Man Reading a Newspaper

A stout man sits reading, spectacles low on his nose, a newspaper opened across his lap and sandalled feet crossed at the floor. It is a quick gesture study, the whole figure carried on a loose, unbroken contour with almost no interior shading.

The line is economical but exact, catching the slump of the shoulders, the moustache and the ring on one finger in a few decisive marks. The blank paper does the rest, and the pose feels observed in a single sitting.