“Letting go” editorial illustration

Editorial illustration inspired by an old New Yorker article called “Letting Go” by Atul Gawande. It was about terminally ill patients and their loved ones wrestling with expectations of what medical care should be for, and about what matters most in the final phase of life. Atul Gawande further explored the topic in his book Being Mortal (also a TV documentary).

I tried multiple approaches for this illustration. The initial concept was about a middle-aged person visiting their ill parent in the hospital. From there, I added the element of a clipboard, which would represent the form authorizing either more medical interventions or transferring the patient to palliative care/hospice. I tried a few different angles and settled on the one that I brought to the inked stage. But when I started exploring colours, something just didn’t work for me. I wanted to portray a complete scene but maybe there was too much going on in the image.