The Grimace

Somebody posted a link on Facebook today to some pictures on Twitter of Dorothy Counts's first day of class as one of four black students who were integrated into a Charlotte, North Carolina high school in 1957. In one of the photos Dorothy is in the foreground, looking grim, and in the background are a bunch of jeering white children. The boy directly behind her has an ugly/stupid look on his face, and the caption reads, "Fifteen-year-old Dorothy Counts sits quietly, while a white student grimaces in rear. Students later threw rocks and sticks at her." I thought about painting her (and may still), but decided instead to capture the face of ignorance and cruelty over her right shoulder.

I purposely did this one fast and loose, because I wanted it to convey a sense of movement and also a bit of distortion. I created the background using the dark colors surrounding them, and even though I was random with the ink, it fell just right to make his face emerge. I drew him directly with a water-soluble blue pen—it was almost like tracing what had already appeared!—and then went back in with my black Uniball to emphasize and change some of the lines.

I didn't do a whole lot of painting on this—some white for the highlights, some purple and indigo for minimal shading, and brown for his eyes and hair, and that was pretty much it. I accentuated the shape of the shirt a little by filling in some indigo, and gave it all a spatter of white. It took me about 90 minutes. I love it when portraits come together like this.

This is "The Grimace"—pencil, pen, Uniball, Daler Rowney inks, Signo gel pen, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper (UPS arrived from Michael's with my paper!), 9x12 inches.