Pitcher c. 1937

Ella Josephine Sterling made this watercolour drawing of a pitcher, and it's drawn exact size! Isn’t that neat? I love how the pitcher's form swells in these scalloped blue panels. The thin, deliberate lines in the blue shading, they're almost architectural, or like the careful hatching in an Old Master drawing. It’s very regular. Then, these soft, foamy white areas, adorned with dabs of red and blue, break up the solidity. Look at how the gold trim dances across the top. The whole composition reminds me a little of the work of pattern and design artists like Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who had a similarly playful eye for colour and geometry. The image celebrates the beauty found in the everyday and reminds us that art exists in a constant flow of ideas. There are no fixed answers, just the ongoing joy of seeing.