Words and Wildflowers Creative Prompts – Issue 48
Posted on June 9, 2025
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
Quote of the week…
“We should really love each other in peace and harmony, instead we’re fussing and fighting.”
-Bob Marley
Inspiring artist of the week… Rex Ray
REX RAY (Sept. 11, 1956—Feb. 9, 2015) was an American artist best known for his innovative pop aesthetic in fine and commercial art—on canvases, wood panels, album covers, paper, book jackets, murals, and rock and roll posters. Born in Landstuhl, Germany in 1956, Michael Patterson was raised in Colorado Springs. Before moving to San Francisco in 1981, Patterson, inspired by Andy Warhol, adopted the moniker Rex Ray. He attended the San Francisco Art Institute where he studied with Sam Tchakalian, Kathy Acker, and Angela Davis, and received his BFA in 1989. He became a major force in the Bay Area’s art, literary, and activist communities. Ray was one of the first artists to use Mac-based technologies in the creative process to generate art and graphics. His early designs include: the first graphics for the San Francisco chapter of Act Up; many guerilla marketing flyers and posters for queer nightclubs; and numerous book covers for City Lights Books and HIGH RISK/Serpent’s Tail. His impressive client roster in the music, fashion, entertainment, and design industries, includes David Bowie, The Residents, Bill Graham Presents, DreamWorks, Levis, Neiman Marcus, Sony Music, Warner Brothers, and Apple. Rex Ray designs have been licensed and produced as distinctive imagery on scarves, carpets, ceramics, wristwatches, surfboards, and even on a Mini Cooper. During his lifetime Rex Ray generated a prolific body of painting and works on paper. His technique involved a complicated process that combined Xerography, handmade woodblock prints, newsprint, and magazine images into vibrant color schemes with parabolic forms and abstract patterns. His works reference mid-century modernism, Dada, decorative arts, Fluxus, and Pop Art.
Hand lettering inspiration of the week… Anna Tou
Anna Tou is a classically trained designer, creative leader and strategic marketing thinker with a proven track record in building brands and leading diverse projects across advertising, digital experiences, identity, brand strategy, packaging, marketing promotions, social channels, and more.
Words and Wildflowers Creative Prompts – Issue 43
Posted on May 5, 2025
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
Quote of the week…
“Your heart knows the way, run in that direction.”
-Rumi
Inspirational Artist of the week… Beatriz Milhazes
Beatriz Milhazes (born 1960) is a Brazilian artist. She is known for her work juxtaposing Brazilian cultural imagery and references to western Modernist painting. Milhazes is a Brazilian-born collage artist and painter known for her large-scale works and vibrant colors. She has been called “Brazil’s most successful contemporary painter.”
Beatriz Milhazes’s practice includes painting, drawing and collage. Characterized by vibrant colours, optical movement and energetic visual cadences, her abstract work fuses a diverse repertoire of images and forms, combining elements from her native Brazilian context with European abstraction.
As a painter, Beatriz Milhazes uses a unique transfer technique, first painting on plastic sheets before peeling away the dried shapes and collaging them onto the canvas. When she peels the plastic away, the resulting image is superimposed onto the canvas. For these paintings, as well as her collages, prints, and installations, Milhazes draws on a wide range of aesthetic traditions, including folk and decorative art, European modernism, and Antropofagia, a movement founded in the late 1920s that proposed “cannibalizing” the supposedly high-minded European traditions to create a distinctly Brazilian Culture.
Handlettering inspiration of the week… Stefani Pedruzzi
Italian lettering artist Stefano Pedruzzi was born in Bergamo, and he used the walls of his hometown as canvases for his early artistic experiments.
Beginning with graffiti at 13, he quickly learned valuable lessons in design, proportion, and the importance of manual skill. After earning a degree in Communication Design from the Politecnico di Milano, Stefano continued to explore and experiment with letters, applying his art across a wide range of surfaces and contexts, from hand lettering to the digital world and even skin, with the art of tattooing.
He has recently published a book, Don’t Underestimate the Power of Letters, which is the culmination of his artistic journey. The book serves as an indispensable guide for anyone fascinated by the world of lettering.
Words and Wildflowers Creative Prompts – Issue 42
Posted on April 28, 2025
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
Quote of the week…
You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that.’ – Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
-Roald Dahl
Inspirational artist of the week…Cornelia O’Donovan
Cornelia O’Donovan was born in 1981, and trained at the Royal College of Art, London.
O’Donovan plays with old folklore and poetry, but in a loose and dreamlike way. She draws particularly on tales native to the British Isles, and especially Celtic poetry and myth – from the tale of Prince Llewellyn’s grief at the sacrifice of his greyhound Gellert, to the figurative ballads of Ellen O’Leary and lines from WB Yeats.
She has designed ceramics for Anthropologie in the past. Her paintings are flat, stripped of all perspective or realism, their surfaces hazy and meandering like an old tale retold a thousand times. Roughly rendered yet delicately arranged, she creates patterned compositions reminiscent of old tapestries, into which she plants naïve pre-Modern motifs. Outlines of old figures, ancient heralds, esoteric herbs and familiar animals all appear like inherited objects worn smooth by the touch of innumerable hands.
They retain the homespun quality of medieval rustic artworks, flowing across the canvas like a stroll through a country garden.
Hand lettering inspiration of the week: Deloss McGraw
DeLoss McGraw is an American artist known for his whimsical gouache paintings. Inspired by his own poetry as well as poems by W.D. Snodgrass, McGraw’s dreamlike works are often reminiscent of paintings by Paul Klee. Klee like McGraw, was inspired by the works of folk artists and children. Born in 1945 in Okemah, OK, he went on study at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles and received his MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1973. McGraw lives and works between Los Angeles, CA and Okemah, OK. Today, his works are in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Cranbrook Museum of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI, and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., among others.
Words and Wildflowers Creative Prompts – Issue 41
Posted on April 21, 2025
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
Quote of the week…
“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
Inspirational Artist of the week…William Frend De Morgan
William Frend De Morgan (16 November 1839 – 15 January 1917) was an English potter, tile designer and novelist. A lifelong friend of William Morris, he designed tiles, stained glass and furniture for Morris & Co. from 1863 to 1872. His tiles often recall medieval or Islamic design patterns. He applied innovative glazes and firing techniques. Galleons and fish were common motifs, as were “fantastical” birds and animals. Many of De Morgan’s tiles were designed to create intricate patterns when several were laid together.
Lettering inspiration of the week… Louise Fili
Louise Fili (born April 12, 1951) is an American graphic designer and artist known for her use of typography. Her work incorporates elements of modernism and European Art Deco, combining historical typography with contemporary design approaches. Fili designed nearly 2,000 book jackets while working at Random House. Since establishing her design studio, she has shifted her focus towards restaurant identity, food-related logos, and packaging. Fili currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and has previously taught at The New School, New York University, and Cooper Union.
Words and Wildflowers Creative Prompts – Issue 39
Posted on April 7, 2025
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
Quote of the week…
“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.”
– Albert Einstein
Inspirational artist of the week: Florine Stettheimer
Florine Stettheimer (August 19, 1871 – May 11, 1944) was an American modernist painter, feminist, theatrical designer, poet, and salonnière.
Florine Stettheimer developed a feminine, theatrical painting style depicting her friends, family, and experiences in New York City. She made the first feminist nude self-portrait and paintings depicting controversies of race and sexual preference. She and her sisters hosted a salon that attracted members of the avant-garde. In the mid-1930s, Stettheimer created the stage designs and costumes for Gertrude Steinand Virgil Thomson’s avant-garde opera, Four Saints in Three Acts. She is best known for her four monumental works illustrating what she considered New York City’s “Cathedrals”: Broadway, Wall Street, Fifth Avenue, and New York’s three major art museums.
During her lifetime, Stettheimer exhibited her paintings at more than 40 museum exhibitions and salons in New York and Paris. In 1938, when the Museum of Modern Art sent the first American art exhibition to Europe, Stettheimer and Georgia O’Keeffe were the only women whose work was included.Following her death in 1944, her friend Marcel Duchamp curated a retrospective exhibition of her work at the Museum of Modern Art in 1946. It was the museum’s first retrospective exhibition of work by a woman artist. After her death, Stettheimer’s paintings were donated to museums throughout the United States. In addition to her many paintings and costume and set designs, Stettheimer designed custom frames for her paintings and matching furniture, and wrote humorous, often biting poetry. A book of her poetry, Crystal Flowers, was published privately and posthumously by her sister Ettie Stettheimer in 1949.
Hand lettering inspiration of the week: Helen Crawford-White
H is an award-winning design studio headed up by Helen Crawford-White. Helen has spent the last 10 years working on design projects in publishing, branding, lifestyle, digital and products.
Words and Wildflowers Creative Prompts – Issue 37
Posted on March 17, 2025
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
Quote of the week…
After women, flowers are the most lovely thing God has given the world.
-Christian Dior
Inspirational Artist of the week… Rithika Merchant
Rithika Merchant is a visual artist from Bombay (Mumbai), India. Her work explores both comparative mythology as well as science and speculative fiction, featuring creatures and symbolism that are part of her personal visual vocabulary. She creates bodies of work that visually link to our collective past as well as imagine possible new worlds which we may come to inhabit.
Nature plays a pivotal role in her work and is emphasized by the use of organic shapes and non-saturated colours. Her paintings and collages are made using a combination of watercolour and cut paper elements, drawing on 17th century botanical prints and folk art.
Merchant received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design, New York.
Her work has been written about in Art Asia Pacific, Art India, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Verve Magazine, The Hindu, The Indian Express, Hyperallergic, Architectural Digest,and others.
Hand lettering artist of the week: Richard Faust
Ohio artist Richard Faust gained his BFA degree from The Columbus College of Art and Design, and later on started to work as an illustrator in American Greetings Design Studio where he has been creating fun designs for over thirteen years.
His work mostly starts off as doodles in his journal. He uses unique patterns in his work that he hand-draws and prints after finishing them digitally. His work is influenced by mid-century oddities that he comes across on his trips to vintage stores and local flea markets. His illustrations are filled with floral designs, retro style and bold colors that bring joy to the viewer. His clients include Target, Wall Street Journal, Papyrus, American Greetings, Family Circle Magazine and more.
Words and Wildflowers Creative Prompts – Issue 36
Posted on March 10, 2025
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
Quote of the week…
“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” -Desmond Tutu
Inspirational Artist of the week: Norman Gilbert
Norman Gilbert (b.1926 Trinidad – d. 2019 Scotland) was one of those special artists who found a distinct immediately identifiable visual language. With it he describes a life and its embraces, quiet domestic afternoons seeped in a patchwork of pattern, colour and memories.
After studying at Glasgow School of Art, Norman Gilbert widely exhibited across the UK, with work held in numerous public and private collections. Having featured in The Times, Vogue and The Scotsman and the main subject of two BBC documentaries, he leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of a life in colour.
Hand lettering inspiration of the week: Lester Carey
Lester Carey was a New Orleans sign artist whose work has been found on churches, corner stores, neighborhood bars, and other commercial buildings around numerous neighborhoods of New Orleans for three decades.
I’m teaching at the Collage Makers Summit!
Posted on March 4, 2025
Transform your art at the Collage Makers Summit
At the Collage Makers Summit (CMS) you can boost your art skills, learn cool new collage techniques, and let your creativity run wild.
What exactly is CMS?
It’s a virtual gathering of collage artists! The Collage Makers Summit is a virtual gathering of collage artists from all over the globe. Top instructors share their secrets, insights, and techniques, giving students of all levels a chance to step up their skills.
Mark your calendar for CMS
CMS classes begin on Monday, March 17 and end on Sunday, March 30. One pre-recorded video lesson will be available every morning US Eastern Time (UTC-5). You have lifetime access to the videos after the summit ends.
What you’ll learn
The summit is packed with 14 video lessons, each led by a different artist. Video lessons are approx. 30 minutes long. You’ll dive into a range of collage techniques that’ll spark your creativity & help you carve out your own unique style.
Lifetime access & community
The best part? Unlike other online summits, you get lifetime access to these prerecorded video lessons. Watch them whenever you want, at your own pace (sorry, the summit isn’t live.)
Who’s teaching at CMS?
Learn from me and 13 other experienced collage instructors, each bringing our own unique style and expertise.
Tara Axford https://www.instagram.com/tara.axford/
Connor Dainty https://www.instagram.com/phibstuff/
Jessa Dupuis https://www.instagram.com/jessadupuis/
Julie Hamilton https://www.instagram.com/juliehamiltoncreative/
Sally Hirst https://www.instagram.com/sallyhirstartist/
Esté MacLeod https://www.instagram.com/estemacleod/
Lisa McKenna https://www.instagram.com/lisamckenna.studio/
Margarete Miller https://www.instagram.com/margarete.miller/
Delight Rogers https://www.instagram.com/delightrogers_art/
Jackie Schomburg https://www.instagram.com/jackieschomburgart/
Lori Siebert https://www.instagram.com/lorisiebert.studio/
Sarah Short https://www.instagram.com/sarah_z_short/
Barb Smucker https://www.instagram.com/barbsmuckerstudio/
Alison Wells https://www.instagram.com/alisonwellsart/
CMS helps you grow as an artist… at a price that makes learning accessible.
Purchase before the summit begins at the early bird pre-sale price of US$77 and save $20. Early bird pricing begins March 3. Classes begin on Monday, March 17.
Visit collagemakerssummit.com for more information.
Here’s a special coupon code… because you are part of my community…
10offcms-ls
The early bird sale can be accessed NOW!!
At US$77. The regular price of US$97 begins on March 17. The summit opens on Monday March 17. The summit ends and the last day to purchase will be Sunday March 30.
Words and Wildflowers Creative Prompts – Issue 31
Posted on January 27, 2025
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
Quote of the week…
“Every small, unselfish action nudges the world into a better path.”
– Robin Hobb
Inspiration of the week… Károly Reich
Károly Reich (8 August 1922 – 7 September 1988; also written Karoly Reich) was a Hungarian artist, best known for his children’s books illustrations and for his original draughtsmanship. His illustrations were popular among Hungarian children throughout his 40-year career, during which he illustrated around 500 books. He was also a graphic artist and poster designer. His style is child-like, charming, and irresistible. You just have to smile when looking at his pictures.
Hand lettering inspiration of the week… Paul Klee
Paul Klee (German: [paʊ̯l ˈkleː]; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented with and eventually deeply explored color theory, writing about it extensively; his lectures Writings on Form and Design Theory (Schriften zur Form und Gestaltungslehre), published in English as the Paul Klee Notebooks, are held to be as important for modern art as Leonardo da Vinci’s A Treatise on Painting was for the Renaissance. He and his colleague, Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, both taught at the Bauhaus school of art, design and architecture in Germany. His works reflect his dry humor and his sometimes childlike perspective, his personal moods and beliefs, and his musicality.
An early VALENTINES gift to yourself!!! Let’s make memories together!!!
Posted on January 24, 2025
Join Kenzie and I for a whimsical art retreat this October 17-24 2025 set against the stunning backdrop of southern Portugal.
Explore the beauty of florals and lettering through a mix of fun and playful techniques and creative challenges. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced artist, you’ll walk away with a deeper connection to your craft, new skills in mixed media, and a portfolio filled with stunning florals and expressive lettering.
Throughout the retreat, you’ll dive into engaging mixed media techniques, using watercolor, acrylics, cut foam stamps, pens, and markers. Lori and Kenzie will hold daily classes, demonstrations, and hands-on practice sessions, where you may experiment with bold color palettes, playful textures, and fluid forms.
The first half of the week will be dedicated to exploring florals in depth. Learn various approaches to creating vibrant blooms and delicate abstract designs. As the week progresses, the focus shifts to lettering. Study techniques for crafting expressive, flowing letterforms that pair beautifully with your floral work. On the final morning, bring florals and lettering together in a harmonious composition and blend the skills developed into unique pieces. The retreat culminates in a mini-exhibition, where you’ll have the opportunity to share your work with fellow artists and celebrate your creative journey.
By the end of the week, you’ll leave with new techniques, a personal collection of floral and lettering creations, and memories of an unforgettable artistic adventure.
What’s included:
- Art classes, individual tuition, and demonstrations with artists Lori Siebert and Kenzie Elston
- 7 nights of accommodation at a Portuguese Quinta
- Exclusive use of the entire property with living quarters, art studio, 2.5 acres of botanical gardens, terraces, swimming pool, and common areas
- 7 breakfasts, 6 lunches, and 7 dinners (all meals) carefully prepared by your private chef. All dietary requirements catered for, except life-threatening allergies
- Local wine during dinner service
- Snacks, coffee, tea, and infused water available throughout the day
- Sailing trip in a traditional boat to nearby grottoes
- Trip to the Lagos historic town with a walking tour and time for shopping, sketching, and a beach visit
- Private transportation for all planned activities
- Round-trip transfers from/to Faro Airport (FAO) at pre-arranged times
- Fully-staffed venue, experienced UpTrek host available throughout the week
- All local tourist taxes and fees
- Access to a private Facebook group with Lori Siebert, Kenzie Elston, and the other retreat participants four months before the retreat
Not included:
- Airfare
- Travel insurance
- Art materials—a list of art materials recommended by artists Lori Siebert and Kenzie Elston will be provided five months before the retreat
- Tips for staff (tipping is customary in Portugal)
- Other expenses guests might incur on their own
Lori Siebert & Co. 