Gown c. 1940

Douglas Campbell made this beautiful rendering of a gown with watercolor on paper. He has used delicate washes of grey and light blue to depict the draping fabric. Imagine him carefully building up the tones, stroke by stroke. You know, it’s funny, as a painter I often think about the relationship between the material and the image. How can you capture something that isn’t paint-like using paint? Campbell does that here, using watercolor to mimic satin. The whole thing has a ghostly quality, a memory of a dress, perhaps. There's something about the way the fabric bunches and folds that feels so tactile, almost like you could reach out and feel the cool smoothness of the silk. And that train! It trails off, dissolving into the background, just like memories tend to fade at the edges. It reminds me that artists are in constant conversation with each other, echoing and responding across time. Each mark, each stroke, is a gesture in that ongoing dialogue.