A large, boldly drawn ink portrait — a woman in three-quarter view, her eyes directed at the viewer with a quality of engaged, slightly appraising attention. The ink technique here is the most gestural in the portrait series: the lines are rapid, pressure-varied, some thick and definitive, some lighter and searching. The hair at left is described with a mass of cross-hatched marks that build volume quickly; the smooth hair at right is described in longer, more deliberate strokes.
The face is the composition's controlled zone — where the hair is gestural, the face is placed with more care: the eyes set precisely, the nose in three-quarter view, the lips with their slight, alert expression. The ear at left is described with the characteristic Cothran specificity amid the more loosely handled hair.
At the left hairline, a small detail: a series of wave marks — a hair clip or the natural wave of the hair at the part. This small observation amid the looser handling is the work's most focused moment.
The body below — bare shoulders, the beginning of the arms — is described with the boldest marks, the ink at its most physical. The warm cream paper receives all of it: the bold and the delicate, the gestural and the observed, together on the same surface.