Recently in Art Category

This is Vincent Van Gogh's Vase With 12 Sunflowers - painted in 1888. It is one of several inexpensive art posters we have around the house. I love the Impressionists and I love sunflowers, so here is a double blessing. (Yes, I know Van Gogh was actually a Post-Impressionist. Let's not nitpick.)

I have the children sketch a still life every other week, but D was inspired by an episode of Doctor Who (featuring Van Gogh) to instead sketch this painting using pencil with a bit of colored pencil added for clarity.

She wanted me to post the original painting along with her hasty sketch. I believe she likes Van Gogh's art a lot. I know we both wish someone could have calmed his tumultuous mind.

Jean-Honore Fragonard

Late French Rococo

1732-1806

Student of Chardin and Boucher.

Experimented with Neoclassicism.

Great-uncle of Berthe Morisot.

Influenced Impressionism, particularly Morisot and Renoir.

Rococo: French rocaille "stone" + coquilles "shells"

Rococo originally a derogatory colloquialism meaning "old-fashioned"

Rococo "usually covers the kind of ornament, style and design associated with Louis XV's reign and the beginning of that of Louis XVI"; art style of Mid-18th Century France; also called Late Baroque

Rococo paintings are often hazy, pastel, and ornate.

Notable Paintings:

Blind Man's Bluff - c.1760 - Toledo Museum of Art.

The Swing - c.1767 - Wallace Collection, London.

Young Girl Reading (The Reader) - c.1776 - NGA, Washington DC.

My recent entryway project inspired a 5-minute makeover over on my desktop, which faces the Jane Austen mirror.

I dusted.

I moved things around.

I also changed the cardstock behind my token collection from white to light blue.

This is one of my favorite collections around the house. Each transit token and the Hobo nickel were purchased about 15 years ago at a flea market. The Ts are for Tampa, Florida. The R and S are for Rochester, New York.

Transit tokens and Hobo nickels, categorized as Exonumia, are an interesting and unique art form. I wonder why more people are not collecting them. I've always collected coins, mostly foreign, and my little collection seen here is just another facet of my interest in the beauty of circular bits of metal. 

I think my bluebird looks quite fetching next to the token collection.

Prior to the unfortunate theft and vandalization of our property, I decided to give the entryway mirror a little makeover.

This mirror was gained at a yard sale - way back in 2006. Can you believe it was free? The seller had broken one of the side mirrors. Each side panel is about 8 1/2 x 11, so the whole thing is rather large. It hung in my son's room for a long time, but he never really used it. Turns out boys aren't as into mirrors as girls are. Go figure.

So, I kind of stole it from him.

But, look, the size and shape is perfect for that entryway wall.

Convinced? Okay, back to the mirror makeover.

I decided to print out a picture of Jane Austen for the left panel. My shamelessly purloined version of Dear Jane is, I believe, the 1879 engraving which was based on Cassandra's drawing.

For the right panel, I chose one of Miss Austen's witty quotations, printing it out with a downloaded Jane Austen font.

"Pictures of Perfection make me Sick and Wicked."

When we return to our normal balmy weather, I think I might use this instead:

"What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance."

The portrait and quotation are printed on turquoise paper and I have placed three turquoise glass votives from Big Lots betwixt the two panels.

So, what do you think? Would Dear Jane approve?

***More lovely transformations are linked at Between Naps on the Porch for each Metamorphosis Monday.***

I hate to keep special items buried in boxes in the attic. Precious mementos should be enjoyed, not forced into servitude as long-forgotten clutter.

This philosophy is how I ended up hanging my silver baby spoon on the kitchen wall.

This is truly the most-viewed corner in the house and now I can see my baby spoon everyday without it taking up valuable storage space.

If you, like dear @JacobiteRose on Twitter, are looking for a St. Patrick coloring page, here are a few links which might help:

One

Two

Three (PDF) - This is the one I like best.

Four (PDF)

If you take one Martha Stewart poster (about 13-years-old) and you remove the cheap plastic poster frame and you take a free picture & frame from the Eighties and you remove the tacky pastel print, you may get a sunflower poster in a wooden frame with an interesting mat.

This is hanging in my hallway, by the school closet and visible from the living room. Sorry for the awkward angle and using the flash.

What do you think?

I think I like it but the mat is throwing me. But see how perfectly it fits the poster? Also, see my ugggggggly door bell box? That needs to be painted or disguised.

Back to the picture. Yay or nay?

Don't forget that today begins Extreme Shakespeare.

I also wanted to mention this post regarding Vincent van Gogh and his love of the Bard. Thanks to the internet we can read Van Gogh's letters and we find that he was very pleased to own his own book of Shakespeare and reread it often.

Not too long before his death, Van Gogh writes that he read this passage from Henry VIII (Act III, scene ii):

'And when I am forgotten, as I shall be,
And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
Of me more must be heard of, say I taught thee;

Appropriate for Shakespeare...and Van Gogh, don't you think?

This weekend, H went after his Honey-do list with a passion and one item he marked off the list was hanging some items above my sewing desk in the Family Room.