Indian Bottle (Medicine Bottle) 1935 - 1942

Loraine Makimson made this painting of an ‘Indian Bottle’ using watercolour, likely in the mid-20th century. It’s a simple image, but the attention to detail gives it a lot of character. What strikes me is how Makimson captures the light playing across the surface of the bottle. She achieves this with thin, transparent washes of brown and amber. Look how she uses these subtle variations to define the contours of the figures, creating a sense of depth and volume. It’s like she’s slowly building up the image, one layer at a time. The way the colour is applied, it's translucent, almost as though light is shining from within. The figures are so carefully rendered, there’s a wonderful tension between the flat, almost naive style and the detailed shading, a technique reminiscent of early American folk art. It’s this unique combination that makes Makimson's work so charming, so distinctive. Art isn't just about capturing likeness, it's about finding new ways of seeing.