New outfits

So happy to be drawing at this again. Her unrestrained enthusiasm makes my day.

As you see, the boys have new outfits.

Stephen, as the grandson of the deceased, is ready to leave off the black and wear colors again. Allan, a son, should be wearing black for some months yet, but he wanted to show off his handsome new coat to his dear Sally. And how did that work out for him...?

Fashions have changed slightly. The skirts of the coats are less full, the cuffs less wide. Later in the decade, "big hair" will catch on, but that's a couple years off.

Looking at European portraits of the time, the gentlemen tended to wear bright jewel tones, the ladies pastels, and anyone in dull colors is working class. Men in American portraits tend toward more earthy tones of green, brown, and rust tones. Gainsborough is a good artist to refer to, since he worked both sides of the Atlantic.

There was never any question of what color Allan would wear: a blue that sets off his eyes. Stephen was more of a challenge. Purple is too royal a color, orange too modern. Perhaps I should have gone with yellow/gold, but he would be constantly upstaging Allan. Allan should be the more visible of the two. Green would have been a good color for Stephen, but it would fade into the greenery too well. Bright red was too attention-getting, so I went with a dull rust red, although he could afford better. He seems like a person who would be happy to fade into the background.

There should be an extraordinary amount of trim, embroidery, and buttons on this, but that takes too much time to draw for every page. I settled for adding more lace and ruffles.