One of my favourite bloggy link-ups is the Style imitating art challenge with Jen,Salazar and Jess. I like it because I learn a bit each time I join in- I'm not very knowledgeable about art but I really enjoy it, so it enlightens me each time. Plus it makes me look at the picture a bit closer- helps me notice common features between paintings and it's a bit like creating a collage- trying to match up my wardrobe to what is in the picture. That said, I've dutifully sent my pictures to the girls every fortnight (except this week! Epic fail) but failed to put them into a blog post each time. So here are 6 weeks worth of paintings and attempted outfit styling!
Jess chose Bonfire, by Andrew Wyeth. I loved the smoke in this one, the contrast between the dark, murky background and the fruits and circle of light coming from the middle.
As you can probably see, I chose to represent the dark background in my top and cardie and represent the autumnal fruits and the circle of light in my skirt and the blue silk scarf, with its light floaty fabric represented the smoke.
The next one was “Tamarack Swamp, Algoma”, by Canadian artist Lawren Harris. I adored the mixture of colours, pattern, foreground and background- I'd like to have this on my wall.
I really liked this one but struggled with what to do with it. I then chose to interpret the green, purply hill as my starting point with this through this maxi-skirt which I chose the material for and had made in Bali- you can't see it has little purple splodges on it. I then carried this green into my hat and added the mustard hairband as contrast. The sky was represented through this stripy top and the shoes (recently reheeled! Grrr, it cost as much as the shoes originally cost!) to show those furry beigy ferny things (I have such a way with vocabulary ya?) It's not the most er- well put together of outfits, but never mind- it was comfy!
Finally, my favourite was “Spring Rain” of Art Deco artist Erté. I really liked this one and there was LOADS I could have done with it- trousers in this stripe and shade, polka dot trousers, ruffle blouses and more.
Instead, I chose to wear this blue dress which has a large scale circular pattern to show the umbrella and added this little felt brooch made by my friend Liz which is exactly like the umbrella! The necklace (from my Nan) was a further extenion of this. Polka dots represented through a hairband; the yellow hair of the lady was nodded to by the belt and the wonderfully ruffly neck of the lady was created through the lace-edged cardigan, white patterned brogues, material flower earrings and of course my wonderful ruffly white umbrella! Navy background is seen in the leggings.
How would you have interpreted these?
Speaking of umbrellas- I'm in a pretty desperate and sad situation on that front (well, sad and desperate in comparison to my previous status- which was very lucky. Not sad and desperate in the sense of all things sad and desperate). I luckily owned four GOOD, expensive umbrellas- 2 of which were gifts (one the above), a black ruffly one (pictured in that link with best charity shop purchase ever!), a polka dot Cath Kidston Kensington umbrella (pictured here, where I'm doing the Singing in the rain jump) and a floral birdcage Cath Kidston umbrella (CBC is holding it in this post). Well, back in November, I noticed that the black and polka dot umbrellas were missing. I have NO idea where they went! Did we leave them at one of the two weddings we went to? Not even sure if we took them? But they've definitely gone which is absolutely infuriating! So then I was left with the white one and the Cath floral one. BUT, about a month ago, I accidentally left the Cath one on a train! I realised as soon as I'd got to the top of the stairs and phoned Lost Property and all that but some ROTTER took my lovely umbrella and now I'm down to the white one. I don't want to use this on a daily basis as I don't want it to get all grubby and minging! Where are my umbrellas?!!?!?!
Hope you are all well. xx