Six Paintings - 12 Months Archives - Page 9 of 11

October 2024 “Six Paintings, Twelve Months” – Part 1

October 2, 2024

Let's check in with what the "Start With Art" heroines have been buying!

This month, we're starting with this heroine and this painting. The more I look at this painting, the more I appreciate it - especially the essential touches of black in a painting that is mostly warm colors. Sometimes, you just want to have some black in your closet...

First up - let's look at her wardrobe as of the end of September. I've divided these into two images, so that we can actually SEE the garments:

Hmm... no dresses, no skirts. That's this heroine's preference, and I can support this! I have a couple of friends who may have legs, but I've never seen them, so I'm only assuming this is true...

And now her accessories - ... View the Post

September 2024 “Six Paintings, Twelve Months” – Part 2

September 6, 2024

Sorry about that unexpected day off on Wednesday; I've discovered that grief and fibromyalgia is a potent, and quite miserable, combination!

Let's get to more fun things - planning wardrobes, especially with fall coming! Here in Chicago, we're supposed to have at least a few cool days this week, which is quite early for us; I generally don't expect to wear fall clothes until October, these days...

How seasonal is this next painting?

When I sorted this wardrobe by color, I separated the charcoal grey from the lighter greys - that gives us the numeric illusion that this wardrobe is dominated by red! In fact, it's still pretty close - there's a LOT of red in this wardrobe. But that's what the heroine intended, ... View the Post

September 2024 “Six Paintings, Twelve Months” – Part 1

September 2, 2024

This month feels like a new start for many of us - back to school and all that. In France, they call it "la rentrée" - the re-entry. Everybody's back from vacation and ready for the return of autumn...

So I'm going to look at these wardrobe with a few minutes of simple analysis, before I just tear off shopping with our various heroines!

Let's start with this most difficult (for me) wardrobe, based on a cheery and always interesting painting:

Five accent colors! Pastels AND brights! So not my style... which is great, right?

Just looking at this, I feel like this heroine might want to look for more green, orange or pink...

And let's see what she has, separated by function:

She ... View the Post

August 2024 “Six Paintings, Twelve Months” – Part 2

August 5, 2024

Thanks for all of the kind and loving comments on Friday; these kinds of things keep me going...

I'm coming to realize, as I look at the 32-piece wardrobes with which we start this month, that 32 pieces of clothing is really quite a lot! I don't believe that I've worn 32 things so far this summer! These wardrobe will very neatly finish up with 52 pieces of clothing; does that seem like plenty, just right, or far too few?

Let's get to it!

Here's the 32 piece wardrobe with which our heroine starts August. Next month, I'm going to break these images out into at least two different ones, so that we can see things more clearly! This is akin to having a messy closet, or having clothes stored in a couple of different ... View the Post

August 2024 “Six Paintings, Twelve Months” – Part 1

August 2, 2024

I'm back... I may need to take more time off, but right now, I find work - and thinking of all of you - to be rather comforting!

Let's start with my favorite? Well, my favorite right this moment...

This heroine has been, frankly, sort of fast and loose about her wardrobe. Oh, she's been disciplined enough with her color palette, and she's found some amazing things to include... But she's discovered that she's ill-equipped for a serious event that strongly suggests a sober dress or skirt outfit.

Here's what she has so far:

She so loved her print dress from last month that she thought she'd start this month's shopping with the same dress, but in black! (this is always a good idea) The addition of a ... View the Post

July 2024 “Six Paintings, Twelve Months” – Part 2

July 3, 2024

Let's drop in on our other three heroines... First up, my second-favorite wardrobe, maybe....

Ah, there was a day when I would have worn the daylights out of this wardrobe:

And the accessories... sigh...

For no good reason that she can identify, this heroine found herself (1) wanting some grey, calm, almost inconspicuous clothing, and (2) wanted to grab some of the good winter things now that it's JULY and they're starting to arrive in stores...

seriously, if there's something for which you particularly hanker for the winter, start looking soon...

L.L.Bean is where she found herself, and this is what she chose:

How can you resist a scarf that reminds you of your favorite painting?

Her new ... View the Post

July 2024 “Six Paintings, Twelve Months” – Part 1

July 1, 2024

And just like that, the year is half over! We're past the longest day of the year, if not the hottest... Change is the only thing upon which we can rely, but it still never ceases to surprise!

Our first heroine is being very intelligent, careful and disciplined this month...

Her painting inspiration is this:

And the very complete and coherent wardrobe with which she starts the month is this:

With these accessories:

Even though I haven't worn navy since (literally) the 80s, I could cheerfully toss all of this into a bag and travel for a long, long time...

Our heroine looks at what she has - very carefully - and realizes that she owns neither a simple navy & white tee shirt, nor a pair of ... View the Post

June 2024 “Six Paintings, Twelve Months” – Part 2

June 5, 2024

Today's three heroines went three very interesting, different directions in their wardrobes - all of them valid!

Let's start with Rothko, who is fast becoming one of my very favorite artists:

Our first heroine has a wardrobe that feels like it has a lot of accent color in it, although it's not a huge percentage of the whole (37.5% to be exact) ...

And she has gloriously pretty accessories:

But for June, she felt like settling into some neutrals - especially a workhorse pair of black linen pants. (these should be worn at least weekly until the first frost...)

She also decided to go ahead and buy a cashmere hooded sweatshirt - yes, she might have grabbed a cotton one instead, but this feels more like ... View the Post

June 2024 “Six Paintings, Twelve Months” – Part 1

June 3, 2024

Time to visit our six heroines and see what intelligent, well-considered wardrobe additions they make this month!

knowing full well that these wardrobes could be expanded in ways that defy logic...

This painting doesn't grow old:

At the end of May, our heroine had 24 garments in this capsule wardrobe - LOTS of red:

And her accessories were just right for her - I will always believe that you can tell much more about a woman from her accessories rather than just her clothes!

Our heroine only has one dress - the classic grey one - and she feels like she wants something for summer. It wasn't a big leap to decide that a two-piece camp shirt and skirt was perfect:

Filling in her clothing purchases ... View the Post

May 2024 “Six Paintings, Twelve Months” – Part 2

May 3, 2024

I'm really quite happy with the way these three wardrobes turned out this month - as always, I'm eager to hear what you think of our progress!

First, this oh so elegant painting:

Her wardrobe at the end of April was practical and versatile, if a bit short on the color rust! I get infinite pleasure from that stack of four long-sleeved tee shirts...

It seemed obvious to look for rust - at least rust tops. A second pair of shorts (which could of course be a skirt, a pair of cropped pants, or long pants) and lightweight linen pants finish up her garment purchases. While we were in the "rust mode," Our heroine grabbed coordinating accessories too!

If you're not familiar with COS, I recommend them highly. ... View the Post

May 2024 “Six Paintings, Twelve Months” – Part 1

May 1, 2024

"It's May, it's May, the lusty month of May..."

Well, maybe that's a bit of an overstatement, unless you live in Camelot!

But we've got beautiful things to admire and consider, and we have each other - what else do we need? (yes, we could make a list...)

First up, this most lovely of paintings, which gave us a most unusual color palette:

This is her wardrobe at the end of April - I'm mostly struck by the small number of light blue items, and a little bit concerned that she still only has one 2nd layer in her only neutral...

So we went looking:

Seriously, could there be a better scarf?

Now, our heroine's wardrobe looks more "strongly beige" - a phrase which may never before have existed. ... View the Post

Part 2 – Do You Need Accents? Or Neutrals? 6 Paintings, 12 Months April 2024

April 5, 2024

The second half - I hope you like them as much as you did the first three wardrobes!

First is this subtle, somewhat muted painting...

At the end of March, our heroine didn't have much for olive in her wardrobe! This is excusable though, because she had had some good luck finding the camel that's so predominant in this painting. Sometimes, you add what you an find to your wardrobe, and wait for other things to become available...

So she shopped mostly for green:

Just these three new green garments bring a new balance to her wardrobe, with almost equal distribution among beige, green and black. If she ever runs into a lode of rust, she's going to go a wee bit nuts!

She's quite excited by the ... View the Post