Red Dress

©Robin Edmundson, 'Red Dress', watercolor, 10 x 13 inches.  
[Available framed, $375]

I've been thinking a lot about summer mornings.  The ones when you get up at sunrise [Do you do that?] and the air is still cool.  I go for a walk and listen to the birds and the trees and then come back and head over to the gardens.   The last of the peas are high on the plants, wet with dew and I get a shower as I pick them.  The tomatoes are thinking about turning.  The greens are crisp. The beans are getting taller.  The earliest sunflowers have big buds and the little ones will be blooming soon. 

I love those mornings. 

Storing the Jars

The Bloomington Watercolor Society will be hanging a show from December until February at the Monroe County Indiana Historical Society on the corner of 6th and Washington Streets.

The name of the show is BWS Paints the Bicentennial.   [It's Indiana's 200th anniversary of becoming a state this year.]   We can paint whatever subject we want, but for months I've been thinking about this painting.   I tried painting it a few different ways.   Finally I drew this one, but was too scared to paint it.  I knew in my head how I wanted it to look, but didn't know if I could do it.  So, I tucked it away and forgot about it.   Last weekend I found it and decided to take a deep breath and go for it.   I did it in 4 sittings over 3 days, which is much slower than I usually go.   But I had to get the layers right.  

I started by underpainting the gold light [aureolin] and purple shadows [pthalo blue and perm. alizarin crimson].   After that I worked on the dress, the crocks, the shelves and wall, the dress some more, then the hair, the skin, the box and finally the jars.   I tweaked a lot.

It looks better in person.  There are some things I really like about it - the glass jars, the box, the fact that she actually looks human [whew!]...

I'm trying to decide whether to hang this one in the Bicentennial show or the cornfields [below].  

Opinions?