Reunions mean catching up on all the news in a deep and sincere way by people who care about each other. Improving my skill at telling a story through image is my major goal for this blog and I kept thinking about how to convey something as complex as a family reunion as I sketched throughout the day. I did so many sketches but I could not get it right. I was using a fine point pen and drawing lots of detail but the message was becoming overridden by the details of who I was drawing. It was not clear if my sketches were about identifiable individuals or about the idea of relatives reconnecting with each other.

In the evening my brother build a fire and from my vantage point behind my sister and sister-in-law, I noticed the fire and warm colors could be a visual metaphor for the kind of listening and talking longtime relatives do when they get together. I switched from an ink pen to a brush pen to force myself to keep the image simple yet show faces with some emotion. This is a sketch I would like to develop further when I am home again.

I used a brush pen and watercolor.