gown

January Birthday Dress with Red Arabeque Patterned Tunic and Long-Sleeved Underdress with Snowdrops

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And, for my last post of June, we have… the January birthday dress. Did I ever mention how lucky I am anyone still bothers reading this site? I’m sorry, January birthday people, although you do technically have one January dress for Sylvia. I never liked that one, though. You see the big white band on the red overskirt? There was supposed to be a snowdrop pattern there. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it for some reason. I don’t know if I like this one either, but that’s because the original is so much better than the scan… Oh well. Anyways, all I have to do is April now, and then I can catch up on the rest of the months as they come.

Prismacolors used: French Grey family (dress), Cool Grey family (snowdrops), Black, Kelly Green, Poppy Red, Crimson Red, Crimson Lake, Tuscan Red, Colorless Blender.

Colored 1700s Gown in Gold, White and Pink

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Trazy won the contest before last, for being the closest to guess our wedding anniversary (August 9th). She wrote: “i think i would like the newest balck and white dress to be colored in the gold colors, and have some kind of royal feel to it. I want the bows/decorations/trimmings to be pink, and the rest either white, gold, tan, or something similar. the skirt should have some kind of lighter golden swirly royal pattern, a lighter gold than the background…”

I would write more about this dress, but this one took me four hours to color, and there is a sort of tingling feeling in the tip of my left thumb, plus I’m having trouble feeling the pad of my left index finger now as I type. I might have overdone it… but it was worth it!

poll by twiigs.com

Colored Elf Gown in Blues and Greys with Grey Lavender Edges and Silver Trim

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Emily won my last contest, for guessing that I had had visitors from 115 countries last week, and this was her request: “Can I choose a dress that has already been colored? Because if so I would like the Lord of the Rings elf gown from 10/5/09, but (kind of opposite of how it was colored before) in blues and grays, maybe a bit of very blueish lavender, and silver trim.” I really like how it turned out… hope you do too, Emily! (And don’t worry, trazy, I haven’t forgotten yours! I just want to do it justice, and I’ve messed up on the pattern too many times today…)

In my imagination, the elf who wears this dress and the one who wears today’s dress are good friends. The one who loves bright colors (we’ll call her Cathiel) has, over the years, influenced her friend’s color sense; you can thank her for the purple at the edges of this one, which seems quite muted to her but was a big leap forward for her sober-minded friend, who we’ll call Rhylar. It also means that she can thank her mother and aunt (who, unsurprisingly, disapprove of her style) quite sincerely for their optimistic gifts of pearl grey and clay rose robes: she assures them that she will put them to good use, and she does. They make wonderful gifts for the more conventional Rhylar. They like to find a picturesque spot and practice duets; Cathiel is a middling flutist, while Rhylar is decent on her harp, but a gifted singer. Often the former will lay aside her flute, close her eyes and just listen to her beloved friend sing a song or two, and if part of her attention wanders and she mentally changes Rhylar’s rust-colored gown to a snappy, sunshiny yellow, it only heightens her enjoyment of the scene.

poll by twiigs.com

1882 Wedding Dress with White Flowers and Train

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So remember I have three types of grey pencils: French Grey, which is what I usually use, Cool Grey, which has a bit more bite to it and is what I used for the wicked queen, and Warm Grey, which I usually ignore. Now, when I was sketching out this dress, my Warm Grey pencils called to me, and they said “What about us? It’s been a whole week of white wedding dresses, won’t you use us this time?”

Do me a favor and remind me not to anthropomorphize my colored pencils. There’s a reason I never use my Warm Grey set, and it’s that they’re just too darn dark! I’m under no obligation to be fair to my Prismacolors, otherwise you would see a lot more Salmon Pink and Muted Turquoise. So I’m sorry that this wedding dress is a touch too grey, even though I started it fairly early in the day I didn’t have enough time to redo it by the time I realized it wasn’t quite what I wanted. Also, I didn’t have enough time to do the veil and bouquet either, and now I am rushing to post at least the dress before we possibly lose power. I will do them tomorrow.

Anyways, this is an 1882 gown, and I like it despite the fact that it’s a little bit too grey… I’m quite fond of Gilded Era gowns, even if it’s unwise to try to finish one in a single day.

poll by twiigs.com