Father and child

A father standing in a doorway with his newborn asleep across his forearms. Original charcoal on paper, signed, framed and ready to hang.

A man stands in a doorway holding a baby. Nothing else happens in the drawing.

He is bare from the waist up, in jeans, leaning slightly against the frame. The child lies across both forearms, asleep, one small hand resting near his wrist, legs folded up against his chest. His head is bent, looking down at it. He is not posing for anyone — he is simply looking at the thing he is holding.

The strength of the drawing is the contrast of scale and substance. The father is drawn heavy: broad chest, thick beard, forearms modelled with real weight, the denim worked in dense charcoal. The baby is drawn lightly, almost weightlessly, the face barely touched and the skin left as pale paper. Two bodies of entirely different substance, and one is completely responsible for the other.

Behind them the door is a mass of dark tone, a carved panel and a rosette catching a little light. The wall to the right falls into shadow. The background is pushed back so the two figures come forward as a single mass, and the only true white in the drawing is the strip of light in the doorway and the child’s skin.

No sentiment is applied to it. He isn’t smiling. It is the middle of the night or the beginning of a long morning, and he is standing where he is because the baby has finally gone quiet.

Original charcoal on 300 GSM paper, fixed and 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: Father and child
• Medium:  Charcoal on 300 GSM paper
• Genre: Figurative realism
• Type: Original, one of a kind
• Size: 15 x 15 in
• Orientation: Portrait/li>
• Framing:  Mounted, framed under glass
• Signed: Yes, by the artist
• Included: Certificate of authenticity