Six Paintings Archives

August 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Common Shelduck by Dennis A. Jones

August 12, 2026

Let's visit the duck, shall we? I think she's like a lot of us these days - calm on the surface, paddling like mad underneath...

Our heroine - the wildlife research statistician - is finishing up her stint at the very rural Vermont college...

At the beginning of August, this is the wardrobe our heroine has assembled:

And these are her most delectable accessories:

Maybe she's exaggerating, but she feels like EVERY person working with her right now puts on white pants or white jeans after work! She decides that she's going to look at how much white clothing she owns, and to think about making a bold wardrobe addition...

This is what she has right now, in white:

The other white thing that ... View the Post

August 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Spirit of Autumn by Albert Pinkham Ryder

August 10, 2026

So many of our heroines this months are absolutely buried (metaphorically speaking, of course) in advertising for fall clothes. It's so easy to see a handful of things that catch your eye - you buy on impulse - your tidy wardrobe starts to be less and less tidy...

Our heroines are responding by taking a hard look at what they already have, and identifying gaps in their wardrobe. Rationally, if our heroines are able to get dressed every day, their wardrobes don't actually have gaps! But we are going to shop for a new season (most of us!), and thus our heroines are going to try to do it sensibly...

Today's professional listeners has chosen this painting as her style-defining inspiration:

This wardrobe is ... View the Post

August 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Ruffled Autumn Clouds by Emile Nolde

August 7, 2026

Let's check in our bank employee, with career goals clearly in her focus! She's chosen to dress in a manner reflective of the way the upper executives dress, while still keeping a foot firmly planted in her current position. It's a balancing act to clearly appear "promotion-worthy" while at the same time not alienating or offending your current co-workers...

In order to help her in her focus and shopping discipline, our heroine has chosen this painting and color palette as her wardrobe inspiration:

Before any August shopping, our heroine already has 32 pieces in her wardrobe. She's never at a loss as to what to wear!

A big reason that she dresses with ease every day is that she has a GREAT assortment of ... View the Post

August 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Winter Cottonwoods by Georgia O’Keeffe

August 5, 2026

So now that stores are filling up with clothes, I'm going to look at all six of our wardrobes and try to fill in gaps and find some balance for our heroines.

Our next painting is a favorite of our landscaping expert, who is most comfortable wearing mostly subtle colors found in nature:

Coming into August, our heroine had this lovely wardrobe, but it really doesn't reflect that she planned to use grey as an equal neutral with shades of brown. Hmm....

Her accessories are gorgeous...

Our heroine has four grey garments, and an ivory tee shirt. These are all excellent garments, but she's interested in looking for more grey. Oddly, it can be the most difficult color to find!

But since Autumn is ... View the Post

August 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Lonely Erika Giovanna Klien

August 3, 2026

Time to drop in on our graphic and typography expert. You just have to imagine that she has a clear view of how things look on paper or on screen; that doesn't necessarily translate into a crispy-edited wardrobe! But we are doing our best for her...

First, her beautiful painting inspiration:

By the end of July, we had migrated her wardrobe onto a 56-piece wardrobe template:

This is how it looks in a color-sorted, more relaxed view. Sometimes the grid is the most helpful, and at other times you need the more "mixey" look at things:

There's no grid for accessories! I've been thinking about a plan for accessories for at least 15 years, and I still conclude that they're the really personal part of a ... View the Post

July 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Lonely Erika Giovanna Klien

July 13, 2026

Let's pause for a moment and admire the amazing details in this painting - the marbled, denim-colored areas, the subtle letters that spell out "einsam", the little flashes of green and blue. It all looks simple at first, but you and I both know that it's a lot harder than it seems:

Halfway through the year, our heroine the text design specialist had this wardrobe. I love that we can clearly see her fondness for button-front shirt and tee shirts. All of our wardrobes should reflect our strong preferences!

These are her accessories, coming into July. The green shoes keep catching my eye, in a good way:

As with so many of us, our heroine has cool clothes in mind this month. Finding the tote bag was a ... View the Post

July 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Saints Genevieve and Apollonia by Lucas Cranach the Elder

July 10, 2026

Our researcher of all things Gothic architectural detail is in Paris. Melting. Loving her small borrowed apartment with air conditioning...

First up, let's savor her signature work of art - the painting from which she draws her color palette, and the serene grace that she tries to emulate in her life:

some day I'm going to be in a pub quiz in which they hold up photographs of paintings and ask "who's the artist". I'm going to OWN that pub....

At the end of June, our heroine had this wardrobe. She clearly has some great things to wear in hot weather, which is a good thing!

This was her accessory collection. So bright, so pretty, so useful!

She's looking for another outfit that she can wear in the ... View the Post

July 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Common Shelduck by Dennis A. Jones

July 8, 2026

Our heroine is spending this month, and part of next month, hanging out at a small rural college in Vermont, where fervent bird-counting is underway! Happily, her responsibility is tallying numbers, and NOT sitting out in a concealed shelter for hours and hours...

She takes her inspiration, and finds her discipline, in this photograph:

Coming into the month of July, this was our heroine's 28-piece wardrobe. She didn't bring all of this with her to Vermont...

Neither did she bring all of her accessories. I could easily justify ONE pair of boots for any trip at any time, but two pairs of boots, in July, in North America?

This month's wardrobe additions reflect our heroine's rural, hot ... View the Post

July 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Spirit of Autumn by Albert Pinkham Ryder

July 6, 2026

I'm home from Paris. Well, I'm actually writing this the day BEFORE I leave, so I'm assuming that everything went swimmingly...

Let's revisit our heroine who spends her work time listening to others. She draws her personal style inspiration from this painting:

She finished the first half of the calendar year with these 28 pieces of clothing as her work wardrobe. Most of us have a ton more than this, but I think we might be able to agree that this is pretty sufficient:

If you get bored with the clothes (although clothes maybe shouldn't be a big source of entertainment!), the accessories can liven things up a bit:

When our heroine was looking for additions to her wardrobe, she was thinking of adding ... View the Post

July 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Ruffled Autumn Clouds by Emile Nolde

July 3, 2026

Our heroine, the ambitious bank employee, takes her wardrobe inspiration from this beautiful work:

At the end of June, her wardrobe included 28 garments:

And this snappy assortment of accessories. Our heroine is beginning to really understand the joy of wearing scarves...

This month, she's finally buying a suit! It's linen, so she understands that it's for mostly warmer weather, but she's absolutely NOT opposed to buying a second suit for cold weather. Men wear suits every day...

And yes, she went nuts on the scarf. Finding something that looked just right with her newest accent - the Baltic teal - wasn't easy. But the scarf will still be around long after she's the CEO of the entire bank holding ... View the Post

July 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Winter Cottonwoods by Georgia O’Keeffe

July 1, 2026

While many of us are struggling with the lack of brightness and contrast in this wardrobe, I think most of us at least really admire this painting:

At the end of June, our heroine the landscape designer had this capsule wardrobe - 28 garments:

And these are her accessories. While the clothes are quite simple, her accessories are a bit ore interesting. Yes, she does indeed have the exactly same tote bag in two colors! And her scarves are deliciously lovely...

Our heroine found some casual things that will be useful for when she's meeting clients outdoors. She doesn't do this as often as she had once believed she would - a couple of visits to the site seem to be sufficient for her part of the work. But ... View the Post

June 2026 – Building a Wardrobe Starting With Winter Cottonwoods by Georgia O’Keeffe

June 12, 2026

Our heroine the landscape architect is using this soft, subtle painting as the focus and inspiration for her wardrobe:

At the end of May, she had 24 pieces in her wardrobe. Even though grey just doesn't seem like it should fit in here, I think it's going to be okay. Time will tell, eh?

Her accessories are wonderful - her scarves seem to have been designed just for her:

This month, our heroine needs tee shirts! She doesn't spend as much time outdoors in warm weather as we might expect; her clients don't like to be out in the heat... Snowflakes!

But she still has to dress for warmer weather...

When she takes a look at her 28-piece wardrobe template, she's pretty pleased:

But it's ... View the Post