To be a well rounded individual, one must walk a mile in a million different persons shoes. And not contract athletes foot 😂. And make no mistake, women have indeed possessed strong and influential roles in this world despite the contrary notions that they haven't. These are but a few of the worlds influential women (and Weird Al 😂 But I didn't intend this suit to be for the girls when I finished his portrait!) to varying degrees of influence. Most of the backstories to these women are truly surprising because, those that should know them don't. And the majority of these fine women performed and portrayed characters known throughout the world, even to this day, and truly were responsible for the majority of creations we now have. It's no joke when I say that the majority of these women (sorry Al! 😂) were mother figures for me as I grew up watching them grace the silver screen and educate me on the ways of the world through their eyes.
For each of these Portrait Playing Cards I first prepped each card by painting what would be the "face" of the card with a parchment colored acrylic paint. Next I hand sketched each portrait on a sheet of graph paper (I used the grid method to ensure I didn't mess up the face too much😂) using between 2B and 4B graphite. Once the sketches were done, I transferred each sketch from the paper to the painted card using a gel plate. For most of them I didn't require any additional paint when transferring them to the cards, but, for a few I used the same parchment colored acrylic paint over top the print on the gel plate to transfer the pencil sketch to the card. And all of them were colored using primarily Gelly Role gel pens, but I also used Posca paint markers, Derwent's Inktense Washes , Staedtler Watercolor markers and Crayola's Colors of the World Markers.
From the left, we have the insanely talented Weird Al Yankovic as the Ace, the beautiful Delta Burke (Designing Women) as the King, the witty Estelle Getty (The Golden Girls) as the Queen, and the zany Lucille Ball (I Love Lucy) as the Jack.
The 10 is played by the enchanting Rosalind Russell (Auntie Mame), the 9 is played by the adorable Angelica Lansbury (Murder, She Wrote), the 8 is played by a dual faced Anjelica Huston (The Witches), and the 7 is played by the funny Whoopi Goldberg (Bogus).
The 6 is played by the warm hearted Dolly Parton (9 to 5), the 5 is played by the honorable Judge Judy Sheindlin (Judge Judy), the 4 is played by the chaotic Jackie aka NerdECrafter, and the 3 is played by Jackie's sister, Sika who would sometimes guest spot on Jackie's YouTube channel.
And, finally, the one who inspired this YEAR PLUS LONG PROJECT, the rainbow queen herself, Moriah Elizabeth. She made her own customized deck of playing cards and, me being me, I thought that would be FUN to try too. HOWEVER!! There is a BIG MAJOR HUGE difference between her customized deck and mine, and I don't mean the level of skill. Hers were made DIGITALLY!!! Mine were, as you can CLEARLY see, were not 😂. THIS is why I don't watch many art YouTubers - they give me WAY too many ideas and I end up punishing my crippled, old body more-so than I already do! 😂
Well MMP Fans, that is the entire suit of Diamonds in my Portrait Playing Cards deck. I hope you liked them! They're not perfect and, of course, there are some that just got away from me 😂, but, overall, I'm quite happy with these fine ladies. Each was a challenge to draw, transfer, color and protect. But now they are all snug in plastic protective card sleeves and always happy to be whipped out and be shown off! If you ever decide to commit the lengthy commitment of customizing YOUR OWN playing cards, tag me on social media so I can see YOUR creations! And please feel free to let me know YOUR thoughts on these tiny portrait playing cards. If you would like to challenge me, please check out my Contact Me page, or, if you'd like to purchase one of my works or a work of your own design, check out my Commission page.
Till next time MMP Fans!