This is the fourth day I listened on the sideline as two scientists pursued an elusive relationship among their equations. Many of my sketches are about the visual beauty of people learning and thinking together. This sketch is about the labor of making ideas clear enough to be described with words and equations. It takes push, tenacity, endurance, stamina, and hard work and while onerous at times, is incredibly beautiful as well.

I conveyed their effort through their intensely grim expressions, tense body language, the hands clutching a forehead or chin, the bodies leaning forward, their attentive gaze intent on the same sheet of paper, and the somber colors of a late night study. The books in the background allude to their background knowledge but I tried to keep the focus on the actual mental struggle that their work involves.

I sketched in ink and watercolor.