This month, I am co-hosting with Este MacLeod for one of her #coloricombo challenges.

We are focusing on VASES and VESSELS.

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For the second prompt of September,we are sharing a ceramic vase that is on display as part of the collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The piece has the initials of Adrianus Kocx, who once owned a famous pottery called De Grieksche A in the Dutch city of Delft.

Established by Wouter van Eenhoorn in 1658, De Grieksche A (The Greek A) was one of many potteries based in Delft, know for their production of a distinctive type of tin-glazed earthenware. It became commonly known as Delftware or Delft Blue … with cobalt oxide used to achieve the iconic blue patterns. The inspiration for these Delftware vases and containers came mostly from Chinese porcelain created in the Kangxi period. 

De Grieksche A pottery had a long and successful existence, with ownership being passed down from its founder Wouter through the family first to Samuel van Eenhoorn, his son, who received the business as a wedding gift.

When Samuel died in 1685, ownership passed to his widow, Cecilia Houwaerdt before she sold it to her brother-in-law, Adrianus Kocx. It was during Kocx’s ownership between 1687 and 1701 (just before he gave the business to his son) that this piece was made.

During this time, the VOC (the famous Dutch East India Company) started to import Chinese porcelain. The combination of blue on white and the symbolism of motifs such as dragons, exotic florals like lotus flowers and chrysanthemum, alongside butterflies and animals were soon reflected in work produced by the pottery, known as Chinoiserie.

Although the popularity of Delftware declined in the late 18th century as porcelain became more widely available, works produced by De Grieksche Aremain highly prized by collectors and museums today.

Color Combination

The colours for this weeks prompt are Powder Blue, Cobalt Blue, Cornflower Blue & Light Grey. Use the #coloricombocolours 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.

We love to see what you do with the coloricombo colours. If you’d like to share your work, please tag *colorivase #coloricombo 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!!!

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Quote of the week:

“I think fearless is having fears but jumping. ”

—Taylor Swift

Inspirational Artist of the Week: Henri Rousseau

Born May 21, 1844, in Laval, France, Henri Rousseau attended the lycée there until 1860. While working for a lawyer in 1863, Rousseau was charged with petty larceny and joined the army to avoid scandal. He never saw combat and did not travel outside France, but his colleagues’ adventures in Mexico inspired him to create legends of his own foreign journeys. Upon his father’s death in 1868, Rousseau left the army. The following year he entered the Paris municipal toll-collecting service as a second-class clerk; he was never promoted although he has traditionally been called “Le Douanier” (customs officer). In 1884 Rousseau obtained a permit to sketch in the national museums. He sent two paintings to the Salon des Champs-Elysées in 1885, and from 1886 until his death, he exhibited annually at the Salon des Indépendants.

By 1893 Rousseau retired from the toll service on a small pension and began to paint full-time. The same year the artist met the writer Alfred Jarry, who encouraged him and introduced him into literary circles. In 1899 he wrote a five-act play entitled La Vengeance d’une orpheline russe. A waltz he composed, “Clémence,” was published in 1904. Rousseau became friendly with ​Robert Delaunay​ by 1906. In 1908 he began to hold musical and family evenings in his studio. Late that year Picasso arranged a banquet in honor of Rousseau, which was attended by Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, and Marie Laurencin, among others.

By 1909 Rousseau’s paintings were acquired by the dealers Ambroise Vollard and Joseph Brummer. His first solo show was arranged in 1909 by Wilhelm Uhde and took place in a furniture shop in the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. Rousseau died on September 2, 1910, in Paris. The same year an exhibition of his work in the collection of Max Weber took place at Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery “291” in New York. He was given a retrospective at the Salon des Indépendants in 1911.

Handlettering Inspiration of the Week: Walter David Jones

Walter David Jones ​CH​ (1 November 1895 – 28 October 1974) was a British painter and ​modernist​ poet. As a painter he worked mainly in watercolour on portraits and animal, landscape, legendary and religious subjects. He was also a wood-engraver and inscription painter. In 1965, ​Kenneth Clark​ took him to be the best living British painter, while both ​T. S. Eliot​ and ​W. H. Auden​ put his poetry among the best written in their century.Jones’s work gains form from his Christian faith and Welsh heritage.

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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!!!

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Quote of the week:

“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.”

—Frank Zappa

Inspirational Artist of the Week: Sonia Delaunay

Who was Sonia Delaunay? She was an avant-garde artist, a pioneering textile-designer, a woman whose influence extended to some of the biggest names in 20th-century art (to name but a couple: Chagall and Klee).

However, Delaunay wasn’t just an artist or a woman with a vision: she was a veritable whirlwind of boundary-breaking artistic expression and design. As early as 1912, Delaunay was already dabbling in abstraction – before even Malevich, Mondrian or Miro.

Her particular theoretical approach to abstraction was not lauded in her time. It was rejected in favour of less lyrical geometricity and a more rigorous process. The ‘abstraction ‘ element was present in the artistic work at the time – but the ‘expressionism’ that implied an intuitive process was lacking. She aimed to marry the worlds of order and architecture with the fluidity and freedom of tone and form – which Jacques Damase characterised as the ‘rational in the irrational.’

Hand lettering inspiration of the Week: Jean- Michel Basquiat

Basquiat first achieved notoriety in the late 1970s as part of the ​graffiti​ duo ​SAMO​, alongside ​Al Diaz​, writing enigmatic ​epigrams​ all over ​Manhattan​, particularly in the cultural hotbed of the ​Lower East Side​ where ​rap​, ​punk​, and ​street art​coalesced into early ​hip-hop​ culture. By the early 1980s, his paintings were being exhibited in galleries and museums internationally. At 21, Basquiat became the youngest artist to ever take part in ​Documenta​in ​Kassel​, Germany. At 22, he became one of the youngest to exhibit at the ​Whitney Biennial​in New York. The ​Whitney Museum of American Art​ held a retrospective of his artwork in 1992.

Basquiat’s art focused on dichotomies such as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, and inner versus outer experience. He ​appropriated​ poetry, drawing, and painting, and married text and image, ​abstraction​, ​figuration​, and historical information mixed with contemporary critique. He used ​social commentary​ in his paintings as a tool for introspection and for identifying with his experiences in the black community, as well as attacks on ​power structures​ and systems of racism.

Since his death ​at the age of 27​ in 1988, Basquiat’s work has steadily increased in value. In 2017, ​Untitled​, a 1982 painting depicting a black skull with red and yellow rivulets, sold for a record-breaking $110.5 million, becoming one of the ​most expensive paintings​ ever purchased.

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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!!!

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Quote of the week:

“What makes you different or weird- that’s your strength.”

-Meryl Streep

Inspirational Artist of the Week: Frida Kahlo

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón(Spanish pronunciation: ​[ˈfɾiða ˈkalo]​; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, ​self-portraits​, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by ​the country’s popular culture​, she employed a ​naïve​ ​folk art​ style to explore questions of identity, ​postcolonialism​, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary ​Mexicayotl​ movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a ​surrealist​ or ​magical realist​. She is also known for painting about her experience of ​chronic pain​.

Hand Lettering inspiration of the Week: Ben Shahn

• Prior to World War II, Shahn was a lead practitioner of what has come to be called Social Realism. Such art works are narrative, figurative, and illustrative of the poor, oppressed, or those who live at the margins of society. The guiding spirit of Social Realism is a commitment to humanism.
• Ben Shahn brought together different forms of visual culture to break down the barrier between mass media and fine art. In opposition to what Shahn called “the rules for pure art,” the artist consistently inserted words, texts, and quotations into his artwork to emphasize the didactic nature of his art.
• Because of Shahn’s apprenticeship and friendship with ​Diego Rivera​, ​Frida Kahlo​, and other prominent artists, he upheld the supremacy and universality of art over the false boundaries of nation states. Through his work with Rivera, Shahn serves as a conduit between the United States and the arts of Mexico which were all the rage in the 1920s and 1930s, but fell out of favor until its revival in the 1980s.
• Despite his rise in fame and prestige, Shahn remained committed to his audience and subject matter. Shahn never spoke down to the American people, rather he stood amongst the crowd and fought the same fights as they did.

The idea for this conference came from hosting many creative retreats at Richwood on the River….a magical property. 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 are offering a Buy one/Get one for 20% off until August 30th. We hope that you will come with a friend to share this magical experience together!!!

All the details can be found here!

And you can go straight to ordering your tickets here!

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!!!

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Quote of the week:

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Inspirational Artist of the week: Vanessa Bell

Vanessa Bell (née Stephen) was the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen and Julia Prinsep Duckworth, and the elder sister of famous modernist author Virginia Woolf. From an early age Vanessa’s calm, sweet disposition was overshadowed by the tempestuous Virginia. An amazing talent in her own right, Vanessa has gained notoriety as an artist and interior decorator whose influence can still be felt in the world of decorative arts. Additionally, Vanessa served as an important source of comfort and inspiration to many of her more illustrious peers.

Incredibly close to her younger siblings (Virginia, Thoby, and Adrian) Vanessa sold the family home in Westminster, London shortly after their father’s death, and moved the family to Gordon Square in Bloomsbury. It is here that they met and began socializing with artists, writers, and intellectuals. The individuals who would form the Bloomsbury Group.

Hand lettering inspiration of the week:

Antique script penmanship book pages…let’s recapture a skill of the past!!!