The Maids Pillow-fight

This is from a postcard that I found post marked 1909. A scene from a play of those times called “The Dairymaids by Robert MacDonald”. I saw this and thought immediately what a great painting it would make. It is on a canvas 2’6″ by 4″. I started with as accurate a drawing of the architecture as i could do and then added in the figures.

I have learned that postcards were made of many of the music hall acts souvenirs that they could post to friends and relatives. From the glamourous actresses to funny comedians. Someone who cared about someone else would send a glamorous actress postcard to cheer them up. And of course when the 1st world war started it must have become and extra special thing to send to a friend. And people saved them, hence you can find thousands of all kinds of postcard for sale nowadays and its hard to throw them away now because of their history. Then there’s always the messages to read on the back, this one says Dear J – Shall be down by the train leaves here 10.30 gets to Ashford 11.30. I think Tom is coming with me. From Bill.

I’ve tried to find more information about the Dairymaids musical theatre but could not find anything.

I will now have to start painting using oil. I want something more colourful fauvist than is on the post card although I can see that it depicts a very posh mansion with gold fittings and a beautiful red stair carpet. The maids are attacking a sailor and another maid at the bottom of the stairs, it’s going to be super fun to paint.

24 Dec, 2020. I have begun to add the kind of colour I wanted to use. I put red, yellow, blue on my pallet but only used red and blue and exchanged the yellow for Naples yellow and lightened brown and it seems to work.

12.01. 2021 Studying this old postcard of a Music Hall show I can see how well posed the women are, it’s quite an amazing work in itself and I have much to learn from it.