Sketch for the painting "Son Regiment"

A young boy sits on a low bench, an oversized khaki-colored military coat draped over his bare shoulders and knees, his legs and feet bare beneath it. He holds an open book close to his chest with both hands and looks directly out at the viewer, framed by a dense screen of dark green foliage dotted with small white daisies.

Broad, confident brushstrokes model the coat's heavy folds and the boy's sunlit skin in warm flesh tones against cool, shadowed greens. The direct, searching gaze and worn, ill-fitting coat lend the study a wistful, pensive character consistent with a wartime child figure.