I found an old photograph of an older cabin to draw. On the computer of course. Apparently this cabin is near Bethel Hollow, Pope County, Illinois. I always somewhat snobbily think that counties sound funny, being from Louisiana and all. We have parishes. Ooh la la

I usually don’t show the actual image I’m drawing from so that you can’t compare and contrast the discrepancies, but my love for old photos won out. If you look closely you can even see a dog peeing on the cabin. I chose not to draw him. But I always wonder about who is in the photos, what is their story? Will people look back a hundred years from now and wonder who we are in some old photo they find of us? Or will the look back on our old Facebook accounts and be able to learn way more than they ever wanted to know…

Oh and this is actually not a printed photograph, but a lantern slide, essentially glass transparencies which could be projected for a larger audience. Not sure what significance this cabin would have that a large group would want to see… except it’s a nifty old cabin, with a peeing dog. Also known as magic lantern slides, they were black and white usually, but sometimes hand colored. From about 1850-1930, they were used as shows or for education purposes, but became obsolete when other photographic techniques were developed.