The woman who protected Lincoln

In 1856, a 23-year-old woman walked into the offices of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. She introduced herself to Allan Pinkerton as Mrs. Kate Warne, a widow, and enquired if he would employ her as a detective. He told her it was not the custom but then, to his credit, asked her what she thought she could do.

She explained to him that she could be an undercover asset, infiltrating places that male detectives could not go; he was impressed, and decided to hire her as an experiment. She went to Alabama, befriended the wife of the main suspect in a robbery the entire nation had been talking about, got the confession, and recovered the cash. Pinkerton decided his experiment was justified, and Warne became his first female agent—but not his last.

Her biggest coup was during Abraham Lincoln's campaign for the presidency. The secessionists were plotting to ambush and kidnap or kill him during his whistle-stop campaign tour; Pinkerton and others pled with him to cancel, but Lincoln was adamant that it would go as planned. "Mrs. Cherry" (Warne) went to Baltimore, accentuated the southern accent she had learned during her sojourn in Alabama, and pinned a black-and-white Southern cockade to her dress. She partied with the secessionists at Barnum's City Hotel in Baltimore, the headquarters of the secessionists, and learned all their plans.

To get Lincoln unscathed through Baltimore, Warne booked a four-person sleeper berth on the train and Lincoln, disguised in an old overcoat, a soft hat, and a shawl, was ushered into the compartment, where Warne sat up all night to guard him until she could deliver him to Washington.

Pinkerton was inspired to hire scores of female detectives, and put Warne in charge of them. During the Civil War, she and Pinkerton went undercover to gather intelligence for the Union, and after the war she continued her career, posing as a fortune-teller or society widow to winkle out information.

Unfortunately, her career came to an abrupt end at the age of only 35, when she died from pneumonia. She is buried in the Pinkerton family plot; her obituary said, “She was a marked woman amongst her sex, with a large, active brain, great mental power, and excellent judge of character, and possessed of a strong, active vitality.”

Here is Kate, in one of her many guises. The photo was a poor one and in sepia tone, so I decided to keep it simple and paint in browns and blacks only, but I couldn't help accentuating her rosy cheeks and lips just a little.

"Kate Warne, Pinkerton"—Black Uniball, Daler Rowney inks, India ink, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress paper, 9x11 inches.

Sktchy portrait

This one was tricky, just because of his head tilt/turn and the shape of his head, not to mention the sunglasses and the facial hair and dreads. I ultimately gave in to impulse and did an ink outline to improve the appearance of my less than stellar effort on this guy, whose name is Dale.

I did a pale pink ink wash on the paper before starting him, to give him a bit more glow than he had in the example. The demonstrator actually said that he wished he had incorporated more red and pink, so I figured the underwash would help. It did, some, but then I went too yellow with my fleshtones and negated the benefits a little. Plus, then his teeth and beard were pink and I had to tweak.

"Dale" is pencil, Daler Rowney inks, gesso, Uniball pen, Jackson watercolors, and white gel pen, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, approx. 9x11 inches.

This took forever, and I'm now a day behind, having done the fun and wonky portrait of Adele yesterday instead of this guy. I guess as long as I do A portrait a day, it doesn't have to be the particular portrait. Right?

Women in history...

...is the last theme for the Olga Furman challenge, and today we had a delightful lesson from my favorite teacher, Deb Weiers, who did a wonky line-drawing version of the Mona Lisa. It was cool (of course it was!), but I'm not the biggest fan of Mona, so I decided to find another iconic portrait of a prominent woman to riff off of.

Adele Bloch-Bauer is not, in and of herself, particularly well known, but her portrait, commissioned by her husband Ferdinand and painted by Gustav Klimt, is notorious in the art world, both for its unique appearance and its history.

The Nazis stole the portrait, as they did much artwork, from the Jewish banker/sugar producer during World War II. When Adele died, she left all "her" artwork to the Galerie Belvedere, but the painting technically belonged to Ferdinand. The German state gave the portrait to Galerie Belvedere, following the wishes of Adele; but in his will, Ferdinand left his estate to his nephew and two nieces. One of his nieces, Maria Altmann (who was also Gustav Klimt's daughter!), sued the gallery for the return of the portrait and, after a seven-year lawsuit that included a trip to the Supreme Court, an arbitration committee in Vienna agreed that it should belong to her.

She sold it that same year for $135 million to Ronald Lauder, who placed the work in the Neue Galerie, the New York-based gallery he co-founded, where it is exhibited to this day (although it goes out on loan for exhibitions from time to time).

Here's my (spare and wonky) interpretation of "The Woman in Gold," 1903-1907, by Gustav Klimt. Uniball pen, Daler-Rowney inks and watercolor, India ink, metallic watercolor, Posca pen, on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

Medium mystery

Today's Sktchy portrait was a fun exercise, although as usual I didn't do it the way I was told. This time it wasn't entirely by choice—I DO want to learn to use gouache, and was looking forward to this portrait—but I couldn't find my gouache! I bought half a dozen tubes back about nine months ago to do a project for Sketchbook Skool, but after that was over, I did an unprecedented thing: I thought of a place I could store it, and I put it away. Don't remember where, though, and a fairly superficial search didn't turn it up, so...back to watercolor.

The thing that was fun about this was, I tried painting it in watercolor mostly the way Jordan Rhodes (today's teacher) was painting it in gouache, by laying down geometric shapes in increasingly darker colors and letting them be more shape-y instead of blending everything to the extremes I usually go. I especially enjoyed making the dark folds of the scarf in burnt sienna and then coming back in over the top with a beautiful blue-green color that picked up some of the sienna for a whole new mix.

There were certain things I couldn't do in watercolor, such as make a white shirt for her (don't have any, never use it), although I did manage to do some highlights on the face by scribbling with my white gel pen and then quickly washing it over with a wet brush before it dried. I also wish I'd done something different for the background, but it's almost impossible to eliminate a hard line in watercolor once you have put it in, so I decided to leave it as is. I thought about blacking it all out with India ink, but...fear.

She ended up looking a little more ghostly than his did, mostly because I thought I was picking up the tan-toned paper but instead picked up the gray, and didn't notice until I had already done the complete drawing. I wasn't going to switch at that point, so I made the best of it, but she's not as warm as she could be!

3SktchyWG_Jordan—pencil and watercolor on Strathmore Toned Gray Mixed Media 184-lb. paper, 9x11 inches.

Addendum: I changed the background. I think it's better...though very dark.

Personal challenges

As I have mentioned, I'm working away on several different art challenges right now. One of them is the "Ode to Women" challenge put on by Olga Furman Art. My friend Corinne is also participating; she did a fantastic slightly wonky portrait the other day to fulfill week #4's theme, "Women Singers," and asked everybody to guess who it was.

I loved the painting but couldn't guess. It turned out to be Diana Ross, but it was from this reference photo in which she had short, wet, straight hair, which threw me. I responded to Corinne and excused myself by saying "I'm used to seeing Diana Ross with BIG hair, like she is in this picture," and posted one that had hair more typical of Diana's wild style.

Corinne wrote back and said "What a FABULOUS photo—are you going to paint it? I will if you will!" but I was busy with my third version of Mary McLeod Bethune and the first day of the Sktchy 30 Faces/30 Days challenge, so I said "Maybe later." Well, Corinne went ahead and made her painting, and it was so phenomenal that I told her "the contest is OFF!" Who could compete with it? It's absolutely gorgeous.

I felt like kind of a chicken, however, so I found yet a third photo of Diana Ross, also with the big hair but from a different angle and with a different expression, and painted from that one today. I was brave enough to do that, but NOT brave enough to venture painting Diana's hand, which Corinne did all too well.

I did steal at least one technique from her painting, although it wasn't quite as effective for me, not having the practice to do it as well. But it did create a lovely color for the background and give the hair some extra color and texture.

Here is my version of Diana; I'm not going to post Corinne's and mine side by side, because A. I don't have permission, and B. I don't think our friends will want to say out loud whose they would choose! (hers) But I'm not unhappy with this—I worked hard on it, and I'm glad Corinne pushed me to do it.

"Diana Ross"—pencil, watercolors, Elegant Writer pen, Uniball.

Honoring an artist

One wonderful thing that I have gained from taking art classes is the acquisition of new friends. Since the pandemic began, these friends are necessarily made online, not in person, but that just gives more scope—of the women with whom I have bonded from Deb Weiers's Wonky Friends class, one lives in Virginia, another in Texas, one in Alberta, Canada, and the farthest away in Auckland, New Zealand.

A related circumstance about which I am thrilled is that they are all, like I am, interested in collecting artwork they admire, and they have all been open to trading, so that I am accumulating a nice little gallery of their paintings, and they of mine and each other's.

Recently, the one in Canada not only agreed to trade but said she would make a custom painting designed with me in mind, rather than bartering existing artwork. The painting came in the mail on February 8th, and is so wonderful—a sort of riff on my "church lady" paintings, with the most astonished look on her face. I decided my only possible response was to gift back something relevant, instead of picking something out of my "pile."

I therefore went exploring amongst the women writers, artists, and leaders of Canada, since she expressed a preference for a woman's portrait, someone who motivates other women to be their best. I discovered Inuit artist Pitseolak Ashoona, and was immediately charmed by both her image and her story.

Pitseolak was born in 1904 and grew up traditionally, in a "skin tent" in the Hudson Straits and on Baffin Island. She marveled, when she was old, that she started there and yet lived to see men walk on the moon. She gave birth to 17 children, although she raised only six of them herself, losing some to childbirth and adopting out the rest to other members of her tribe, as was the custom in their communal nomadic existence. After her husband died unexpectedly at age 40, she didn't remarry as most women of her tribe would have rushed to do; instead, while raising her four remaining children, she looked around for something to engage her creativity and absorb her grief.

There was a program initiated at Cape Dorset by the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources as a way for Inuit to earn money; Pitseolak initially embroidered goods for sale, but then turned to drawing and making prints about "the old Eskimo ways." She loved the painstaking making of images, and ultimately became both a popular and well known artist in Canada. She was featured on a postage stamp in 1993 in honor of International Woman's Day. She inspired several of her children and grandchildren to also become artists. She died in 1983, drawing until the end.

Here she is, with images mimicking her style peeking out from behind her head. "Pitseolak Ashoona"—Pencil, Uniball Vision pen, Daler Rowney inks, India ink, on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress watercolor paper, approximately 7x10 inches.

Third and last...for now

Yes, she looks familiar. Yes, this is the third time I have attempted to paint Mary McLeod Bethune. It will be the last...for a while, anyway.

Although I enjoyed the medium (gesso) and the texture on the first one, there was something not right about the angle at which I painted her face. Her eyes were at the 3/4, while her nose and mouth were looking more forward.

I was happy with the second one in terms of colors and blending, and the angle was also better; but it looked like what someone would do if you said to them, "I need a portrait of M. M. Bethune, but it's to hang on the wall at a bank, and we want her to look young and dynamic, even though your reference photo is from her old age, so see what you can do about cleaning up the wrinkles, and make her look a little thinner too, wouldja?" It was a nice picture, but not a good portrait.

So, for the third one, I decided to A. go directly to drawing in ink, and B. go with a more monochromatic color palette so I could concentrate more on lights and darks and textures.

I am happiest with this one: The eyes, nose, and mouth are at last all facing in the same general direction, I got the wrinkles and folds and slightly droopy cheeks between the ink and cobalt watercolor...but I again underestimated the sheer width of her face and maybe the height of her forehead too, and the hair came out poofier than it was in life. And it still doesn't quite capture the world weariness of the photo.

Since I have not one, not two, but three portrait challenges a day for the next week until Olga Furman's is over, I'm letting Mary go for now. Maybe I'll try her again someday and finally manage to do her full justice.

"MaryMB3"—Daler Rowney inks (background), Uniball pen, Paul Jackson watercolors, white gesso, on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress watercolor paper, approx. 8.35 inches square.

Yet another challenge...

I was a bit delusional a week or two ago and decided to sign up for Sktchy's 30 Faces/30 Days watercolor/gouache portrait challenge in March, on top of the other two I'm already attempting. What will probably happen is that I will pick from whichever one appeals most for that day, until Olga's challenge is over on March 7, and still do the weekly assignment for LFI2021 if it looks like fun. Of course, there are also the independent ideas that may arise....

Here is the first day's portrait for Sktchy. This one was challenging because of the particular angle; I didn't get the right head tilt, but other elements are pretty close. I have to confess that while the teacher did the preliminary sketch in watercolor, I was too chicken to do that and used my pencil.

The teacher is into pattern and color and we did a freehand background pattern to highlight the figure; I'm not sure I care for it (and also, she's a lot better at it than I am!), but it's a fun idea.

No name on this lady that I could find, so we will call her Charlotte, after the teacher, Charlotte Hamilton.

"Charlotte"—Pencil, watercolor, inks, on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress paper, 9x12 inches.