Watercolor of the Month 54: Helen Keller Reading

Accessibility Description: The image here shows Helen Keller sitting down on a brown chair, reading a raised print book in the Study-Room. She has a brown hair tied up in a bun and wears a bright pink shirt and long pink skirt. Her hands are laid on top of the pages of the book to read the raised print words, and the book cover is painted in blue.

We are getting close towards near the ending of August and the summer season, and with that, we’ll be entering September and the arrival of fall soon. So today, we’ll be going over with the newly Watercolor of the Month post, which is when I would pick and choose a watercolor drawing from the past and save it to be selected as the winner for the Watercolor of the Month once a month a year. For this August, the watercolor artwork I picked for the 54th Watercolor of the Month is Helen Keller Reading.

What is more fun than to share an artwork portrait that’s based on one of the famous women who became a pioneer for the human rights and advocate in the Disability community? That is the one-and-only Helen Keller!

This artwork became the very first one to be shared as a blog post in year 2023, just right after we had hit the new year and landing in the month of January. It’s basically a fan art illustrated drawing of Helen Keller reading a raised-print book in the study-room, which I was inspired from the picture of Keller reading seen in the page taken from my own copy of her biography, The Story of My Life. I believed that it was photographed when she was a student in Radcliffe College, where she became the first blind and deaf woman to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Helen Keller Reading was my second watercolor drawing of her I ever did, right after I had worked the very first Helen Keller watercolor illustration, and that is the iconic moment when Helen was seven years old and she is standing by the water pump, where she finally learns the meaning of W-A-T-E-R has a name “water”, and making the connection between sign language and meaning of the word, thanks to her teacher Annie Sullivan. The title of it is called Helen Keller at the Water Pump, and that was posted on her 142nd birthday (June 27th). And who can ever forget that miracle scene from The Miracle Worker (1962)? That scene still moves me so much. Couple of months later, after sharing it on this blog, I would post my book review of Keller’s The Story of My Life, so if you have not read that review, please check it out in the link below, highly recommended it. I also recommended on reading my book review of Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism by Temple Grandin, another amazing pioneer in the Disability community.

Both Helen Keller and Temple Grandin are such amazing women who have the idea of advocacy for people with disabilities, whether you are blind, deaf, both, or autistic.

The project got started in December, I’d say near before we hit for the Christmas holidays, and I only begin sketching the drawing lightly with a pencil. It was nighttime, I had just finished watching the animated film, Charlotte (2022) on Hulu, the movie based on the German-Jewish artist, Charlotte Salomon, but only few minutes before I went to bed. Not only did I used the image of real-life Helen Keller reading from the page of the autobiography, along with it, I used my old pen sketch as reference to draw Keller in the exact pose, done back in 2021.

Accessibility Description: Second image shows the original drawing sketch of Helen Keller reading, looking exactly as the colorized watercolor artwork. It was drawn in blue pen on print-copy paper. On the top right has my name signature with the date written down (December 15th, 2021), and Helen Keller’s name is written for the title.

Later on, I would continue to finish the sketching process to add the study-room background, based on what I have seen from the photograph. When the sketching was finished, I cleaned up the outlines by tracing it with the black ink sharpie pen, along with red for Keller’s lips. With the drawing sketched and cleaned up with smooth lines, I can go ahead and paint it in full color with the set of watercolor pencils. I started off with Helen first, using the same color studies I used for my own character design of Keller as a young woman, as well as painting the chair she’s sitting and the book on her lap. By then, I can paint the full background of the study-room, until it was finally finished.

This is definitely one of the Helen Keller fan art drawings I am very proud of, and if you would like to read the main topic of it, you can find it and click it in the link down below. I think I might surprise you all, even in writing, but I think I would like to see it in a fully digital drawing version, which I can easily do it on Autodesk SketchBook. What do you think? Do like the idea of turning the watercolor drawing into a digital drawing medium? And if that’s the case, please share your thoughts and opinions in the comment box, please!

And also, please check out the 17-minute documentary that PBS released as a special for American Masters. It’s on the Protactile sign language called Protactile: A Language of Touch. It’s a main sign language for the Deafblind community, but only done by touch. It features author, psychotherapist, and disability rights advocate Rebecca Alexander, who had worked with PBS as the narrator for Becoming Helen Keller, also for American Masters. I’ve seen it, and it’s really great! So, please click the link and watch it.

I can’t wait to share you all more upcoming posts for this September soon! 😊