Watercolor of Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene, watercolor on Arches paper, 9” wide by 12” height, 2025.

I started this watercolor this week, but was only able to finish it today. It starts with a simple drawing I use sometimes when I want to get some proportions I find pleasing. I remember drawing this “seed” drawing, one of those line drawings that just come out harmonious in a few lines. The image is always a little different even if I use the original drawing as a guide.

Watercolor is a medium I use when I need to paint but can’t. I keep the brushes nearby at all times, even if I don’t use them for a long time.

During the pandemic, I survived the long zoom meetings by listening as I painted watercolors. Survive is a dramatic word, but that’s how it felt. To this day, I find it difficult to be in zoom meetings for too long.

Even though everything is ok now, or at least much better, watercolor continues to be a way to ease anxiety, a playful way to not-think.

My watercolor takes inspiration from Orthodox icons, and from the funerary paintings on Egyptian mummies in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I wish I had seen the image below before painting. I really love it.

Fayum Mummy Portrait from Roman Egypt.

These funerary paintings from around 100-300 AD, always remind me of my son, who could be this girl’s brother, with the same skin color and big eyes.

Mary Magdalene, who also contemplates death when she holds her skull and her book in classical paintings, maybe also had big eyes and olive skin.

Today’s drawing of Mary Magdalene