Illustrations of the day (water colours)/ Ilustracije dana (akvarel)

Hello dear readers! Today I'll share some quotes from the Odyssey  and some watercolour illustrations. 

Watercolour mix (old and new) 

Post update: I added links with more of my newer watercolour works. 

More posts with illustrations made with watercolour pencils: 

1) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2026/07/yellow-sundress-fashion-illustration.html

2) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2019/07/fashion-illustration-friday-red-summer.html

3) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2026/07/stari-grad-travel-with-my-art-53.html

4) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2019/07/fashion-illustration-art-friday-new.html

5) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2020/07/fashion-illustration-friday-green-dress.html

6) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2022/02/fashion-illustration-friday.html

7) modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2022/01/a-portrait-of-woman-with-long-dark-hair.html

8) modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2020/02/fashion-illustration-friday-lady-in.html

9) modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2023/03/friday-fashion-illustration-two.html

10) modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2020/08/fashion-friday-illustration-and-art.html

11) modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2021/04/a-stylized-mini-portrait-sketch.html

12) modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2021/01/a-watercolour-sketch-portrait-inspired.html

13) modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2021/04/fashion-illustration-friday-spring-in.html

14 ) modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2020/07/fashion-illustration-friday-lbd-and.html

15) modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2020/07/fashion-illustration-of-navy-blue-dress.html

16) modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2024/09/fashion-illustration-friday-watercolour.html

17) modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2022/02/fashion-illustration-tuesday-elisabetta.html

18) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2026/07/fashion-illustration-blidinje-nature.html

So here Ulysses slept, overcome by sleep and toil; but Minerva went off to the country and city of the Phaeacians—a people who used to live in the fair town of Hypereia, near the lawless Cyclopes. Now the Cyclopes were stronger than they and plundered them, so their king Nausithous moved them thence and settled them in Scheria, far from all other people. He surrounded the city with a wall, built houses and temples, and divided the lands among his people; but he was dead and gone to the house of Hades, and King Alcinous, whose counsels were inspired of heaven, was now reigning. To his house, then, did Minerva hie in furtherance of the return of Ulysses.

She went straight to the beautifully decorated bedroom in which there slept a girl who was as lovely as a goddess, Nausicaa, daughter to King Alcinous. Two maid servants were sleeping near her, both very pretty, one on either side of the doorway, which was closed with well made folding doors. Minerva took the form of the famous sea captain Dymas’s daughter, who was a bosom friend of Nausicaa and just her own age; then, coming up to the girl’s bedside like a breath of wind, she hovered over her head and said:

“Nausicaa, what can your mother have been about, to have such a lazy daughter? Here are your clothes all lying in disorder, yet you are going to be married almost immediately, and should not only be well dressed yourself, but should find good clothes for those who attend you. This is the way to get yourself a good name, and to make your father and mother proud of you. Suppose, then, that we make tomorrow a washing day, and start at daybreak. I will come and help you so that you may have everything ready as soon as possible, for all the best young men among your own people are courting you, and you are not going to remain a maid much longer. Ask your father, therefore, to have a waggon and mules ready for us at daybreak, to take the rugs, robes, and girdles, and you can ride, too, which will be much pleasanter for you than walking, for the washing-cisterns are some way from the town.”

When she had said this Minerva went away to Olympus, which they say is the everlasting home of the gods. Here no wind beats roughly, and neither rain nor snow can fall; but it abides in everlasting sunshine and in a great peacefulness of light, wherein the blessed gods are illumined for ever and ever. This was the place to which the goddess went when she had given instructions to the girl.

By and by morning came and woke Nausicaa, who began wondering about her dream; she therefore went to the other end of the house to tell her father and mother all about it, and found them in their own room. Her mother was sitting by the fireside spinning her purple yarn with her maids around her, and she happened to catch her father just as he was going out to attend a meeting of the town council, which the Phaeacian aldermen had convened. She stopped him and said:

“Papa dear, could you manage to let me have a good big waggon? I want to take all our dirty clothes to the river and wash them. You are the chief man here, so it is only right that you should have a clean shirt when you attend meetings of the council. Moreover, you have five sons at home, two of them married, while the other three are good looking bachelors; you know they always like to have clean linen when they go to a dance, and I have been thinking about all this.”*

*quoted from: The Odyssey 

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1727/pg1727-images.html

Love has a logic of its own (watercolour sketch) 

Watercolour sketch (blue coat, red dress) 

".....She did not say a word about her own wedding, for she did not like to, but her father knew and said, “You shall have the mules, my love, and whatever else you have a mind for. Be off with you, and the men shall get you a good strong waggon with a body to it that will hold all your clothes.”

On this he gave his orders to the servants, who got the waggon out, harnessed the mules, and put them to, while the girl brought the clothes down from the linen room and placed them on the waggon. Her mother prepared her a basket of provisions with all sorts of good things, and a goat skin full of wine; the girl now got into the waggon, and her mother gave her also a golden cruse of oil, that she and her women might anoint themselves. Then she took the whip and reins and lashed the mules on, whereon they set off, and their hoofs clattered on the road. They pulled without flagging, and carried not only Nausicaa and her wash of clothes, but the maids also who were with her.

When they reached the water side they went to the washing cisterns, through which there ran at all times enough pure water to wash any quantity of linen, no matter how dirty. Here they unharnessed the mules and turned them out to feed on the sweet juicy herbage that grew by the water side. They took the clothes out of the waggon, put them in the water, and vied with one another in treading them in the pits to get the dirt out. After they had washed them and got them quite clean, they laid them out by the sea side, where the waves had raised a high beach of shingle, and set about washing themselves and anointing themselves with olive oil. Then they got their dinner by the side of the stream, and waited for the sun to finish drying the clothes. When they had done dinner they threw off the veils that covered their heads and began to play at ball, while Nausicaa sang for them. As the huntress Diana goes forth upon the mountains of Taygetus or Erymanthus to hunt wild boars or deer, and the wood nymphs, daughters of Aegis-bearing Jove, take their sport along with her (then is Leto proud at seeing her daughter stand a full head taller than the others, and eclipse the loveliest amid a whole bevy of beauties), even so did the girl outshine her handmaids.

When it was time for them to start home, and they were folding the clothes and putting them into the waggon, Minerva began to consider how Ulysses should wake up and see the handsome girl who was to conduct him to the city of the Phaeacians. The girl, therefore, threw a ball at one of the maids, which missed her and fell into deep water. On this they all shouted, and the noise they made woke Ulysses, who sat up in his bed of leaves and began to wonder what it might all be.

“Alas,” said he to himself, “what kind of people have I come amongst? Are they cruel, savage, and uncivilised, or hospitable and humane? I seem to hear the voices of young women, and they sound like those of the nymphs that haunt mountain tops, or springs of rivers and meadows of green grass. At any rate I am among a race of men and women. Let me try if I cannot manage to get a look at them.”

As he said this he crept from under his bush, and broke off a bough covered with thick leaves to hide his nakedness. He looked like some lion of the wilderness that stalks about exulting in his strength and defying both wind and rain; his eyes glare as he prowls in quest of oxen, sheep, or deer, for he is famished, and will dare break even into a well fenced homestead, trying to get at the sheep—even such did Ulysses seem to the young women, as he drew near to them all naked as he was, for he was in great want. On seeing one so unkempt and so begrimed with salt water, the others scampered off along the spits that jutted out into the sea, but the daughter of Alcinous stood firm, for Minerva put courage into her heart and took away all fear from her. She stood right in front of Ulysses, and he doubted whether he should go up to her, throw himself at her feet, and embrace her knees as a suppliant, or stay where he was and entreat her to give him some clothes and show him the way to the town. In the end he deemed it best to entreat her from a distance in case the girl should take offence at his coming near enough to clasp her knees, so he addressed her in honeyed and persuasive language."

quoted from: 

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1727/pg1727-images.html

en plein air watercolour 

More of my fashion illustrations starting with a recent one: 

See more here!

If you happen to like fashion illustration, there is a lot of it on my blog. You can sort of follow my journey as an artist on my blog. Here are some fashion illustration links ( I have more than a 200 published posts on my blog, and most of them feature more than one illustration so the number is probably close to 1000) :

1) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2015/08/illustration-of-day-ilustracija-dana_17.html

2) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2023/03/friday-fashion-illustration-two.html

3)https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2015/05/illustration-of-day-ilustracija-dana.html

4) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2023/04/friday-fashion-illustration-blue-maxi.html

5) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2020/08/friday-fashion-illustration-digital-art.html

6) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2014/01/fashion-illustration-blue-and-red-modna.html

7) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2017/02/fashion-illustration-of-day-modna.html

8) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2022/02/fashion-illustration-friday-casablanca.html

9) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2018/01/fashion-illustration-of-day-red-hair.html

10) https://modaodaradosti.blogspot.com/2020/08/fashion-illustration-friday-blue-bob.html

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