Artist's Statement:
This week’s posting is another study in charcoal, a precursor to an oil painting titled “Egyptian Princess.” That painting and this charcoal are part of an ongoing series of “Strong Women of the Bible.”*
In contrast to the charcoal I posted two weeks ago of a head study, this charcoal shows the full figure of the Egyptian Princess who helped create a nation by taking a helpless baby from the Nile River and raising him as her son. The charcoal depicts Batya – regal and aloof – a moment before she turns her life upside down and changes the history of the world. She saves the child’s life, despite the decree of her father, Pharaoh of Egypt, that all first-born Jewish males be killed at birth.
The baby, of course, is Moses.
Charcoal on Strathmore Paper 26.50 in x 22 in
No amount of me trying to explain myself was doing any good. I didn't even know what was going on inside of me, so how could I have explained it to them?
Sierra D. Waters Debbie
The boughs, without becoming detached from the trunk grow away from it.
Victor Hugo Les Misérables
Children betrayed their parents by becoming their own people.
Leslye Walton The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender