susan lyon fineart

  

This drawing was done with a brown pastel pencil on a cool toned Bristol board paper, it is 15" by 20". I rarely ever use paper like this because it is hard to erase. I'm not sure what got into me that day, probably just the fact that I have so many different kinds of paper in my studio that I thought I should try it.

Well, soon after I started the drawing I knew I was in for some frustration. I know I shouldn't always do the same thing all the time, so even though I struggled with erasing, and that the pastel wouldn't smooth out like I like, I'm glad that I tried it after the fact. I have to remind myself to experiment.

This reference was taken on a trip to Africa that Scott and I did in the summer of 2008; this town was at the bottom of a huge Volcano in the Ngorogoro Crater in Tanzania. We had just finished our trek and had stayed over night down the lane the night before. I was completely mentally and physically exhausted and really just wanted to sleep and not have anymore adventures. Our guide mentioned that just around the bend is a small village and that it was having a market that day. I didn't want to go, but what the heck -- you are half way around the world.

I was not prepared for the amount of people, let alone everyone in traditional outfits. These people were in the most unbelievably beautiful clothes, the fanciest that we had seen all trip. The men looked like models; it was interesting that the men were much more attractive then the women. In fact the women usually didn't have hair (sometimes it was very difficult to tell the men and women apart) although in this area the men took a lot of pride in their appearance, some had shoulder length or longer hair that was finely adorned with braids and beads.

There were two other couples, mainly from Europe walking around from the camp ground that we stayed at. The local children were insistent about selling us bracelets and following us around. There was some antagonism towards us, but for the most part it was a very friendly atmosphere. I let a girl of about 11 go off with the camera to take photos. I loved looking through the footage afterwards, she had some really artistic compositions, like close ups of fabrics and unusual angles of people talking. The locals didn't care if she took photos of them so it took pressure off of me. I did the drawing above from one of the photos she took.