Drawn in Light
Black paper has no light of its own. Everything you're about to see was put there by hand, one stroke at a time. Scroll, and watch it come alive.
Begin with the light.
The forehead. The ridge of the nose. One catch on the cheekbone. Everything else stays dark, and dark is allowed to stay dark.
Eyes are never drawn. They are found.
A fleck of white left in the middle of a great deal of black. Leave too much and she stares. Leave too little and she's gone.
One decision, made ten thousand times.
No single stroke matters. Together they fall the way hair falls: heavy at the part, loose at the ends.
What you leave black is the drawing.
The lower lip is only a shadow that stopped. The mouth says nothing, and that is the whole expression.
Somebody was here.
0 strokes of white on black, thrown like light. Then the last one landed, and the hand lifted.