Sunday, November 29, 2015

Rowan the lovely singer


Back in my days as a hanger-on at the Society for Creative  Anachronism, I made the acquaintance of a young lady whose SCA name was "Rowan of Belchant," meaning "Rowan of beautiful song." Her real-life name was Joyce Baldwin and she was training to be an opera singer, or hoped to be an opera singer. Opera singers, actors, and other theatrical folk go perfectly with the SCA because of their love of dressing up and playing roles. I drew this portrait of Joyce/Rowan at a winter gathering. She was wearing what I would now refer to as "upscale peasant" attire. Rowan/Joyce had flaming red hair, just like a fantasy heroine, some of the brightest reddest tresses I've ever seen at least in the USA. I would have loved to paint her portrait. I never saw her again after I sketched her and I wonder whether she succeeded in becoming an opera singer, singing her way to tragic operatic death in so many soprano roles.

Pencil on sketchbook page, about 4 1/2" x 7 1/2", mid-1980s.

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