This week, we had a few inches of snow, followed by the most beautifully temperate sunny days! That’s how it works in springtime where I’m at: it’s a dramatic back-and-forth until summer tails in at the end of June and decides to finally stay.
I’m saving my little painting of hyacinths for later, and instead today I have another double-page in my sketchbook inspired by spring. With these illustrations, my figures came from a book of antique fashion plates – a Christmas gift from my sister! There’s something about spring flower bulbs that has me think of these sort of fancy, Late-Baroque period costumes. There actually was a tulip mania which caused an economic bubble during the Dutch Golden Age, but that happened some hundred years or so before these Rococo looks would have been fashionable.
I kept my illustrations pretty gestural, and had fun including some brush work exercises into the background. Although I’ve been using a lot of mixed media lately, these guys are 100% gouache! Each took a few hours over the course of a couple of days to complete. I’m really happy with how the two pages look together, as a spread, and I’m glad that I went through with the goal of making a matching pair.