
This is just a photograph of Veli and me. I keep it on my desk.
At one point, I was working on black and whites of older people, because doing wrinkles is a really good exercise. So I'm working on this one picture, and I'm thinking about how you really get to know a person when you draw them, because every line, every shadow, every fold is scrutinised. And then I got to thinking, why am I wasting my time getting to know the face of some random old lady?
Drawing Veli was ... nice. It allowed me a few hours of just thinking about her. Going over every single detail of her face with my charcoal, smoothing out each strand of her hair, the folds of skin on her neck, the lines around her eyes. It sounds so weird, but it was like getting to know her all over again. Just thinking about her. :)
I miss you Veli.

This old lady I found in an old issue of National Geographic. The stagger ring number of lines on her face were literally screaming a challenge to me. So I grabbed my pencils and conquered them! Ha!


















































