Another Sister

 Well, I could hardly paint Sister Wilson (or her approximate facsimile) and leave out Sister Crawford, could I? (By the way, they weren't nuns; in the fundamentalist church in which I was raised, everybody Brother'd and Sister'd one another as part of the ritual.)

I have to confess that I went looking for a reference photo for this one, so while this lady greatly resembles Sister Crawford and is, in fact, exiting church on the arm of an extremely silly friend in a flowered hat that is not to be believed, this is not exactly her. I think this lady has a little more self-confidence. She shares Sister Crawford's taste in hats and jewelry, but paired them with a tasteful pink linen suit and white shell, so I let her keep those.

For this one I went back to all watercolor, to get the right pale shades and tones of pink, lavender, and blue (the inks were a little too much on Sister Wilson and made her rather hollow-eyed!), but I did use the bright turquoise and bright pink inks for the background. I must say it's a lot easier to do a background first than it is to add it afterwards and get it smooth!

I ran out of my beloved Fluid paper and had to switch over to Canson. I like the Canson for its brighter white, but nothing beats the workability and forgiving nature of the Fluid paper.

I decided to let this blue-haired lady speak for herself, so there's no pearl of wisdom included on this one, although there are pearls!

Pencil, Paul Jackson and M. Graham watercolors, black Uniball Vision pen, white Signo gel pen, Daler Rowney Turquoise and Fluorescent Pink, on 140-lb. Canson watercolor paper, 8x12 inches.