Tribe – Direct Gaze

A young woman looking straight out of the frame, in beaded collars and cowrie strands. Original charcoal on paper, signed, framed and ready to hang.

She looks directly at you. Not past you, not down — straight out of the paper, and the whole drawing is built around it.

The eyes are the most finely worked passage: whites just bright enough against the surrounding tone, the irises dark with a single catchlight in each. Below them the face is modelled in soft graded charcoal across the cheekbones, the bridge of the nose and the full lower lip, with the jaw dissolving into shadow at the edges.

Her hair is cut in a heavy fringe and falls straight to the shoulders, drawn in long parallel strokes that follow its weight rather than describing individual strands.

The ornament is where the labour went. Layered collars at the throat, one banded and patterned, one plain and lit along its upper edge. A cylindrical pendant at the centre, drawn with a hard metallic highlight. Strands of cowrie shells fall from each shoulder, each shell rendered individually — dozens of them, none repeated exactly, catching light along one side.

Almost everything else is dark. The background is unmodulated tone, and the clothing disappears into it. The result is that the face and the ornament float forward and nothing competes with them.

Charcoal is the right medium for a portrait like this. It can be laid down soft for skin, lifted with a finger for a highlight, then driven hard into the shells and the pendant.

It suits a study, a hallway, a reception or a collector’s wall, and it holds a room on its own.

Original charcoal on paper, signed by the artist. Supplied mounted and framed under glass with a certificate of authenticity. One of a kind — no reproductions of this drawing are sold.

Specifications:

• Subject: Tribe – Direct Gaze
• Medium:  Charcoal on 300 GSM paper
• Genre: Portrait realism
• Type: Original, one of a kind
• Size: 26 x 32 in
• Orientation: Portrait/li>
• Framing:  Mounted, framed under glass
• Signed: Yes, by the artist
• Included: Certificate of authenticity