While many of their portraits were washed away in the tsunami following the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, painter Naoto Nakagawa used his felt pen and pad to give many evacuees a personal replacement.
While many of their portraits were washed away in the tsunami following the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, painter Naoto Nakagawa used his felt pen and pad to give many evacuees a personal replacement.
Nakagawa, 67, who lives in New York, intends to sketch portraits of up to 1,000 evacuees at an evacuation center set up in Akahama Elementary School in the Akahama area of Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, on May 27.
A 72-year-old woman, one of his models, could not choke back tears, saying since all her photographs were washed away in the tsunami, a drawing of her by Nakagawa would be a very precious gift.
Nakagawa takes five minutes per person for each sketch. The drawings will be exhibited in a museum and then sent to the evacuees.