Old woman and child

I read a lot of National Geographic. The stories are enlightening and the images are breathtaking. This is definitely a magazine that I don’t throw away at the end of the month. I have used the images in National Geographic many times as a reference, and this drawing is a perfect example.

I don’t really remember what the article was about, but I do know that it was published about 8 years ago and it had a regular American town with people that you’d see every day.

The photo I used as a reference for this drawing struck me as very tender. The woman was busy sewing a garment while talking to the girl, and the girl seemed tickled with what was being said. Or maybe she was reacting to the photographer? Who knows. In any event, the expressions on both of their faces was priceless and I had to draw them.

As for the drawing itself, it is pencil on watercolor paper (I liked the roughness of it). At the time I was experimenting with making the outlines of subjects much darker than the shadows within them, and I think it works very nicely for this piece.