We LOVE research and learning as a way to get inspired and boost ideas and creativity!! So, Kenzie and I are going to be sharing the inspiration that we collect here in our second newsletter…. once a week!!!

Here’s how it works:

We provide the inspiration. You interpret it however you wish… any medium, any size. It is meant to inspire lettering and floral art combined together. But, you can:

• Just do the florals, just do the lettering, or combine them together.
• Use the provided quote for your piece or select your own.
• Use colors from one of the inspiration images or select your own favorites
• Create the floral art… as a still life in a vase, a single flower, a border, a pattern, a bouquet

Hope you will create with us and post your work at #wordsandwildflowers2024 and tag @lorisiebert.studio and @snippetsofwhimsy

We will be checking and sharing some of our favorites. AND… there may be surprise guest judges and PRIZES!!!

Quote of the week:

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” 

— Mother Teresa

Inspirational Artist of the week: Leo Visser

Leo Visser (1880–1950) was a Dutch artist who created a number of calendars in addition to other decorative designs featuring plants and animals. Some of these examples the earliest, combining both flora and the fauna in a series of attractive Art Nouveau plates. You don’t see monkeys very often in Art Nouveau designs, for some reason they were more popular during the Art Deco period.

Hand lettering artist of the week: Maria Strick

Maria Strick (née Becq; 1577–after 1631) was a Dutch schoolmistress and calligrapher. She published four writing manuals, making her a key figure in the so-called ‘golden age of Dutch calligraphy’ (c. 1590-1650) and virtually unique among women calligraphers until the twentieth century.

Maria Strick probably learned calligraphy from Jan van de Velde the Elder, one of the teachers working at her father’s school. It was to him that Strick dedicated her first writing manual, Tooneel der loflijkcke schrijfpen, which was published around 1607. Strick’s elegant handwriting was skilfully executed in copper print by her husband, who had devoted himself to the art of engraving.

Maria Strick was highly esteemed during her life, being awarded the second prize in the prestigious Plume du couronnée writing contest, held in The Hague in 1620. In particular, her skills in the Italian hand were unequalled. Apart from the four known writing manuals, which established her reputation, she made calligraphic captions for art prints, and several handwritten specimens have survived.

We LOVE research and learning as a way to get inspired and boost ideas and creativity!! So, Kenzie and I are going to be sharing the inspiration that we collect here in our second newsletter…. once a week!!!

Here’s how it works:

We provide the inspiration. You interpret it however you wish… any medium, any size. It is meant to inspire lettering and floral art combined together. But, you can:

• Just do the florals, just do the lettering, or combine them together.
• Use the provided quote for your piece or select your own.
• Use colors from one of the inspiration images or select your own favorites
• Create the floral art… as a still life in a vase, a single flower, a border, a pattern, a bouquet

Hope you will create with us and post your work at #wordsandwildflowers2024 and tag @lorisiebert.studio and @snippetsofwhimsy

We will be checking and sharing some of our favorites. AND… there may be surprise guest judges and PRIZES!!!

Quote of the week:

“The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.” 

— Henry Ward Beecher

Inspirational Artist of the Week: Vintage Packaging

Hand Lettering Inspiration of the week: Edward Bawden

Edward Bawden, (10 March 1903 – 21 November 1989) was an English painter, illustrator and graphic artist, known for his prints, book covers, posters, and garden metalwork furniture. Bawden taught at the Royal College of Art, where he had been a student, worked as a commercial artist and served as a war artist in World War II. He was a fine watercolour painter but worked in many different media. He illustrated several books and painted murals in both the 1930s and 1960s. He was admired by Edward Gorey, David Gentleman and other graphic artists, and his work and career is often associated with that of his contemporary Eric Ravilious.

This week Este chose to use a beautiful illustration by the Portuguese artist Maria Keil who, alongside painting and illustration, was especially recognised for her tile work. In fact, if you’ve ever travelled on the Lisbon Metro, it’s likely that you’ve walked past one or more of Keil’s azulejos panels.

Keil (1914-2012) was born in Silves, Portugal and studied briefly at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts before dropping out due to her dissatisfaction with the course. She married the architect Francisco Keil do Amaral and joined the Technical Advertising Studio where she worked alongside a number of other artists, the majority identifying as Modernists.

The Portuguese had been a dictatorship since the mid-1920s and Modernism’s ethos of rejecting the past was embraced by the authorities. After the establishment of the Estado Novo (the New State, which was in existence until 1974) they funded numerous public art commissions.

Keil collaborated with her husband, who was the metro system architect, and created vibrant azulejos for Lisbon’s stations from the 1950s through to the 1970s. Her designs helped to transform numerous public spaces in the city and continue to be admired today.

Aside from her tile work, Keil was a prolific illustrator mainly of children’s books, and a painter. In a career spanning over six decades she received a multitude of honours. The Museum of the Presidency of the Republic organised a retrospective exhibition covering her work in 2013 and the Biblioteca Maria Keil in Lisbon was named for her.

Colour Combination

The colours for this week’s prompt are Deep Orange, Eau de Nil, Thunder Cloud & Mud. Use the #coloricombo colours along with any neutral light and dark colour to create an artwork in any medium and style. 

September’s theme is “Vase”. You can use this as topic and create in any way as you wish, using the week’s colours in any medium and style.

I love to see what you do with the coloricombo colours. If you’d like to share your work, please tag #coloricombo #colorivase and #estemacleod and @lorisiebert.studio on social media.

We LOVE research and learning as a way to get inspired and boost ideas and creativity!! So, Kenzie and I are going to be sharing the inspiration that we collect here in our second newsletter…. once a week!!!

Here’s how it works:

We provide the inspiration. You interpret it however you wish… any medium, any size. It is meant to inspire lettering and floral art combined together. But, you can:

• Just do the florals, just do the lettering, or combine them together.
• Use the provided quote for your piece or select your own.
• Use colors from one of the inspiration images or select your own favorites
• Create the floral art… as a still life in a vase, a single flower, a border, a pattern, a bouquet

Hope you will create with us and post your work at #wordsandwildflowers2024 and tag @lorisiebert.studio and @snippetsofwhimsy

We will be checking and sharing some of our favorites. AND… there may be surprise guest judges and PRIZES!!!

Quote of the week:

“Nourish what makes you feel confident, connected, contented. Opportunity will rise to meet you.” 

— Oprah Winfrey

Inspirational Artist of the Week: Hilma af Klint

Hilma af Klint 26 October 1862 – 21 October 1944) was a Swedish ​artist​ and ​mystic​ whose paintings are considered among the first ​abstract​ works known in Western art history.A considerable body of her work predates the first purely abstract compositions by ​Kandinsky​, ​Malevich​ and ​Mondrian​. She belonged to a group called “The Five”, comprising a circle of women inspired by ​Theosophy​, who shared a belief in the importance of trying to contact the so-called “High Masters​”—often by way of ​séances​. Her paintings, which sometimes resemble diagrams, were a visual representation of complex spiritual ideas.

Hand Lettering Inspiration of the week:

I LOVED all of the hand lettered signs in Italy. Very fun and inspiring!!!!

Live Courageously: Rebloom Conference

May 5-8, 2025

Come join us next May for an AMAZING gathering!!!

We have an incredible line up of inspiring speakers!!!

The idea for this conference came from hosting many creative retreats at the most beautiful properties. It came from a deep desire to serve and uplift others and encourage them to live their very BEST LIFE. It came from three friends who share a vision for inspiring others. Colleen Sutton… the owner of Richwood… with years’ worth of experience hosting weddings and events. Cara Fox… the owner of Little Golden Fox in Madison… a mover and shaker!! and Lori Siebert… a mixed media artist, teacher, and creative retreats host. Together, we carefully curated a group of presenters who are inspiring, dynamic, FUN, AND KIND!!

We dream of REALLY helping those who attend to go away recharged and ready for exciting new things to unfold!

We LOVE research and learning as a way to get inspired and boost ideas and creativity!! So, Kenzie and I are going to be sharing the inspiration that we collect here in our second newsletter…. once a week!!!

Here’s how it works:

We provide the inspiration. You interpret it however you wish… any medium, any size. It is meant to inspire lettering and floral art combined together. But, you can:

• Just do the florals, just do the lettering, or combine them together.
• Use the provided quote for your piece or select your own.
• Use colors from one of the inspiration images or select your own favorites
• Create the floral art… as a still life in a vase, a single flower, a border, a pattern, a bouquet

Hope you will create with us and post your work at #wordsandwildflowers2024 and tag @lorisiebert.studio and @snippetsofwhimsy

We will be checking and sharing some of our favorites. AND… there may be surprise guest judges and PRIZES!!!

Quote of the week:

“What is done in love is done well.”

-Vincent Van Gogh

Inspirational Artist of the Week: Saul Steinberg

Famed worldwide for giving graphic definition to the postwar age, Saul Steinberg (1914-1999) had one of the most remarkable careers in American art. While renowned for the covers and drawings that appeared in The New Yorker for nearly six decades, he was equally acclaimed for the drawings, paintings, prints, collages, and sculptures he exhibited internationally in galleries and museums.

Steinberg crafted a rich and ever-evolving idiom that found full expression through these parallel yet integrated careers. Such many-leveled art, however, resists conventional critical categories. “I don’t quite belong to the art, cartoon or magazine world, so the art world doesn’t quite know where to place me,” he said. He was a modernist without portfolio, constantly crossing boundaries into uncharted visual territory. In subject matter and styles, he made no distinction between high and low art, which he freely conflated in an oeuvre that is stylistically diverse yet consistent in depth and visual imagination.

Hand Lettering Inspiration of the week: Commercial art lettering catalog by McClellan Chappell from 1912.