Style Imitating Art - Portrait of Dido Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray, circa 1779

It seems a while since I have remembered to submit an outfit picture for the Style Imitating Art Challenge! Luckily, Jen, who is the host this week, reminded me on Instagram so I quickly put something together!

Portrait of Dido Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray, circa 1779

This week's inspiration is the picture which inspired the film Belle.  The exact painter is unknown although it once was attributed to Johann Zofanny.  It is
In the words of Jen, our host,

This was the portrait that inspired the 2013 film, Belle, about the real-life, mixed-race young lady, Dido Belle, who was born into slavery in the British West Indies and ended up a heiress in London, England. The painting was commissioned by Lord Mansfield (William Murray), and depicts both of his great-nieces, Lady Elizabeth Murray and Dido Belle. The two ladies were second cousins.

It is such a vibrant painting and I like the poses- it does look like the cousins are up to do good and about to dash off and do something mischievous to each other once the sitting has finished. The girls are very pretty and vivacious and I would love to know more!

When I was thinking about what to wear,I immediately thought of two light, pretty cardigans I am about to say goodbye to. I really like them but realistically, I never really wear them and I really do need to clear some space in my clothing storage spaces because I do have too much! Both of them are highly decorative but I decided on the white on in the end though perhaps the pink would have been better.

 Apart from some plain black trousers, the detail is all in the top half.  The cardigan has little pearls which mimic the jewellery of the girls, the applique flowers in pink and yellow shades are a nod to the headdress worn by Lady Elizabeth whilst the lace applique is a nod to the lace on her dress. Incidentally, I chose the white cardigan because I thought there was more white in the painting with both Belle's dress and Elizabeth's detailing.  The top I chose underneath has a sort of lacy pattern which was a further nod to the lace detailing.
I chose to stand in the spare room as its new Dix Blue paint shade was a nice nod to the sky

 I chose to wear my wedding earrings which I thought mimicked the earring which seems so prominent in Belle's ears and thought I'd do a sneaky pose with a book also!

Anyway, that is that. What do you think?

I wonder how the other participants will interpret this? I am looking forward to seeing their versions!

Head over to Jen's blog Librarian for Lifestyle on Wednesday to see the participants.

AND it is not to late to join in yourself as long as you get your picture to Jen by Tuesday night. I'd be so happy if I managed to recruit some participants! Send your pic to librarianforlifestyle@gmail.com 

Hope you are well!

x

Peace

Advent Day 2:

For today's Advent picture, I thought I'd paint something! This is an A3 size painting.  

Peace is the word for me at Christmas.

The original peace was that which Jesus was to bring.

But also, peace from work, peace from normal life, peace from war. All of it, most pertinent at Christmas time.

I thought I'd try to create an ombre effect through the watercolours.

As I mentioned, I like colouring, but I prefer to colour things I've drawn myself!

Today was an ok day.  I had some good lessons with the year 4's in the morning teaching them the fundamentals of composing a cohesive and memorable melody but the afternoon was curiously dissatisfying.  We only had half an hour in year 3 to do our music lesson so we didn't complete our performances.  Then we watched the KS1 Christmas production dress rehearsal which wasn't as good as I hoped- the songs were good but there were a lot of issues, then we had singing assembly to make up for missing it in the morning and frankly, last thing in the day is NOT a good time to do it- I have a really croaky voice today and I can't seem to do singing assembly well when I have a sore throat. Was rather disappointing to say the least. Choir was similarly meh.  Oh well, there's always a new day!

I'm joining in with Julie at Julie's Scrapbook to bring you a picture every day as a sort of Advent calendar- these might take the form of stories, hand-drawn or photographs.

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The other participants are down here if you want to see their advent calendars.

Our Quite Life in Suffolk

Kezzie AG

I Live, I Love, I Craft, I am me

Mad About Bags

Me My Camera Eye

Mum's Simply Living Blog

Daisy Row

In My Playroom

From My View

SIA-Serendiptiously Snowdrops

This painting is Snowdrops by Katherine Cameron c.1900

I've been rather rubbish and missed Style imitating art for a few weeks- just kept forgetting about it but last week, I remembered on the Sunday and realised that an outfit I'd worn and taken a photo of the previous Sunday seemed to suit the colours and mood of the painting. This skirt was one of my other Post-Lent charity shop purchases. It is a Primark skirt but was brand new in the C.S and I really liked it.  The colours of the skirt and the top seemed to suit the painting as did the time of day and the background. The sleeves of the top reminded me of fallen leaves. I think I'm talking rubbish and clutching at straws here but you know...


Hope all is well with you. We've had a weekend of visiting people and it has been very nice but exhausting and we've got out of bed VERY late each day. Today, we had a rehearsal for a concert in July with the lady who introduced CBC and I, I always think of when we got together when I go there and smile.  We've named our new ensemble Harewood consort as that is the name of a woods near where she lives and because of all her rabbits!   I had a headache but managed to get through that and play on.  Thank the Lord for a bank holiday weekend next week and exciting because I have a first blogger meetup with one of my oldest blog friends and another pretty long-term lovely blog friend! Hurrah

xxx

Watercolour challenge

I am linking up to Tahdah Tuesday with the lovely Lakota!

I have talked about going to France but haven't posted photos yet - it always takes me so long to select, upload and rotate photos, that I always put it off for a couple of days, doing a bit at a time! Anyway, one family holiday activity that CBC's family have introduced me to is 'Watercolour challenge'.  The family went to France (Avignon maybe?) when CBC was little and they went into a French supermarket and bought a couple of sets of kiddie-water colours (you know, nothing special or swanky) and then the kids and J (Mum) found a picturesque spot to sit and they all painted the view.  Then, they got WOMOTM to judge which was the best one (sadly, CBC lost, despite having a charming, very good painting due to the fact he developed a penchant for the pink paint and painted several pink cars into the scene).

Fastforward 20 years or so to rural idyllic location in central France and we had Watercolour challenge with grownup CBC, Monkeygirl, J and respective other halves (me and S) painting the house or garden.


It was late afternoon on the Wednesday, pre-excursion to the Monsegur night market.  We each took our kiddie watercolour set and piece of art paper, lovingly purchased in the Carrefour supermarket and took a space in the garden.

It was a decidedly peaceful afternoon and as we sat there, trying to make muted earthly shades from the lurid pallette of colours by muddying them with black, the wind rustled the leaves on the tree, the hummingbird hawk moths buzzed around contentedly, the sun cast a glow over endeavours and all was right with the world.

It was only when we realised that we'd have to get to the nightmarket sharpish that finally the artists laid down their weapons and compared paintings.

(Clockwise from top-left:  CBC, J, S, MG)

 (and K)

(since I forgot to get a shot of me painting, I took one after.  Ignore the barbecue...)

Upon our return, I e-mailed WOMOTM and the other siblings and respective other halves who were not there to cast their judgement over our masterpieces.  It was a lovely exchange of e-mails, that for all of us competitors, now back at work, could remember the restful, serene afternoon of painting.

So..... cast your vote.  Which one do you think deserves to win and why?  

Watercolour challenge is a great activity and I strongly recommend it to anyone with kids or even a group of adults on holiday together!  We left the paints and remaining paperpad in a drawer for any future guests to the house to try the challenge with instructions in the guest book)

Rainbow butterflies and rainbow queens!

 What I wore tonight:  Rainbow butterflies dress: Whistles.  Ponelope shoes: Irregular choice, Aqua Cardie:  Primark,  wildlife earrings: Ebay. Rose: Accessorise, Bracelets:  presents

I've just seperated the two posts, they seemed unfitting together.  I woke up this morning, thinking that I wished I hadn't put up the last post, I sound a right self-centred misery-guts, that I was utterly tired and and just should have gone to bed last night but there we are, I wrote it, so there it is! Ahrgh, totally just remembered I have got to be somewhere this morning and have to fetch a parcel-eek!!!

I do keep wearing rainbowy dresses at the moment, there's a certain defiance in my dressing, towards the weather.  If IT won't play nicely, then I will have to try and dress cheerfully!  For some reason I feel a bit 60's in this dress and hairstyle, even though the length is totally not right!
Yesterday, I didn't blog about school, but I felt it was a really successful day for some reason.  It was really nice to be doing normal, normal lessons without any art.  In the run-up to Exhibition Evening at school, things get a little manic getting everything looking lovely and all art work complete.  Last Friday, I spent two lessons teaching my children how to make paper-beads so we could make necklaces.  This linked to the topic of Kenya as the Masai mara wear colourful bead necklaces which have a meaning.  We didn't make big collars, but simple bead chains.  The results were reallly good but the actual making proved stressful! 

So yesterday, we did a normal guided reading lesson 1st lesson, my last proper one until I become an almost- fulltime music teacher next year, which was really enjoyable.  The rest of the class got on with the work I'd set really nicely whilst I and the TA had our groups, perhaps they just wanted quiet normal lessons.  Secondly, we did a maths investigation based on number sequences and again, they all got on really nicely, focused, enthusiastic- for some reason they seem to look forward to Maths investigation with me now, goodness knows why!  After lunch, we had a successful French lesson in which I taught them Incy-Wincy spider in French, did some grammar work on conjugating some verbs in sentences with plural subjects, practised asking and answering the date for a variety of dates, creating sentences with a plural subject with multiple adjectives with both masculine and feminine subjects (If nothing, next year, I know my class will be hot on French-grammar and language-learning rules and strategies.  For some reason, this seems to be the thing we remember most!), e.g. Dix petites baleines bleues, huit petits cochons rouges.
Finally, I took them out in the beautiful sunshine (WHY never on a Saturday!?!) and we had an unexpected PE lesson, playing a team game of 4 balls, a game I learnt when I was in Year 3 at my school and loved!  I haven't really done many PE lessons with them, this is only my second one and I was surprised by how well they responded!

I am excited about teaching just music (apart from 3 lessons) but part of me will be sad not teaching other lessons.  I have eclectic tastes and enjoyment (as you probably realise after reading my blog!) so I did enjoy the variety, particularly the reading.  If I ever couldn't be a music-teacher, I'd consider training in 'Reading recovery' I am very passionate about it.  Anyway, I thought I'd share some Exhibition Evening photos (non-child based ones) because I always think it's nice to share displays and it's possibly the last time I will do this! :-(



I watch my 6-7 year old choir as they sing the song I wrote specially for them for the Singing Festival last week.  They sang so brilliantly, I adore them!  You can see me surrounded by Samba instruments and African drums!



A view from a window.  I have been working lots on painting this term with them, so we tried to create natural colours and paint detail over the washes.



Some of the paper bead necklaces.  Not the best ones, but I quite like the way they are hanging.




A French display showing strange-coloured animals in all sorts of places they shouldn't be!




A portrait for the Queen! Another fun painting activity! Check out the Queen in  clown costume, far, top left!



I love the poe-faced expression on the central one!

Scenes in the savannah  More of our painting work- graduating shades! Then some cutting practice!  I made the acacia tree and the elephant!