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MEDIUM:
pencil, color pencil, hard pastel drawing on textured paper

INSPIRATION:
My drawing for today is a portrait of another family that has been impacted by the war in Afghanistan.

This family lives in Afghanistan and they are running for their lives…their parents are not there to help them; I do not know why they aren’t with them.

Their community is being fired upon by enemies of U.S. Soldiers, enemies of the Afghanistan government, enemies of the civilians and I presume that is why the children are running-their home has been destroyed, their country is being destroyed, their lifestyle is being destroyed, their family is being destroyed.

There are many families dealing with the destruction of war. I want to show how far reaching our war is for the children of all cultures from many countries.

Yesterday, Day 16, I emphasized the eyes of a U.S. Soldier’s children who hugged their father upon his return from combat, in this drawing, I want to show my feelings of how war touches all children in many countries from many cultures…children everywhere suffer from war.

In today’s portrait drawing of our war the sisters hold tightly onto each other, their hands are what I emphasize in my portrait today.

I chose to use hard pastel because I like the way I can create a rough effect and I feel that this environment for these children is very rough and I also wanted to be able to smooth the medium in particular areas where I felt the smoothness of the relationship between the family I created in my minds eye was one that was connected even under the harshest of circumstances.

Even though they are grasping for life, grasping to hold onto one another and their youngest sister’s hand to keep the family together-to get to safety, I had determined to depict this family unit as many family units from many countries-just as determined – as U.S. families to get their families to safety, to find a way to hold on tight to their loved ones…so I emphasize the hands, the movement, the color for the urgency, for life, the lack of color for war.