Such a Small World

Back on April 6 Tina Tarnoff of Thought Patterns published a few snapshots of her place. If you look closely you can see the notepad featuring one of my paintings.

To think that was sitting on my chair in Toronto and now it's sitting on Tina's chair in San Francisco. Small world.

Please check out Tina's wonderful blog and her Etsy shop. She is so very talented.

Lawrence Street

Hey! I'm finally posting again. The sun's out. The weather's warm and I'm feeling pretty happy. I finished two paintings yesterday (I will post those soon) and I put an original painting of mine on Etsy.

Its title "Lawrence Street" is a bit cryptic, but I used it because two people have told me it reminds them of a Lawren Harris painting.

This simple painting is predominantly blue, white and cream. Despite its chilly subject matter the painting is somehow imbued with warmth. A slight glimmer has been included on its snowy boughs thanks to some interference blue.

It's 16"X12" and painted on gallery-wrapped canvas and I'm selling it for $220 US. More about it can be seen here.

Visit to the 1920s

Hey, this is nice. My note cards are featured on an Etsy Treasury today called Visit to the 1920s. That put a smile on my face.

Here's the link. http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4bd0831f8dea8eef4e5978cf 
and the other lucky one's included in today's treasury.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig,

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

To market, to market, to buy a fat hog,

Home again, home again, jiggety-jog.

To market, to market, to buy a plum bun,

Home again, home again, market is done.

Think how thrilled I was when just this very minute I realized that the third verse of this poem contained the word PLUM!

Here's a tote bag decorated with a reproduction of one of my own acrylic paintings, in turn based on a painting by William Goodridge Roberts.


Measuring 13.5 inches square with a two inch gusset, this tote bag is the perfect size for tucking under your arm for a trip to the library, or a quick outing to the market. It doesn't fit a pig or a hog, but probably a plum bun would fit nicely. It also carries a book, a bottle of wine and a baguette quite neatly. With 10 inch handles it really does fit nicely next to the body.

The bag is natural cotton. The image decorating the carry-all is 7 inches square. To see it on Etsy, please clink here.

Here's a detail of the artwork.

Marie Laurencin

One of my Plum Tarts - the lady in purple, the one who I call Marie,  is not based on anyone. She just came out of my paintbrush. I felt the need to paint a face and she appeared.

When we were dismantling our old couch I salvaged two old pieces of Masonite and I used them for painting. The boards aren't perfectly square, so Marie is permanently skewed on a rhomboid.

After I finished this lady in purple I thought she looked a little like Augustus John's wife Dorelia Mcneill.

But over the years I realize that she looks a little like something the french painter Marie Laurencin might have done.

Marie Laurencin was one of those Parisian art school girls that I'm so envious of. Born in 1883, Marie attended various art institutes.  At the Academie Humbert she met Georges Braque and Georges Lepape. ( I have a pochoir by Lepape). In 1907 she met  Picasso and the poet Guillaume Apollinaire. She was Apollinaire's girlfriend until 1913 and while he expounded on art theory and Cubism, Marie's art always maintained an ethereal, dreamy characteristic. It was in 1907 that she first showed her works at the Salon Independants.

Through Picasso and Apollinaire, Marie met many influential acquaintances including Gertrude Stein who was the first to buy one of Marie Laurencin's paintings. 

During the First World War, Marie had to leave France with her German husband , because through her marriage she had lost her French citizenship. After they divorced she returned to Paris where she lived the rest of her life and achieved great success as an artist.

Marie Laurencin's art is mainly based on women, or groups of woman - all tender and pastel. While she was associated with the Cubists, the femininity of her work is counter to the masculine Cubism

I have to say she gives me hope because although,  I kind of like her stuff, I don't feel she was terribly talented. But like so many people, she was in the right place at the right time. Here's a selection of her work including a portrait of the ever-popular Coco Chanel. I tucked my "Marie" at  the bottom for good measure.

Madame Paul Guillaume at the Orangerie

At the Tate

Coco

Etsy Showcase - Paper Goods

 Good Morning!

My Plum Tarts are featured on the Etsy Paper Goods Showcase today. I've added note books. Please click here if you are curious.http://www.etsy.com/category/paper_goods. 

Thanks. XO

Hazel

The Plum Plum Shop is Open!!!

Whew! I can't believe a procrastinator like me actually did it.

I have a small quantity of note cards for sale on Etsy. You can find me here.

Please drop by for a visit. There will be more and varied merchandise in the days and weeks to come.

My New Adventure

I've bit the bullet, so to speak and I'm in the midst of opening my own Etsy shop. The shop itself is called The Plum Plum, but I made a beginner's mistake. Although I thought long and hard about the name I was going to use and researched it up and down and top to bottom, I signed into Etsy using hazelsmith62 thinking "surely this isn't the time for my brilliant name". hazelsmith62 is my Etsy URL. Depressing.

Hopefully I can funnel a lot of people through my blog site and we can just pretend that indeed I am The Plum Plum.

I'll be selling printed cards of my acrylic paintings and some post cards derived from vintage family photographs. Maybe a couple of tote bags. And when time allows maybe some vintage paper goods.

I'm pretty excited about The Plum Plum.

I'm not open yet, but I'll let you know.

Hazel