Wedding dress from Customs House Museum collection
8 x 10 inches painted on bristol board with acrylic paints
This
bitty blog post is all about inspiration striking from the most a
routine online perusal. On Facebook, I ran across a post from the
Customs House Museum, Clarksville, TN, that showed one of the
thousands of items in their collections.
The
image was of an old wedding dress worn by Temperance Catherine Joslin
in 1844. For some reason that image of an old wedding dress just
struck me as something I could make “come alive”. I took the
image and drafted up a sketch of a young lady in the dress in a
backyard wedding setting. I carefully counted the pleats of the
collar..(3 each) plus one going “off shoulder” and a final one
not on the sleeves but connecting the sleeves with the bodice of the
dress. The bodice had diagonal lines in the bodice itself. The ¾
sleeves each had 3 pleats finishing with a dash of lace. It closely
followed heirloom sewing techniques of the period.....i.e bodice
shaping and sleeve trims using tucks in the material.
I
transferred the sketch over to some bristol board and painted up the
entire composition in acrylics. I wanted it to have a back lit sunny
day look.....with a dash of impressionism. I premixed my colours and
it “painted up” very quickly. I really enjoyed turning the lines
into masses that resolved into a blushing bride in her wedding dress.
This was
an enjoyable painterly type “quickie” sketch. Something that took
advantage of an idea that came across my mind's eye and that I hope
brought a bit-o-history to life. Museums, like the Customs House Museum, are great places to get "quickie art sparks".
An enjoyable bit of artwork like this, reminds me to be on the look out
for chance impressions that can spark an art “quickie”.
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