years old. Years later, the 2012 3D re-release of James Cameron’s Titanic re-kindled their childhood interest.

For EDIDtT, the relatively self-contained nature of the Titanic is what makes it such fertile ground for this project—“it allows for infinite possibilities of interpretation but within established restraints… It’s a ship that was built, had a very short operational history, tragically sank and was lost, and then was found again.” This short, yet iconic, history—the fact that the ship is “a specific, self-contained thing”—helps make drawing it every day achievable. “I didn’t want to repeatedly draw something fictional or open-ended.”

Drawing the Titanic every day—full stop—isn’t the only guideline EDIDtT follows. They use pens and markers until they’re completely dry, so that “a brand new Sharpie that bleeds through the paper becomes, after a year or so, the perfect, scratchy thing for, say, rendering steam venting from the funnels.” They’ll also use found materials—like receipts or a hotel notepad—when they’re at work or traveling, though you won’t necessarily notice if you’re following along at home. “Doing something deliberate like this once per day becomes inherently diaristic, but those aspects of the project are only for me to know about. My goal is that the viewer can’t tell if a Titanic is drawn at home or on a pizza box lid I found on the ground at a baseball game.”

The drawings themselves are typically spontaneous and drawn from memory. “Sometimes I’ll get an idea for something complicated and I’ll spend a few days thinking about how to do it, but most of them are decided upon only once I’ve sat down to draw.” And for the most part, the drawings blend into the whole—occasionally, they make a note that a drawing might be their “new favorite,” and then file it away. “There are probably hundreds like that, with that identical note, in the archive.” But EDIDtT tends to look at the archive holistically—“even the dashed-off ones when I’m exhausted and just want to go to sleep are beautiful and important to me.”

Over the years, EDIDtT has given up on multiple creative projects, but this one has stuck for ten years now—a remarkable achievement. “I plan to draw the Titanic every day for as long as I’m able to. I am proud of myself for doing it… They’re just silly drawings, but they amount to something for me. And hopefully for other people, too.”

Day 3654. A grey, nondescript office, and a small drawing of the Titanic on the desk. The only way a casual follower would know that this day is not like all other days. Day 3655. A starboard side profile. Day 3656. Port side.