Art Archives - Page 31 of 85

Start with Art: Miami Day by Andrew Lennon

June 10, 2022

She Knows NOTHING About Packing for a Cruise....

So her plan is to pack a normal suitcase for a trip this long, to the river district of Germany, and then let all of her friends make suggestions!

As always, she's going to travel in her favorite outfit. There's no reason to wear anything else; she might have to wear this outfit for a LONG time, depending on the timely arrival of her luggage!

Before she starts packing any other colors or fabrics or styles, she wants to "finish" her black, dressy cluster. Why NOT bring a pretty ruana?

She's been promised some very warm days - surely shorts will be appropriate for sightseeing somewhere along the way? She loves the way her "deep midnight" clothes contrast ... View the Post

Start with Art: Windows Open Simultaneously by Robert Delaunay

June 6, 2022

Iceland, and Packing in a Different Way

She knows her color palette, she KNOWS she's going somewhere relatively cool, and she knows what she wants to wear on the plane...

Is that enough?

She understands that she's going to be wearing her travel outfit for quite a while on her actual travel day, and she plans to wear all 3 garments frequently while she's there...

So she thinks... what additional garment - just ONE thing - would she bring with her for a cool place and lots of sightseeing?

There's a BIG advantage to packing this way - she remembers immediately that she wants to bring her labradorite earrings, so she grabs them and puts them in her little jewelry bag. And she digs her green socks out ... View the Post

It’s Like Our Own Private Art Gallery!

June 3, 2022

How many paintings do you suppose we've looked at here on The Vivienne Files?

I don't have any idea!

But my lovely friends in Canada (yes, Alison the bracelet goddess!) have pulled together a page for us from which we can browse ALL of The Vivienne Files Start with Art posts...

Not by title, or artist. BY IMAGE!!! For me, it's like wandering through a museum of all of my favorite paintings. (of course, I picked all of them!)

The timing couldn't be better - I'm having a fibromyalgia flare, which makes me tired, sore, and dumb as a stump! So browse away, and I will be back on Monday...

love,

Janice

p.s. Seven years ago, a travel capsule wardrobe in black, white and yellow focused on ... View the Post

Adding Accessories to a Wardrobe: Start with Art – Sunlight on the Road, Pontoise by Pissarro

May 30, 2022

This is the painting that inspired our heroine:

And this is the wardrobe that she assembled for the upcoming summer months; she lives in a nice mild climate...

Of course she needs accessories! Most women will at least want some shoes, and I suspect that most of us also like a couple of pieces of jewelry, a bag, and possibly a scarf or two...

But there are no rules - if you really AREN'T a jewelry person, or a scarf person, don't force yourself to be someone you're not. There's nothing at all elegant or beautiful about being untrue to yourself!

For the sake of fun, maybe our heroine is going to use this template as a guideline for her summer accessories:

Where does one start? Our heroine decides ... View the Post

Start with Art: Sunlight on the Road, Pontoise by Camille Pissarro

May 25, 2022

Self-Care

The medication changed her body. She's bigger now. But she's also better!

Now she needs a new wardrobe for the next few months; this is her plan:

She lives in a lovely part of the world, with a VERY temperate climate; it rarely gets below 29 degree F in the winter, and seldom above the mid-70s in the summer! Sounds like heaven to me...

Like all wise women, she start with her dark neutral, in basic but not boring pieces that can be worn and worn and worn...

Lovely light blue - a soft color like the sky full of clouds...

Green pants in the shade she envisioned were hard to find, so she just got another pair of grey pants! Why not...

And green... muted and beautiful...

Our ... View the Post

Things to Remember to Pack When the Weather is Impossible to Predict

May 20, 2022

It happens every year; May is cold cold cold, with high temperatures in the teens Celsius, and then BAM - the temperature goes up to the upper 20s... (For North Americans - we've been from LOW 50s to upper 80s with HIDEOUS humidity, within 12 hours, and then back down again 12 hours later...)

Pity the tourists... they seem to generally be prepared for the hot weather, and then we get down into the 50s and they freeze.

So every year, vendors here in Chicago sell tons of sweatshirts. But still, without other appropriate clothing, knees turn blue, toes lose feeling... It really spoils a vacation.

And of course, this happens to the rest of us who live here; we think that summer is finally here, and we pack away our ... View the Post

Preparing for Warm Weather – Stress Dressing Clusters!

May 9, 2022

Years and years ago, I shared with the world my secret for how I get dressed on those mornings, when everything goes wrong and I don't even want to THINK about clothing...

Right now, our weather is madly uncertain - it's been a cold and wet spring, but I think that in the next few days, summer is going to arrive with a vengeance.

How to prepare? I can't just open my closet door and hope to make sense of a complete change of seasons...

So I've sorted out a wee wardrobe cluster, all pressed, hanging in 1 place, and ready to go!

You can choose any 6 garments that work well for you, but I would always suggest that you include a 2nd layer, like a cardigan, and a pair of long pants. This is the perfect ... View the Post

Start with Art: The Slav Epic by Alfons Mucha

May 4, 2022

Wear Your Colors She always took it to heart - auburn hair, ivory skin, lots of golden freckles...

So when she was invited to her friend's country home for the weekend, packing was easy! These weekends are basically a lot of eating, a lot of laughing, and a LOT of napping...

After dropping by her office for a few hours, she catches the bus; she will have to walk a bit when she arrives, but she will be nice and hungry when she gets there... Dinner is always late on Friday nights!

Many of the friends assembled there will sleep late - although there are always a couple of ambitious people who get up before dawn to go hiking!

Brunch will last for HOURS... followed by naps for most of them. If you're not ... View the Post

Start with a Detail – The Water, Monaco by William John Leech

April 29, 2022

She wasn't sure that she loved the painting, but she saw something in it that REALLY spoke to her...

She's Always Been a Towhead She violated all of those pieces of advice about looking at art, and she got up REALLY CLOSE to the painting...

THIS is what she saw, that called to her:

Her hair was turning from blond white to just plain (amazing!) white. She avoided the sun, as all wise women do. And she embraced the soft, the pale, the subtle muted colors that suited her so well...

if I didn't already have a white summer cardigan...

Beige is the core of her wardrobe - winter, summer, no matter! And light grey wool, in the cool weather...

She's excited to add some light green to her wardrobe! ... View the Post

Revising a Wardrobe Plan: Start with Art – The Water, Monaco by William John Leech

April 27, 2022 Our heroine felt... unsatisfied with her initial wardrobe plan. It was perfectly practical, and many women would have been delighted with having black, beige and pastels available to them... So our heroine went back to her inspiration painting, to try to identify what about it really appeal to her!

She loved the contrast between the trees and the pastels in the water... She wasn't mad about the color of the sand, or pavement, or whatever that mungy greenish beige was supposed to be! ..... Walking to work, she saw a very nicely dressed man, in a navy suit, a light blue shirt, and dark tie... NAVY! Navy and pastels are classic. And then she saw a lovely woman wearing a simple white tee shirt with a navy ... View the Post

Adding Accent Accessories – Start with Art: Vocal Fabric of the Singer Rosa Silber by Paul Klee

April 22, 2022

You know that it's "klee an in clay"? There once was a book by that title that helped us pronounce all sorts of art and music names properly; well worth grabbing if you see it used...

Well, when I started this post, I wasn't at all sure WHEN you would get to see it; they're working on the internet and cable in my building - fifty-some floors of rewiring! Outages and glitches are built into this process; if I am going to miss a date I will post a note from my phone so you know I'm okay!

SO!!! Let's get Wednesday's heroines some accessories!!!

For reference, and for pleasure, let's remember that this is the art from which we started:

Let's go back to our core of 10 pieces of clothing. There's no reason in the ... View the Post

Start with Art: Vocal Fabric of the Singer Rosa Silber by Paul Klee, and French 5-Piece Wardrobes

April 20, 2022

We visited this fascinating painting a few years ago, and I've never forgotten about it!

So when someone asked me about having a couple of accent colors for summer, and after we looked at the possibilities of 1 scarf for 4 women, I got to thinking.... (as my mother would say - "we knew you were thinking; we smelled the smoke...")

The last time we looked at this painting, I only isolated 3 accent colors, but today I'm choosing four!

So my plan is this - I'm going to start us out with a core summer wardrobe in light colors - white and beige. Then I'm going to scare up four French 5-Piece Wardrobes - one in each of the accent colors...

Let's start here:

I'm not going to run through how many outfits ... View the Post