Portrait sketches of my children

Two sketches of my daughter, London 2018

Drawing has always been my way of learning and memorising. Even as a child, I used this tool to learn for exams and train my brain. Drawing from life is all about observation: you step ahead and check, take another step and check again. You have to be very vigilant and sensitive to subtle changes in order to produce an accurate portrait from life. 

My son sleeping in his pram, 2018, Lodz, Poland

Children grow fast. It's a cliche but  as we mothers know that the times when they are small pass quickly and as human beings, we tend to forget more than we'd like. 

I do cherish this time. It's hard and it's exhausting; it seems beyond belief that so many people go through this silently. Fortunately, there's another side to it too - listening to the rhythm of their breath when they sleep, all the laughs and wise words and the joy we all so quickly unlearn when growing up. It comes back with the presence of children in our lives and it's a kind of happiness I couldn't have imagined. 

Ink sketch of my daughter, 2016, London

I draw them because I love them. I want to learn their features, remember the sounds they make, just watch them in peace and think of nothing else. I draw them because for me, there's nothing more intimate than that. Because I don't want to ever forget, even though I know I will, I do believe there's an energy that stays in all things that require a creative process and I hope to thrive on that energy when they're grown up.

An excerpt of my article for Wildling Magazine Issue 7, 2016

Ink portrait of my daughter, London 2018. Preselected for Royal Society of Watercolour Painters annual show, Mall Galleries, 2019

Pencil drawing of my son, London 2018