About the March Challenge

This is the sixth prompt for #coloritree, part of the ongoing #coloricombo 2023 challenge. There will be ten posts in total, all linked to artworks featuring trees by female artists from the past. These will be released on Monday and Thursday until the end of March. Use the colour prompts along with optional dark and neutral light colours to create something in your own way, regardless of media or theme.

---

Today it’s over to the island of Ireland for the sixth artist to be featured in #coloritree, Norah McGuinness.

McGuinness (1901-1980) was an Irish artist known for her colourful and lively works in a variety of mediums, including painting, printmaking, and tapestry. She was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, and began her artistic career in 1921 at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art where she studied under Patrick Tuohy, Oswald Reeves and Harry Clarke. Her first freelance work was as an illustrator, which remained an important source of income throughout her life.

From Dublin, McGuinness moved to London to study at the Chelsea Polytechnic where she began exhibiting her work in group shows. Her time in London exposed her to the work of modernist artists who greatly influenced her own artistic style. After working as a set designer in Dublin’s theatres, McGuinness moved to Paris in 1929 where she worked with André Lhôte (who I mentioned previously in connection with Dorrit Black) for nearly two years and was influenced by the work of Braque, Lurçat, Dufy and Vlaminck.

In the 1930s, McGuinness became involved in the British art world and joined the influential London Group, which included artists such as Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. She also began working as a freelance designer, creating book covers and illustrations for publishers such as Faber & Faber and the Hogarth Press. In 1937 McGuinness returned once more to Ireland where she was involved in the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, taking over it’s presidency in 1944 (a position she held for almost thirty years).

She represented Ireland in the 1950 Venice Biennale (the first year that Ireland had taken part) and her work was exhibited in numerous solo and group shows, including a retrospective at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2002.

McGuinness’s work is characterized by its bold use of colour, strong geometric shapes, and playful compositions. She executed vivid, highly coloured, flattened landscape paintings, still lifes and portraits in a spontaneous style showing both Fauvist and the Cubist influences of Lhôte.

---

Colour Combination

The colours for this weeks prompt are Fandango Pink, Duck Egg, Warm Brown, Straw and Cobalt Blue.

For this March Challenge, please add the tag #coloritree along with the usual #coloricombo and @estemacleod and @lorisiebert.studio when posting on Instagram. You are also welcome to post on the private Facebook group Creative Prompts with Esté MacLeod.

---

I need to get on making some challenge art now that I’m back from Alt Summit!!

XO

Sorry, I’m a day late on this next prompt. I’m away at the amazing Alt Summit in Palm Springs!!

Here is the next beautiful palette!

---

About the March Challenge

This is the fifth prompt for #coloritree, part of the ongoing #coloricombo 2023 challenge. There will be ten posts in total, all linked to artworks featuring trees by female artists from the past. These will be released on Monday and Thursday until the end of March. Use the colour prompts along with optional dark and neutral light colours to create something in your own way, regardless of media or theme.

---

The fifth artist we are featuring during this March Challenge is another amazing woman from Australia.

Dorrit Black (1891-1951) was a painter and printmaker and is now regarded as one of Australia’s most important modern artists, instrumental in bringing Cubism to the continent from Europe.

Black was born in Adelaide and studied in London and Paris during the 1920s where she worked with some of the leading modern art teachers of the time, such as the British linocut printmaker Claude Flight and the French cubists André Lhote and Albert Gleizes.

On her return she became the first female gallery owner in Australia when her European experiences inspired her to establish the Modern Art Centre in Sydney in 1931.

She returned to Adelaide in 1933 and was an influential artist, both as a teacher and a pioneer of Australian modernism. Unfortunately she never achieved the widespread recognition that she deserved in her lifetime. Black died aged fifty nine when she was involved in a car accident whilst driving her blue Fiat convertible in Norwood, a suburb of Adelaide.

Black’s art is characterised by its bold and dynamic compositions, strong lines, and striking use of colour. She was known for her work in a range of mediums, including painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Black was also an advocate for the recognition of Aboriginal art and culture.

---

Colour Combination

The colours for this weeks prompt are Salmon Mousse, Sand, Warm Sage, Seaweed.

For this March Challenge, please add the tag #coloritree along with the usual #coloricombo and @estemacleod and @lorisiebert.studio when posting on Instagram. You are also welcome to post on the private Facebook group Creative Prompts with Esté MacLeod.

March Challenge

This is the fourth prompt for #coloritree, part of the ongoing #coloricombo 2023 challenge. There will be ten posts in total, all linked to artworks featuring trees by female artists from the past. These will be released on Monday and Thursday until the end of March.

---

“One could pick almost any painting of a doorway or window that Dodd did between 1971 and 1997, a stretch of more than twenty-five years, and quickly discern the following; all of them establish a palpable relationship between subject matter and picture plane”

-John Yau

With the research Este is doing for this March Challenge, a focus on female artists who created paintings featuring trees, she has discovered some wonderful artists that were not known to her before and she is so pleased to have discovered Lois Dodd.

Dodd (b. 1927) is an American artist who’s known for her vibrant paintings of landscapes and still lifes. Born in Montclair, New Jersey, she attended Cooper Union in New York straight after the Second World War. There she studied textile design but she painted throughout and eventually abandoned textiles altogether after graduation. She also attended the Skowhegan School in Maine then later taught at the Brooklyn College and the Skowhegan School.

In 1951, Dodd moved to Italy with the sculptor William King. When they returned to New York, they were involved in the Tanager Gallery. It remained open until 1962 and was the most influential of the cooperative galleries based around Tenth Street, attracting artists like Alex Katz, Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston and Helen Frankenthaler.

Dodd’s paintings are defined by their bold use of colour and composition and they evoke a sense of joy, often due to their simplicity. She depicts everyday scenes including still lives, views from her studio and buildings and windows all whilst working quickly, often sketching a scene before the light changes. Dodd is an observational artist who worked at the time (and place) when both Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art were dominant.

Dodd has exhibited her work in numerous institutions across the United States, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. In 2012, she was the subject of a retrospective entitled Catching the Light. Dodd still paints and lives between houses in New York City and Maine.

---

Colour Combination

The colours for this weeks prompt are Pale Heather, Raisin, Apple Green and Soft Mint.

For this March Challenge, please add the tag #coloritree along with the usual #coloricombo and @estemacleod and @lorisiebert.studio when posting on Instagram. You are also welcome to post on the private Facebook group Creative Prompts with Esté MacLeod.

Four Seasons

A little treat coming up, when #coloritree finishes there will be a mini-course offered in April through Este. Four Seasons is a five day course linked to the topic of trees and will run from 1-5 April with free access during the month of April. More information about this course will be released on 13 March.

We are loving all of your works.

XO

March Challenge

This is the third prompt for #coloritree, part of the ongoing #coloricombo 2023 challenge. There will be ten posts in total, all linked to artworks featuring trees by female artists from the past. These will be released on Monday and Thursday until the end of March.

---

“When I paint, I am happy and I am in another world.”

– Baya Mahieddine

On 8 March it will be International Women’s Day. This day is celebrated around the world and raises awareness of issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights and violence and abuse against women. If you’ve been receiving #coloricombo prompts for a while, you’ve probably noticed that Este likes to feature female artists in her weekly prompts.

All of the March #coloritree prompts are dedicated to women who made contributions as artists and who left their own unique legacies. Throughout history, women have been underrepresented and often dissuaded from making art and on the week of International Women’s Day we want to draw attention to an artist who influenced one of the most celebrated artists of all time whilst she was still a teenager!

Baya Mahieddine, or simply Baya as she styled herself (1931-1998) was an Algerian artist who gained international recognition for her unique style that combined North African, Middle Eastern and European influences.

Born in Bordj El Kiffan, Algiers, Baya lost her parents at the age of five and was raised by her grandmother on a French-colonial farm. She didn’t attend school and at age eleven started working there as a servant to the farm owner’s sister, Marguerite Camina, later described as Maya’s adoptive mother.

Camina was a painter with a personal collection including works by Braque and Matisse, who recognised Baya’s self-taught talents. She showed Baya’s work to a gallery owner friend who arranged a solo exhibition in Paris in 1947 when Baya was only sixteen. This was attended by numerous famous artists of the day, including Picasso and she became an overnight sensation with both artists and critics praising her primitive style.

Baya’s work features vibrant colours and bold shapes inspired by her personal experiences and motifs drawn from Kabyle arts. She often depicted women (men are never shown), animals and trees and her work was celebrated for its originality and authenticity.

In 1948, Baya was invited to become artist-in-residence at the Madoura pottery studio the south of France, where she was based until 1952 working her summers alongside Picasso who would later cite her as an inspirations for his Women of Algiers series.

In 1952 Baya returned to Algiers, married and raised six children over the period that Algeria was seeking independence from France. It would be 1963 before she resumed painting, living for the rest of her life between Algeria and France.

---

Colour Combination

The colours for this weeks prompt are Tangelo Orange, Soft Lavender, Pastel Matcha, Acqua and Han Blue.

For this March Challenge, please add the tag #coloritree along with the usual #coloricomboand #estemacleod and @lorisiebert.studio when posting on Instagram. You are also welcome to post on the private Facebook group Creative Prompts with Esté MacLeod.

You all created such beautiful heart art during this Feb. challenge co-hosted with my friends:

Mary Ann Johnson

Kelli May Krenz

Vanessa Johanning

We LOVED seeing all of your creativity!!!

(I was bummed not to join in more. I’ve had a very busy travel schedule lately!)

Here are the judges selections!!

---

Robert Mahar picks:

Lorrie Veasey

---

Laura Socinski

---

Rosanna Dell

---

Uta Krogmann

---

Kate Dittman (Hallmark) picks:

Laura Socinski

---

Printware Studios

---

Uta Krogmann

---

 Cindy Winter (Paper Crown) picks:

Suzan Baldoumas

---

Laura Socinski

---

Shannon Christensen

---

Kelly Henderson

Here is the second prompt for the Instagram challenge that I am currently co-hosting with Este MacLeod.

Have you checked out the gorgeous art already posted at #coloritree?? Beautiful work!!

---

“It has been said that modern art is international but it is important for a great nation to make a cultural stand. My wish is to see a combined attempt by our artists to give us an art that no other country in the world can produce.”

– Margaret Preston

---

The second artist to be featured in this #coloritree March Challenge is Margaret Preston. Preston (1875-1963) was one of Australia’s most significant modernist painters and was known for her paintings and woodcuts of local landscapes and native flora. She was also one of the first non-indigenous Australian artists to use Aboriginal motifs in her work.

Preston was born in Adelaide and moved to Sydney in 1888 for studies under the landscape painter William Lister Lister. These were followed by further education in Melbourne and at the Adelaide School of Design. She travelled to Europe in 1904, studying in Munich and Paris and later travels brought back to France and to London at the outbreak of World War One. There she studied pottery and had work exhibited at the Royal Academy.

On her voyage home in 1918, Preston met her husband who had served in the Australian Imperial Force. They settled in Sydney where she worked on still lifes in a modernist style and began working in woodcut. She established herself as the most prominent Australian woman artist of the 1920s and 1930s.

Preston continued to travel extensively, throughout the Pacific, Asia, India and Africa and had a keen interest in non-European art and culture. She was particularly interested in exploring the relationship between colour, shape, and texture in her art and featured uniquely Australian subjects, such as native flora and fauna or scenes from domestic settings.

Throughout her career, Preston was a strong advocate for the promotion of Australian art and culture. She was a member of several art societies and wrote extensively on Australian art and its place in the world.

“Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden”, Colour stencil, gouache on card, Margaret Preston, 1950

---

Colour Combination

The colours for this weeks prompt are Blue Skies, Eucalyptus, Dough and Pewter Blue.

For this March Challenge, please add the tag #coloritree along with the usual #coloricombo and #estemacleod and tag @lorisiebert.studio when posting on Instagram. You are also welcome to post on the private Facebook group Creative Prompts with Esté MacLeod.

March Challenge

This is the second prompt for #coloritree, part of the ongoing #coloricombo 2023 challenge. There will be ten posts in total, all linked to artworks featuring trees by female artists from the past. These will be released on Monday and Thursday until the end of March.

Introduction

Spring is coming, and so is a special #coloricombo colour month-long challenge.

I’m co-hosting #coloritree together with fellow colour lover Este MacLeod https://instagram.com/estemacleod?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= over the coming five weeks until the end of March when there will also be a BONUS treat.

Este and I both have an enduring love of trees and will be sharing colour prompts inspired by artworks of trees for #coloritree. The artworks are created by female artists of the past, each prompt will have a selection of colours picked from a specific artwork.

This is how it works: ten colour prompts have now been complied, to be shared every Monday and Thursday during March, along with information about the female artists who made the artwork Este sourced the colours from.

To keep with the rhythm of the regular Monday #coloricombo prompts it will start a bit early, with the first prompt sent out on 27 February.

The BONUS

Este would also like to invite you to join Four Seasons. This is a brand new, mini five day course with trees as topic, with FREE access during the month of April!

Registration will open in the coming week, information to be sent out to subscribers on her mailing list.

The Podcast

Also, Este recorded the first episode of Art Sparks, a podcast she has been meaning to do for the last four years or so!

The podcast is about colour, creativity and all kinds of topics linked to art and in this first episode she talks about #coloricombo. https://courses.estemacleod.com/podcasts/art-spark…

I hope that you will join us and also help us to spread the word!! Cannot wait to see what you create!!

XO

Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky.

– Kahlil Gibran

A million thank yous to everyone who created and supported the #wordsofcomfortandhope art journey.

This was a challenging project for so many reasons. The messages, memories and meaningful pieces created were beyond expectation. What a special and loving community this is!

It has been so moving to learn more about your loved ones who have passed and the tools you used to adapt when faced with grief. The power of art as a healer continues to be proven as an outlet to move through the toughest challenges.

Thanks to my co-host: Jo Turner

And a BIG THANKS to our judge Susan January of @leanintreecards!

She had a hard time picking pieces, as each was so poignant for different reasons. Leanin’ Tree plans to publish these designs in their Everyday Card Catalog for January 2024.

*If you see your name and you have not been contacted in a DM on IG…please let us know*

---

Those selected are:​

Tracey Coon, Noonday Design

---

Christine Anderson

---

Lots of love and gratitude,​

​