Church Lady

After seeing the "sisters" I painted, my friend Phoebe challenged me to paint Dana Carvey in his immortal role as the Church Lady from Saturday Night Live. I jokingly said "I will if you will," and so far no portrait has manifested from Phoebe's direction, but this afternoon I decided I would give it a shot, regardless.

It's not quite Carvey-worthy. The hair could have been bigger, his eyes are a little too close together, and I picked one of his slightly less crazed expressions when I probably should have gone all out. Also, I decided to prep the paper first with colors, and they came out a little rough when this probably should have been a smooth painting.

I decided, too, that it would look a little more like the Church Lady if she had her signature stained glass window behind her, but I didn't take the time to use a straight edge to do the diamond shapes from one side of the "window" to the other, so if you follow the lines out to their completion, they don't intersect anywhere even slightly accurate. But...it was a quick and dirty painting, and the background was more for atmosphere than for verisimilitude, so...being in that kind of mood today, I'm going to say "Fuck it!" and let you like Church Lady or not. Not one of my personal favorites, but at least I met the challenge!

Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, white and black gouache, black Uniball Vision pen, white Signo gel pen, on 140-lb. Canson Montval watercolor paper, approx. 7x9 inches.

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.

Anticipation

 I didn't set out to do a Christmas-themed piece of art. I was inspired by another artist on Deb Weiers's site to make a picture of someone I had forgotten about until Denise Malm's art reminded me. She posted this piece, remarking, "This is Miss Edna. If you attended traditional church growing up, Miss Edna was there, a little frumpy, but always in her Sunday best and a little oblivious to a lot. If you were to say, 'Miss Edna, you have a little birdie on your hat,' she would likely reply, 'Happy birthday to you, too!'"

I got such a kick out of the piece, because for me and my family, Miss Edna was "Sister Wilson." Every Sunday morning on the way to church, we made two stops to pick up Sister Wilson and Sister Crawford. Sister Wilson was barely five feet tall, a little bit round but with a long pointy nose that made her face look thin. She always wore a rather battered black felted hat and an old brown swing coat, and her wispy white hair was always escaping from its miniscule bun in back to hang around her face. Sister Wilson was a little vague, like Miss Edna.

Sister Crawford, on the other hand, was tall and skeletally thin, usually wearing a pillbox hat with a little veil and big shiny clip-on earrings, which seemed a little formal for her beige cardigan and subdued plaid skirt. Sister Crawford was perennially anxious and always gasped over my father's driving, even when he was going 30 mph.

After I looked at this picture of Miss Edna and another by Denise of her favorite teacher, I had such a clear picture of Sister Wilson in my head that I decided I would try to paint her. I have never painted anyone without a reference photo, and I must say that it's hard. This little lady doesn't look much like her, but has in common a certain heavy-handedness with the rouge and lipstick!

The way that it came out Christmas-y was two-fold: I was looking for some wrapping paper in a plaid or print to use for her scarf, and all I had was this Christmas plaid in red and green; also, another friend on Deb's site posted a 30-day list of holiday-oriented "prompts" for those who wish to participate to follow during December, so I was already thinking in terms of red, green and white.

So here is Sister Somebody, not quite Sister Wilson but with some personality of her own. I thought the saying was appropriate two ways as well: She was always too impatient to wait indoors and would be out on her porch, no matter the weather; and good things can be expected at the holidays, even if remote in nature!

Maybe I'll take a shot at Sister Crawford next time.

Pencil, Daler Rowney inks, Paul Jackson watercolors, India ink, white gouache, collage, black Uniball Vision pen, white Signo gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.