There used to be a saw mill on the island where we have our summer house. It started around 1900 and closed in 1952. There are a lot of old photos from that era, and I love looking at them, seeing how the island looked in those days, what people were wearing, the interiors of their homes and how life was organized around the saw mill.
There are, among others, some group photos of the workers. I can´t help but noticing how proud they all look, from the thirteen year-old boys to the oldest men. Their lives must have been quite tough, the work was hard, but they were still considered lucky to be working in a place with good housing for the workers and a lot of advantages that workers in those days usually didn´t have, such as free fire wood and electricity.
These drawings are from one of those group photos. They aren´t portraits, the faces in the photo are too small to see each one clearly, but I tried to capture those proud expressions on their faces and their clothes. I´ll be doing some more of these in the next few days, since I think they´re so interesting. Plus, it gets me drawing again. I´ve been kind of lazy lately.
20 x 15 cm, Lamy Safari with Noodler´s Polar Black ink on Canson Montval watercolour paper.