Helen Malta, Pink Mermaid, Color Pencil Drawing, 1930s fun fug What makes them really wonderful

What makes them really wonderful is their specificity--these have been used as teaching tools due to their accuracy in representing the fine details of each particular species of mushroom they portray

and just what it is

I find this wonderfully immersive and transportive in a different direction

but still reads bright and crisp

I've found a few online with the same shape and structure

Helen Malta, Pink Mermaid, Color Pencil Drawing, 1930s fun fug What makes them really wonderfulI keep thinking this mermaid drawing would make a pretty great tattoo! It comes from sketchbook of drawings by Helen Malta, done in the 1930s or so, while she teaching at the Harlem Art Center and working at the New York branch of the WPA graphics division. Surely it is based on an old carving, maybe a figurehead from a ship, and perhaps sketched on site while visiting a New York museum. Malta's work, which also included paintings and prints, is found