Mimi Torchia Boothby

Ok, the lesson for today is “less is more” I want you to compare today’s painting with the one I did for St Valentine’s day. I took a lot longer trying to get the likeness in the VD painting, making a million pencil lines and erasures, and in the end, it still wasn’t right. The reference for this painting was mostly deep shadows, but I knew if I followed the shadow, the face would appear. And it did. This is a wonderful likeness of Donald. It shows his smile (with about 3 brush strokes) and shows his posture and attitude quite well. I recommend you try it!

If you are lucky, you will have one of these (a true love) for part of your life. I was. This is a sketch of my husband with his wonderful uproarious smile. This could turn into loud laughter in an instant. This smile makes me smile every time I see it.
The smile is the hardest expression to draw on a face. You have to pay attention to all the smile muscles, and not overdo it, or what you end up with is a grimace. While this is not the best likeness of my sweetie, I think I caught his smile.

Challenged by the wonderful series of upside down drawings done by Coreopsis, I decided to try it with Emmy Noether. I had the reference photo and my sketch pad upside down. It doesn’t look as closely like her as I would like, but it was an interesting exercise. Timid about drawing? You should try this…

Emmy was an amazing woman. A Jewish woman born in Germany at a time where women were denied many of the rights men had, she ended up teaching math without pay for seven years. She was invited to teach at a prestigious university after that, where some influential men in the philosophy department objected, so she taught under another man’s name. She escaped Nazi Germany in 1933. She died 2 years later from surgery on an ovarian cyst. She was 53 years old.
She revolutionized Algebra, and even has her own theorem. Who says girls can’t do math!

While Megan colored, Tom showed me possible candidates for my next historical sketch.
Megan and I are sharing a coloring book, I color one page, then she colors the next. It’s been kind of fun. And a perfect opportunity to catch a face for my 12th day in this challenge.

As I continued to explore the family tree of Lord Byron, I found a familiar name. Of course, I had forgotten why it was familiar, but it didn’t take too much investigation to discover. Lady Anne Blunt was one of the British founders of the modern Arabian horse breed! Of course she imported these animals from the desert of Saudia Arabia, but she is one of the most important people in post-Bedouin times. She founded the Crabbet stud, which is still famous among Arabian horse enthusiasts today. A huge percentage of modern Arabian horses are descended from her stock. And Lady Blunt herself is of course, the granddaughter of Lord Byron!