My fifth portrait for this week of the 30-day challenge originally set by Olga Furman. Still being inspired by women nurses, this last one brings us right up to date. I can't find a name or any other information for this nurse, but she's clearly wearing full PPE and looks like she's working through another gruelling shift caring for her patients in the fight against COVID-19 ...
This was a very mixed-media piece - I started with acrylic paint which I applied using a Gelli plate technique (inspired by last week's Wanderlust class with Kasia Avery), then went back and forth with pastels, black and white charcoal, coloured pencils and more paint, until I decided it was done.
Of course we're all especially aware at the moment of the dedication and heroism of nurses working so hard to care for their patients in difficult circumstances all over the world. Spending this time studying the photographs of these five women spanning three centuries has really made me think about how brave those nurses were and still are, whether working on the frontline of the Crimean War in the 1850s or in the fight against a global pandemic in 2020.
Here's just one of many inspiring quotes by Florence Nightingale -
"I think ones feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results."
Comments