I don't know what drew me to the ampersand. It had to have been the beauty of its form. Many letters of the alphabet are beautiful when looked at individually, but none of them mean something on their own. The history is impressive as well. The ampersand is a graphic of the Latin "et," which translates to "and." One of the first written ampersands was found on papyrus in 45 AD!

Many of the flower petal fashion characters I have drawn have tattoos. Personally, I don't care for tattoos, but I like to use them as a design element to add some edge. I use an ampersand I drew several years ago. I removed the background, (which makes the background transparent) so that I am able to place it anywhere on my drawing.

Design challenge to myself and anyone who would like an art project: Create ampersands using variations on the shape and fill with pattern and color. Please share!