Hi,
Just wanted to share this delightfully pretty illustration with you, courtesy of the lovely Waltz in Water. Her blog is full of cute illustrations like this – “Cat Shoes”, “Les Triplettes” and “Carrie Bradshaw Lied” are also fabulous!
Jo x
Her name is Catherine. She operates a small café in Montmartre, Paris. Note that there is no other place serving that much tasty french dishes in the neighbourhood.
I’ve been following Sansei Life for a few months now and I often visit to explore her blog and chill out for a few minutes with her beautifully simple and peaceful posts. In her own words: “Sansei Life! A blog exploring and learning about the Asian community in Denver. When I was much younger I tried a new Japanese restaurant in Arvada called Namiko’s for a sushi snack. It was very good. I got into a conversation with Yuri the owner and she ended up offering me a part time job on weekends. I spent most of the first evening running to Yuri asking her what the various dishes were and what was in them and what they tasted like. In exasperation Yuri asked me if I was Japanese! She could not understand how a Japanese did not know simple restaurant fare.That is when I really understood that I was a Sansei out of touch with my culture. I am ready to experience and learn about today’s Asian culture”.
Ikebana (生け花, “living flowers”) is the Japanese art of flower arrangement, More than simply putting flowers in a container, ikebana is a disciplined art form in which nature and humanity are brought together. Ikebana often emphasizes other areas of the plant, such as its stems and leaves, and draws emphasis toward shape, line, form. Another aspect present in ikebana is its employment of minimalism. That is, an arrangement may consist of only a minimal number of blooms interspersed among stalks and leaves. The spiritual aspect of ikebana is considered very important to its practitioners. Silence is a must during practices of ikebana. It is a time to appreciate things in nature that people often overlook because of their busy lives (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikebana).
Ikebana, the art of observing nature.
Here is an ikebana display from my heart.
Simple ivy allowed to grow on its own path. At one with nature, it is nature.
Reaching out on its own journey.
A couple of weekends ago I took an afternoon trip to the lovely Wallington, Northumberland, a grand National Trust Palladian mansion with an interesting – and political – history. As the rest of the UK was gearing up for the General Election, Wallington turned the clocks back to the 1929 election, when the house’s owner at the time, Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan, stood as the Newcastle Central Labour candidate for the second time. Through a series of installations and displays throughout the house and gardens, “VOTE” told the story of Charles’ political career and socialist aspirations. As I wondered around the house, I stumbled across a room entitled “Utopia HQ”, where Sir Charles’ former estate office had been transformed by the awesome November Club into his 1929 campaign HQ. Continue reading Utopia HQ
And now for something completly different… Welcome to flockOmania!
flockOmania was a solo exhibition created earlier this year by jewellery artist Zoe Robertson, showcasing wearable objects to explore the notion of Jewellery and Performance. Huh? Over to the flockOmaniacs to explain: Continue reading Colour Me Friday: Hot Pink flockOmania!
Chris Schoonover is a photographer and art director from New Jersey. He became interested in photography via Instagram, got his first camera in 2013 and started taking it everywhere with him, with incredible results. For me, many of his pictures have that Las Vegas faded-beauty-hit-on-hard-times feel about them which I so love, and puts me in mind of Lana Del Rey and The Killers. Chris has described his work as “a photo journalistic style where the subject is interacting with their environment. My style is always changing, and growing with me. The common thread would be that each image seems to tell a story, and that story is really up to the viewers’ imagination”. You can check out (and buy) Chris’s work at http://society6.com/cschoonover.
John Holcroft is an English illustrator who grew up in the Northern counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire, where he spent most of his childhood “drawing, painting and making stuff from what ever I could find”. John’s illustrations offer a peek into the world of an extraordinarily creative mind with the ability to sum up modern society’s woes within a single colourful illustration. Here are my current favourites – check out more at www.johnholcroft.com. Continue reading Colour me Friday: The Extraordinary World of John Holcroft
I spent time yesterday reading the beautiful “100 years of Fashion Illustration” by Cally Blackman. Fashion illustration combines two of my favourite worlds – fashion and art – and is often overlooked in today’s world of digital photography. Yet I think it still has an important place – it allows our imagination to flow freely and celebrates the beauty and creativity of fashion design. There are so many amazing fashion illustrators out there – a good starting place to check out their work is at fashionillustrationgallery and iloveillustration. Here a a few of my favourites, in candy pink: Continue reading Colour me Friday – Candy Pink Fashion Illustration
A Vintage Vogue Rainbow for some Friday inspiration! Happy Friday and have a great weekend!
I love rusty old things and I’ve been collecting them for a few years, in the form of photos, rusty shapes from RE, and random finds. My favourite was an old rusty metal house I found a few years ago in a burnt-out bonfire on an abandoned gypsy site, and kept it for a while. Not knowing how to clean it up, I eventually threw it away, fool! I could have used one of these methods.
My job often takes me to old industrial sites, which frequently turn out to be a source of inspiration. I’m attracted to the story behind these objects, their changing textures and colours, and above all the fact that, in many cases, it was the act of abandonment which eventually caused them to be beautiful. I took these photos in the storage area of a steam railway yard and at an old coal mine, both in the north-east of England, and on trips to Bosnia-Herzegovena; Provence, France; The City of the Dead, Cairo, Egypt; and Woodstock, NY and Portland, Maine, USA.
I was just thinking about how much I love bright colours, and I thought what better way to celebrate a whole two days free of work (apologies for those who work weekends!) than with some beautiful, colourful art from artists I’ve recently discovered. Oh, and I might also manage to celebrate Friday with a little nip of my niece’s Christmas vodka.
Enjoy, and don’t forget to check out the links to these artists if you’d like an extra portion of happy colour!
eclectic feel 