Not all heroes wear capes...

Some wear faux leopardskin hats!

Today's portrait is of Theresa Kachindamoto. I had never heard of her before today, but she's a new hero as of this morning, when I read an article about how, after she came to power as the senior chief of the tribes in the Monkey Bay area of Malawi, she decided that she would enforce a law that has been ignored, even though it was enacted in 2015: She ended the practice of child marriage for girls under 18.

Not only did she start enforcing it, she went retroactive: She went from tribe to tribe, enlisting the other sub-chiefs in her plan, dismissing those who held out against her, and ultimately annulling some 850 marriages between men and their child brides. Then she told the girls' ex-husbands or parents to take care of their children (some girls as young as 12 already had babies), and sent all the girls back to school!

It's nice to read, for a change, about someone in power who is acting for the greater good. Here is the Chief!

Here is the article, if you want to read it for yourself. And thanks, Jolene Oldham, for sharing this!

This is the end of my portraits, for now—tomorrow begins the 30x30 Direct Watercolor Challenge, which lasts throughout the month of June. Unless...I get brave enough to do a portrait without an underdrawing. Wait and see!

Sort of a portrait...

I decided today to make a contribution to my "people reading" collection, because I haven't done one in a while. And although I'm not unhappy with this, I certainly can't claim it as a win in terms of painting a portrait or capturing a likeness.

I have to confess, I don't know how to paint children so they come out looking like children! The photo model for this picture was a Facebook friend's daughter, sitting and reading on her couch. She looks like she could be somewhere between 10 and 13 years old, but this gal looks like she's at least 18, or maybe even in her 20s! And yet, the pose, the face, the hair, are all essentially as they were in the photo.

I have to talk to people I know who paint children (Colleen?) and find out the secret!

Portrait of a reader, #3: Robin.

And so on...

The next person up was Kim's mom. (Kim is the second portrait I did, and she asked if I would also paint a portrait of her mother. Kim is my awesome Facebook friend from back east who, shortly after "meeting" me, found out that I wanted a pink pussy hat for the first Women's March, and promptly knitted one and mailed it to me; so painting a picture for her was the least I could do!) Kim liked it, but elected not to show her mom, because Judy is sensitive about her age and I didn't spare her wrinkles.

Heeeere's Judy! Cute and lively, if also a little weathered.

My next portrait was of my friend Hubert. I wasn't planning to paint Hubert—this whole thing wasn't really about friendship or including or excluding certain people, it was more about finding interesting faces and/or unusual angles on photographs (whether among my friends or not—I have a whole bunch of photos of interesting strangers saved up too!) to play with. But I had breakfast with Hubert on Sunday, and he was so down about work, and also so admiring of what I had done so far with the portraits, that I decided I would include him.

I struggled with his more than most, and didn't quite get the likeness; something about the shape of his head, and the angle of it just didn't work. It still has a feel of him, but that's more from the slight twinkle in his eye and his neatly pressed plaid shirt than anything else. But he was happy to be in the gallery!

Then I did the person I've been wanting to do for days, although I ended up using a different reference photo than I had planned. I went looking through photos I had saved and found this brilliant one of my Michigan Facebook friend and co-namee, Melissa Squires. She has such a beautiful, elegant, interesting face that she's a pleasure to paint, and I loved this quirky photo as well.

I think this is my favorite one so far, but maybe I'll do another without the cigar at some point!

Today was my UCLA day, which starts at 5:30 when I get up (in order to beat rush hour traffic over the Sepulveda pass) and ends after I teach my 3.5-hour class, spend an extra hour consulting with such students as stay after to talk about final projects, and drive home to a long-awaited lunch around 3:00. Today, as I do on many of these post-teaching afternoons, I then took a two-hour nap, got up and putzed around for a while, and watched TV. 

I was going to skip today completely, but I got bored with what I was watching and turned it off; and in looking through my photos I saw the next I wanted to attempt. So I thought, Oh, I'll draw it tonight and then paint it in the morning. Yeah, right. At almost 1:00 a.m., I finished, scanned, and here it is: Susan (Brooks) Sabo, my longtime friend from back in Advocate days, also now living in Michigan. This is from a photo taken by my previous subject, Melissa Squires.

Susan is a hard one to capture; adding the paint to the drawing made the whole thing look a lot more accurate, but it still falls far short of the best likeness. Her face is way too long and narrow here, and I couldn't find the right color yellow for her almost white-blonde hair. But the one thing I was pretty happy with was the capture of her square jaw and "butt chin," which I love. I hope she forgives me for the rest!

Since I only have time for three more portraits before I start my June challenge, I'm going to follow my own whim and paint who I like. If you have a request in with me, it may have to wait until June is over, or until a day when I feel like making two paintings instead of just one. Sorry, folks, but if I don't keep it interesting for me, then it's no longer fun!