GOOD DRYING DAY

Although I live in a small university town I still seem to have roots deep in the manure of the dairy farm where I grew up.  So I tend to gravitate toward blogs written by farm and ranch wives.  

One of my blog friends, Alica, at “Happily Married…to the Cows,” works a dairy farm with her family in Pennsylvania.  Early in January she put up a post explaining what happened around the dairy on a routine morning.  Among other things she had a load of laundry out swinging in the breeze well before breakfast.

The picture she posted was exactly what I had been looking for.  I’ve been wanting to paint a watercolor of clothes on the line but the weather was too cold around here to find such a thing.  I requested permission to use her photo as a reference in exchange for a color study I would do in preparation.  She was kind enough to help me out.

I used her beautiful laundry, took out the house, added two baskets, 

plus a cat and soon had a sketch ready.

Then I did a small color study which I’ve sent to Alica.

When I started on the final piece I had fun making a background of foliage by first masking out the laundry so it would stay clean and white, then splashed and spattered greens on my paper.

Then I put in the baskets and the cat 

and a little more color to some of the items on the line.

Anyone who knows cats would understand how they like to keep a person company when there is laundry to be hung.

I added the painting to my Etsy Site, Watercolors by Leenie.  In a couple of days it was purchased by a gentleman in Seattle.  The internet is an excellent way to get buyers together with products.

A couple of years ago I put up a post about doing laundry the way my mother did.  I’d found an instruction pamphlet among her belongings and noticed that she had taught me to hang clothes on the line pretty much by the book.

I encourage you to check out not only my post about mom’s laundry book but also the interesting and entertaining comments that followed from all over the world.