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?
