The next installment! This is for the hydrangea, or ajisai. They bloom in the rainy season, so are primarily associated with that season.

This takes place in the Meiji Period, right around the same time as Sakura Hime, but in a different caste. She would be a merchant's daughter, most likely, experiencing the radical changes going on around her first hand. She wears the new hairstyle, the Sokuhatsu, which resembled the Gibson Girl hairstyle in vogue in the West at the time. She also has a 'batwing' umbrella from the west, and wears the new Azuma coat (which looks a lot like the modern michiyuki) that is a hybrid of Japanese and Western styles. I imagined that she would be very confused and a little afraid of all of the changes going on in the world she used to understand, and was watching the ajisai as she remembered when she was a girl and everything made sense to her. She got so caught up in her daydreams of visiting the ajisai when she was a girl that she got caught by the rain and became disheveled.

This piece was very nostalgic for me, because it resembled my Tsuyu Musume [link] so much. To be honest, that picture could have really represented the ajisai very well, but I didn't want to use it. I had to think about this one for a while so I could come up with something different, but still had the same feeling. I failed a little, since the pieces are obviously very similar, but I did try.

Hime Series-
Sakura Hime-[link]
Kiku Hime-[link]
Fuji-Hime-[link]
Botan Hime-[link]
Ayame Hime-[link]
Asagao Hime-[link]
Ume Hime- [link]
Tsubaki Hime- [link]

Watercolor Pencils, 11x15.