Brown Pottery Toby Jug c. 1936

Here's Dorothy Brennan's watercolour of a Brown Pottery Toby Jug, painted at an undetermined date. The palette here is a study in shades of brown, layered with such care that the jug almost seems to glow. You can imagine Dorothy tilting her head, considering the source of light, and dabbing a brush to paper. How the color pools and settles, creating dimension and weight. It's interesting to think about what Dorothy Brennan was feeling as she created this rendering. Her curiosity, and the challenge of representing the object in paint, is a real skill. Painting is, in a way, a conversation, a dialogue across time. Brennan’s jug connects to all the still life paintings that came before, but it also has a voice all its own. This image is a reminder that painting is a form of embodied expression, an act that embraces uncertainty and welcomes multiple interpretations, meanings, readings.