A large ink portrait of particular formal clarity — a woman seen in three-quarter view, the face tilted slightly so the gaze angles down and to the right, the expression one of absorbed thought. The composition is the most geometrically organized of the ink portraits: the flat cap creates a strong horizontal at the top, the hair flows in controlled parallel marks below it, the face is centered precisely between these formal elements.
The ear at the left — visible beneath the cap's brim — is given the full Cothran attention: the outer rim, the inner structure, the earlobe. The three-quarter view that makes the ear most fully visible is clearly a preferred compositional orientation in the portrait series for this reason.
The angled downward gaze gives the face a quality of private thought — this person is not attending to the outside world, their attention directed at something internal or at something just below the frame. The brow and the set of the eye describe this without overstatement.
The body below — the collar and shoulders — is drawn with the loose but accurate ink marks that characterize the more fully composed ink portraits. The overall quality of the drawing is of something accomplished quickly and surely, without hesitation.