Bonnet c. 1937

Dorothy Gernon made this watercolor "Bonnet" without providing a date. The simple rendering has a directness that is really disarming. I love the way Gernon just goes for it with her brush strokes. There's no messing around, just a bold commitment to capturing the essence of this bonnet and what it may have looked like in the round. The pink and blue is so bold and then offset by two further sketched iterations in pencil, like studies. There's something incredibly appealing about the material honesty of this image. Gernon lets us see the process. It reminds me of those early Picabia watercolors and how they too, leave so much space for us, the viewer, to become part of the conversation between artist and artwork.