She boasts a slew of artistic abilities, ranging from dancing to singing and songwriting, but can Billie Eilish draw?
Billie Eilish has been known to put pen to paper on a few occasions, but she certainly isn’t the best – or most coherent – artist in the world. Her drawing skills mirror her quirky musical talents, in that they’re hard to decipher and understand, but still something special.
Read the below to find out more about Billie Eilish’s fledgling drawing ability.
A Dark Reflection
If you know Billie Eilish and her way of living and dressing, you’ll know that she’s very kooky and eccentric. She’s renowned for some particularly questionable – or stunning – fashion choices that can either impress or confuse the masses. She’s also been the subject on many occasions of judgemental debate, with some parties going as far as to claim she’s an envoy of Satan.
As she is frequently seen wearing inverted crucifixes and deep black garb, and often poses for photos with a flat, expressionless face, it’s not such a hard leap to depict her as the messenger of the devil.
This theme catapulted itself forward in April of 2019, when Eilish appeared in a YouTube video on the Noisey channel, drawing what she deemed to be her self-portrait. The theme of this video was simple: draw yourself while talking to the viewer about whatever came into your head. The end result of Eilish’s drawing was something spectacular: a floating head with jagged teeth, wide eyes and a snake’s body.
However, that wasn’t the only instance of demonic drawing to come from Eilish in recent years. Around a week later, MTV published a video of Eilish ‘drawing her single’ (or her impression of her single) ‘bury a friend’. The result was, once again, a floating, ominous head bearing razor teeth and a snake’s body.
You can see both of these videos on YouTube below.
An Artistic Upbringing
Eilish made many recollections of her artistic abilities during the videos mentioned above, primarily discussing the instances of drawing or painting throughout her upbringing. She explained how she possessed a notebook that she’d draw in, every single day. She’d draw everything she felt and – quite often – these drawings would manifest into songs.
As she grew up in Los Angeles, she was surrounded by art of many kinds. She more or less lived at the heart of the film industry, and had parents who both participated in the arts. Her brother was, in her words, “so good at drawing” and would often pen fantasy creatures such as elves and fairies, along with painting intricate Warhammer figurines.
She even shared a humorous childhood memory, recalling how her brother (now her music producer partner) took a turn at painting her nails (owing to his artistic skills) but it didn’t turn out well. In Eilish’s words, “it was trash.”
A Deeply Visual Perception
Billie Eilish has gone on record on numerous occasions discussing her life with synesthesia, a condition that causes unique and involuntary perceptual phenomena. As an example, a person living with synesthesia might smell a particular scent, which may trigger the perception of a certain sound, or an imagined taste in the mouth.
However, this certainly isn’t a weakness for Eilish. She’s stated that this is almost an extra ability that allows her to assign everything a number, sound, color, texture or shape. She can draw exactly what she feels, and has deeply expressive dreams that often lead to the creation of a chart-topping music track.
So, while she may not be the most progressive artist in the world when it comes to a pen and paper, she certainly has a one in a million imagination that allows her to create along other avenues.