Alone

I had asked my sister to sit for me so I could work on my portrait skills; I had no idea at the time that she was going through a very difficult time, and as I painted I noticed that I was rendering sadness in her eyes, even though I was unaware of what she was feeling. Later she told me that every time she looked at the painting she felt the loneliness that she had been trying to hide that day. It is so interesting how the emotion of the sitter comes through in portraiture, just as a natural outcome of the act of really seeing, which is so key in depicting what is really inside a subject.