In the late 70’s we stayed in Israel for 17 months. Now back in Israel for a few months we are happily reconnecting with old friends and taking lots of photos, two of which I used for this sketch- one for the hands and the other for the face. Our friend has a penetrating gaze and age has not diminished it. The tilt of her head and her intense eyes reflect her openness to learning and I wanted to capture this in this sketch. Her hands are important because they symbolize capacity for living and the flowers show an appreciation of the here and now of life.

I began with an ink and watercolor drawing and then imported it into Procreate to further developed the sketch. I made extensive use of the Gaussian Blur tool in an attempt to indicate age, but kept the figure’s eyes clear to indicate her brilliant, thinking mind.