American Gothic Santa and Mrs. Claus

 I don't know what made me think of it, but I thought it would be really fun to change Grant Wood's American Gothic couple into Santa and Mrs. Claus. Indeed, it was a lot of fun. 

I started with a printable coloring page of American Gothic from the Amarillo Museum of Art. I used my lightbox and a black Micron pen to trace part of the image onto Neenah Bristol Vellum (affiliate links here and below). As I traced, I left certain areas blank where I wanted to change the design. For example, I elongated Grant Wood's dentist's chin because I wanted Santa to have a beard. I changed the pitchfork to a candy cane and left the upstairs window empty so I could add a Christmas tree. 

Here's what I had when I finished tracing and turned off the lightbox.  

I finished drawing in the details, then colored the whole thing with my Prismacolor markers. It'd been a long time since I'd used them; I'm using Ohuhus for everything now. 

I've never seen the Clauses looking less jolly, but I'm sure they'll perk up as Christmas draws near. They could do with some fattening as well. Ho ho ho!