Dolores, A Short Story
October 28, 2025
La Piscine, 2025. Graphite pencil and acrylic gouache on paperDolores—or Dolo, as she liked to be called because she hated her name—was absent-mindedly paddling around in the swimming pool. Floating around would probably be the more appropriate term, as she had a big tyre inner tube circling her, supporting her body.
She was thinking about what she’d cook for dinner. One of their three boarders had left last month, and Roland—her oldest child—had recently moved out. She was still readjusting to the number of mouths to feed: eight in total. That’s if none of her other children were bringing any last-minute guests.
She wasn’t relishing the idea that she’d soon have to go back inside and spend a couple of hours next to the oven, in this baking heat. But it was Sunday, the house was full, and someone had to cook for them lot. She’d never admit it to anyone, much less to herself, but she enjoyed seeing them devour the meals she’d carefully (some might say lovingly) spent so much time preparing.
Dolo took one last, long drag on her cigarette, slowly exhaled, and made her way out of the pool.
All the material I used
Since the process for this piece was similar to last month’s, I thought this time it’d be interesting to tell you a little story about my grandmother instead. It’s all based on snippets of information I learnt about her. It was fun to imagine what could have been going through her head when the photo was taken.
Although I had some sort of story in my head for each of my ‘Friendship’ series paintings, to help me to create the scenes, I never wrote anything down. But maybe I should start writing short tales like the one above to go along with my pieces? Only for myself, so it stimulates me while drawing and connects me to a deeper meaning. Something to think about!
Judith xx
Close-ups
![]()
Reference photo, which I cropped (and straightened) for a better composition
Reference photo, which I cropped (and straightened) for a better compositionCheeky exhibition announcement
If you’re in London and would like to see both this artwork and the one from my last newsletter in real life, you’re in luck! Or rather I’m the lucky one, because both pieces have been selected by ING Discerning Eye to be exhibited at the Mall Galleries.
Running from 14 to 23 November, the free (!) exhibition will showcase 735 works by 529 artists in a wide range of media.
Monthly inspiration
You won’t be shocked to learn that I’ve seen many exhibitions recently, so choosing one for inspiration was hard. I’m going with the artist Yoshitomo Nara, whose retrospective I saw at the Hayward Gallery, because I love to be happily surprised.
I wasn’t attracted to his work based on the few images I’d seen of it. I like Japanese animes, but I didn’t think the manga aesthetic of Nara’s work was interesting as works of art. They looked too flat to me. I was very wrong!! Never under-estimate how bad photos are at showing you all the subtleties of art.
Look at these close-ups. Look how many colours and shades can be found in the faces.
In a way though, I think I preferred his drawings to his paintings. They were joyful and so inspiring in their reminder that you can draw on anything. You don’t need “good” material to do art—unless you’re doing watercolour, that ruthless medium! You can just grab anything and have fun with it.
I always welcome a reminder to play.
Some drawings by Yoshitomo Nara
Want to get this blog directly in your inbox each month? Just subscribe to my Inspired Substack.
