PenFlakes are hand-drawn, pen-and-paper, drawings inspired by snowflakes. I draw one every day, and post it here. I don't use a ruler, but I do place a sheet of hexagon graph paper behind the sheet I am working on as a guide. Each drawing is 8" by 8".

So how did I start drawing a snowflake every day? The story really begins with my love of math and physics. Snowflakes are made of water, and water has many special properties due to a special attraction between its hydrogen and oxygen atoms, called hydrogen bonding. Hydrogen bonds cause water molecules to line up in a hexagonal pattern, which is why they often have six sides.

One day while I was out with friends, I saw an eight-sided snowflake decoration, and found myself explaining hydrogen bonding, and why real snowflakes have six sides. Later on, I was doodling, and wound up doodling some snowflakes. I was surprised at how beautiful they looked, and intrigued by the possibility of making them bigger and more intricate. The result is what you see here.