Real Kids

My husband and I are going to be starting the adoption process within the next year [this can be a very lengthy process].  This is a path that I have had my heart set on since I was, probably around 5 or 6 years old, and thankfully I have an amazing and supportive husband who is trusts my judgement!
After having several students who were part of the foster care system, I realized that this was the obvious choice.  Children in the foster care system have endured unimaginable amounts of pain and suffering in a very short amount of time and often age out of the system before finding a permanent home and family.
Many of these children are given profiles on state run adoption websites.  There you find a few pictures, a few paragraphs describing their likes and dislikes, and any major physical or emotional issues that a parent would have to address.  Sometimes, you also find a video of the child introducing themselves and answering a few questions.  I became fascinated by the extra "layer" that this video added to my understanding of a child.  The photographs are staged and cropped to be the most "marketable", whereas the video is just that child being themselves; these are often two very different things.
So I started an experiment.  I started drawing pictures of the children in these videos, as it was running, [a life drawing in full action if you will], to see what facial expressions, body language and personality would come forth.  Next, I sketched the same child from the photograph.  Often, two different children would emerge.  I will continue this experiment to see where it leads….