11.25in x 10.25in | 28.6cm x 26cm
Black Prismacolor wax pencil on bristol paper
Collection of Phyllis Caves
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Award
Artist Showcase Winner
Manhattan Arts International “Herstory” Competition, New York, New York, USA
Reproduced in Magazine
Manhattan Arts International (March-April 2000)
Behind the Drawing
The initial inspiration for this drawing was a street artist outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Her position and crude handling of the brush intrigued me, but her face, the background, the easel and her painting were my own creations.
The dog, who I christened Art, was based upon one I had seen in my European travels and seemed the perfect companion for this artist and my drawing. How often had my own dogs sat patiently at my feet while I drew or painted. I’ve liked this husky so much, I have done a miniature drawing of him and used him also in The Blessing of the Animals.
When I started work on the artist’s hair, I was having a difficult time deciding on a hair style and kept playing with numerous ideas, but nothing clicked.
On a flight back to the States, I was working on this drawing, which was almost finished with the exception of the hair. Though other passengers often pause to see what I am doing when I draw on a plane, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that those on this flight spent far longer deliberately staring. This baffled me until one of them commented about the portrait I was creating of my seat companion.
I was shocked to realize that the professional woman seated next to me did indeed have almost exactly the same profile as the face that I had made up weeks before. While I had chatted with my neighbor, I had not looked closely at her profile. Once again, Providence had come to my rescue, because she had the perfect hair style! By the time we arrived in the US, the hair and the drawing, were completed.
