I was drowning in a dying moment (2025) Original Charcoal Drawing by laleliyegidentramvay

A face at the surface, eyes closed, hair opened out into the dark water around it, foam gathering along the jaw and shoulder. She is not struggling and she is not gone. She is floating, and the drawing sits in the one position where the body finally stops holding itself up.

I made this because of what water does to weight. Lying back until your ears go under is the only easy way most of us ever get to put everything down. The sound leaves, the light goes soft and strange, the hair stops being yours and starts belonging to the current. I wanted that specific relief, the moment of surrender rather than the moment of danger, which is why the eyes are shut and the expression is calm. The tilt of the head and the bubbles crowding in from the edges are there to keep it slightly unresolved. Whether this is rest or something further is up to whoever is looking.

Charcoal on paper was the only material that could do this. Charcoal is dust before it is an image, so it gives you a genuine blackness for the water and lets you sink the whole background into it, then lift the light back out with an eraser for every bead of foam and every wet strand across the face. Working in grey alone keeps it from becoming pretty. What is left is skin, water, light, and the strange geometry of hair underwater, which is one of the most beautiful things I know how to draw and one of the hardest.

Up close it is dust on paper. From a few steps back it is a person just below the surface. I hope a viewer holds their breath a little without noticing they are doing it.

Materials used:

charcoal

Details:

• Charcoal drawing on Paper
• One of a kind artwork
• Size: 73 x 53 x 3cm (framed) / 70 x 50cm (actual image size)
• Framed and ready to hang
• Signed on the front
• Style: Photorealistic
• Subject: People and portraits