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Originally posted on First Night Design in 2013.
The origin of this image is unknown, which suggests it is rare. At a guess, it dates from the late 1910s or early 1920s and was possibly the cover of a ballet and theatre periodical. It is an image I fell in love with a couple of years ago when I was exploring Vintage Art Download, an exquisite site full of vintage images — some very rare — offered for sale by Mindy Sommers of Color Bakery.
Click here for all other products with this image.
Take care and keep laughing!
Related articles
- Ballet Is in Crisis Because It’s Turning Into a Sport (newrepublic.com)
- VIDEO: How ballet uses mime to tell stories (bbc.co.uk)
- You’re Never Too Old to Do Ballet! (adultballerinaproject.com)
- Vadim Pisarev, The World Ballet Star (gotodonetsk.wordpress.com)
via Just Because I Love this Cushion | First Night Design.
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One from the archive. Happy Saturday!
‘Your work is visually stimulating and quite unique, Sarah. Beautiful!’
I was so overwhelmed by this comment made by artist David Bowman on my digital art piece, Walking the Dogs, that I had to share it.
Thank you, David. You have made my day! Below is a taster of David’s photography, which is exquisite.
Take care and keep laughing!
One from the archives.
Today I’m sharing one of my artworks that has become popular on Pinterest. The word is spreading! I suspect that Pinterest might ultimately become the marketing choice above all else.
Unicorn Fresco is an early effort with Photoshop. Starting with a stencilled drawing, I used several of my own textures and handwriting, as well as various Photoshop brushes, to give the impression of a fresco that has not stood the test of time and has been used as an outlet for graffiti, albeit of a decorative nature! I was inspired by a Staffordshire Pottery unicorn which belonged to my mother.
Take care and keep laughing!
Related articles
- How My Team Uses Pinterest and The Pinterest Tool (digitalhighrise.com)
Did you know that the British Library has released a million images into the public domain? No, nor did I until I was checking their feed on my Facebook timeline just now. I was already following their stream on Flickr but had not realised that I could use the images. It feels like Christmas and my birthday rolled into one delicious package!
I downloaded this vintage valentine.
I restored and enhanced the original image before framing it with a sumptuous texture from 2 ‘Lil Owls, part of a set sold by Design Cuts that was on special deal last week. I adjusted the texture to a deeper red, more reminiscent of theatre curtains or tabs to tone it in with the swag in the original illustration.
For more information, this is the blurb on the British Library website:
We have released over a million images onto Flickr Commons for anyone to use, remix and repurpose. These images were taken from the pages of 17th, 18th and 19th century books digitised by Microsoft who then generously gifted the scanned images to us, allowing us to release them back into the Public Domain.
The images themselves cover a startling mix of subjects: There are maps, geological diagrams, beautiful illustrations, comical satire, illuminated and decorative letters, colourful illustrations, landscapes, wall-paintings and so much more that even we are not aware of. Read more…
Take care and keep laughing!
I adore paper. I love the feel of it and the smell of it. Handmade or manufactured, paper in all its forms spells infinite magic. It can be a book, a notepad, a sculpture. It can be a print or a collage, labels or craft paper, train tickets, paint sample strips, bookmarks or cardboard; even scrapbook and school rough book paper give me the same emotions. Not loo paper, mind you, even if it does have a crossword printed on it or an insipid ‘pretty’ pattern.
If the paper is already marked in some form, whether with words or pictures or both, it’s the pleasure of looking and reading. If the paper is blank, it’s the joy of creating something special. Sadly, my days of scissors and paste are long since over (that pesky disability again) or I would be creating marvels in papier-mâché, or so I like to think. The last time I mentioned this, it was to write about the talented artists who craft everything from greeting cards to dolls houses. I designed a card and fully intended to cut it out and stick it together. I lie. I was going to get Mr FND to do all the physical work. Ultimately, it went by the wayside and became a digitally designed image only because I broke my hip. You can see it here.
In any event, Zazzle has just introduced what they call pocket journals. The word ‘journal’ is a misnomer as I doubt they would serve as a repository for much scribbling.
Take care and keep laughing!
Writer and Theatre Maker Stella Duffy makes very pertinent points in her post about the assumption that a paid piece of art has more ‘worth’ than one that is not. This and every other aspect she addresses is worth shouting about from the rooftops.
Take care and keep laughing!
There’s been tons of attention for Bryony Kimmings’ You Show Me Yours blog, and hopefully there will be the same for Daniel Bye’s not-unrelated blog.
Not surprisingly I have some thought on this. Here they are, in no particular order :
I didn’t come into the arts to make money. I came into the arts to change the world.
I was 20 at the time, or maybe 18 (assuming the theatre I made while still studying counts), I was young, I forgive my young self that arrogance, the arrogance that believed that I – simply by my choice to make a difference – WOULD make a difference. I wasn’t totally wrong, but what I know now is that I have to make this difference with others. I have to make this difference with and for others. And sometimes the difference I want to make isn’t one that others…
View original post 1,811 more words
St. Augustine writing, revising, and re-writing: Sandro Botticelli’s St. Augustine in His Cell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I began writing Comfort in a Cotton Frock on 1st November for #NaNoWriMo in a burst of energy and determination. I already knew I was a Nano Rebel since I was writing a memoir and not a novel but the challenge was just the kick in the butt I needed: 50,000 words in 30 days. I suspected, and these suspicions were soon confirmed, that life would get in the way as it has done all my life. And not just life but LIFE, situations that required major input to seek solutions and avoid disasters, as well as a great deal of love and support from friends. After three days of writing, my circumstances became so acute that I could not continue writing.
Yes, I have been able to add blog posts about my art because that has not required the same kind of energy and concentration as my writing. In the gaps I have re-blogged some marvellous posts by other artists and writers and what a boon that facility has been.
My LIFE is still requiring a deal of energy and the stress is all-encompassing but when it has passed, and it will, I shall continue writing until I have finished, whether it’s 50,000 words or more.
In the meantime, I hope that any of you reading this who have also taken part in the challenge are happy with what you have achieved. I’d say everyone is a winner, not just those who managed 50,000 words before the deadline.
Comfort in a Cotton Frock Day 1
Comfort in a Cotton Frock Day 2
Comfort in a Cotton Frock Day 3
Take care and keep laughing!
Related articles
- #NaNoWriMo: Rewriting and Editing (firstnightdesign.wordpress.com)
- Last day of NaNoWriMo (leila-gaskin.com)
- NaNoWriMo: 2013 (gregorysafko.wordpress.com)
- So Tell Us: How Was Your NaNoWriMo? (tipsylit.com)
Re-Blogged from A Small Press Life
Books in Art: Dans la Bibliothèque by Auguste Toulmouche
Take care and keep laughing!
Related articles
- Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, France (atlasobscura.com)
The fog was where I wanted to be. Halfway down the path you can’t see this house. You’d never know it was here. Or any of the other places down the avenue. I couldn’t see but a few feet ahead. I didn’t meet a soul. Everything looked and sounded unreal. Nothing was what it is. That’s what I wanted—to be alone with myself in another world where truth is untrue and life can hide from itself…
Take care and keep laughing!
Related articles
- Ruth Wilson to lead Eugene O’Neill season in east London (theguardian.com)
- “I Wrote a Sonnet to Her Eyes,” – Eugene O’Neill, “Sentimental Stuff” poem (ileneonwords.com)
- Eugene O’Neill on THE ICEMAN COMETH | Quotidian Theatre Company (quotidiantheatre.wordpress.com)
- Long Day’s Journey Into Night – review (theguardian.com)
Vintage Actresses Calendar 2014
Vintage Song Girls Calendar 2014
Take care and keep laughing!
Related articles
- Vintage Dreams: 7 Pointless Pursuits (chimericalredamancy.wordpress.com)
This is what I hope to be doing in November, in other words getting back to my writing. Do you write? Do you want to write? Join #NaNoWriMo and go with the flow!
Take care and keep laughing!
- 22 Reasons You Should Participate in NaNoWriMo (aspiringwriter22.wordpress.com)
- NaNoWriMo 2013 (nicolepoweleit.wordpress.com)
- NaNoWriMo 2013: Want to Write a Novel? (anotherdayanothersimle.wordpress.com)
- NaNoWriMo 2013: Want to Write a Novel? (elisajosephine.wordpress.com)
- NaNoWriMo (betweenthelinesandbackagain.wordpress.com)
- NaNoWriMo is Almost Here! (messagesfrommylife.wordpress.com)
- NaNoWriMo tips – dealing with deadlines (jenspenden.wordpress.com)
- Are You Participating in NaNoWriMo 2013? (brunsamanda3.wordpress.com)
- NaNoWriMo??? (knittingskeet.wordpress.com)
- NaNoWriMo (mekasoulstorm.wordpress.com)
It’s just a few days until November, and you know what that means: National Novel Writing Month, better known ’round these parts as NaNoWriMo, is near.
Have you always wanted to write a novel?
We know some of you have been waiting all year for this month! For those of you who are new to this project, here’s the gist:
View original post 894 more words
The origin of this image is unknown, which suggests it is rare. At a guess, it dates from the late 1910s or early 1920s and was possibly the cover of a ballet and theatre periodical. It is an image I fell in love with a couple of years ago when I was exploring Vintage Art Download, an exquisite site full of vintage images — some very rare — offered for sale by Mindy Sommers of Color Bakery.
Click here for all other products with this image.
Take care and keep laughing!
Related articles
- Ballet Is in Crisis Because It’s Turning Into a Sport (newrepublic.com)
- VIDEO: How ballet uses mime to tell stories (bbc.co.uk)
- You’re Never Too Old to Do Ballet! (adultballerinaproject.com)
- Vadim Pisarev, The World Ballet Star (gotodonetsk.wordpress.com)
Reblogged from Pippa Rathborne’s CONTRAblog
part four of The Character of Light
John Keats, Thomas Lawrence and the Brilliance Feminine
Sir Thomas Lawrence. Mrs. Jens Wolff, 1803 – 1815.
© The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Kimball Collection.
We feed on the human drama; it stirs and nourishes us. The painting suddenly looks better. We must forget….
While Pre-Raphaelite female beauty is impassive, the women in Thomas Lawrence’s Regency society portraits are animated, with parted lips, sparkling eyes, and “flush of welcome ever on the cheek”.[1] Lawrence, though dependent on “the wolfsbane of fashion and foppery and tattle” that Keats claimed to despise,[2] captured likenesses in what he referred to as“the fleeting moment of Expression”,[3] the same as “the instant feeling”[4] admired by Keats in Kean’s acting.
In “his elegant affetuosa style”, the genuine tender feeling underlying his swagger discerned by Constable, [5]Lawrence portrayed women as intelligent, sexually confident individuals and imbued his male sitters with feminine sensitivity, transforming the most prosaic of politicians and bloated of princes into Byronic heroes.
Under the suave surface, he untied his own Gordian self-identity in his paintings, the fundamental subject of art being the artist, in manifold identities. As if enthralled by Keats’ three passing “figures on a marble urn” in Ode on Indolence, sometimes, led by fame, rather than art, Lawrence was cloyingly flattering, but when moved by love, for man or woman, he painted like a poet…
Take care and keep laughing!
Related articles
- John Keats “To Autumn” (bheinritz.wordpress.com)
Lighthouse in Chania. Original art © First Night Design. Digital painting of the lighthouse in Chania, Crete, using GMX-Photo Painter.
Lighthouse Impasto Clock Original art © First Night Design
I’ve been just a little obsessed with lighthouses recently. It’s not only the classic lighthouse shape that appeals but what it stands for: a light in the dark to help you navigate stormy waters. Mine are particularly stormy now and I can see no lighthouse on the horizon. Nevertheless, as I’ve said before, I’m a survivor, darlings, so I daresay I shall get through one way or another!
Take care and keep laughing!
Related articles
- Lighthouse tours to bring history to life (goerie.com)
- Photos: Lighthouse Homes for Sale (abcnews.go.com)
- The Old Head of Kinsale Lighthouse (darlingviolets.wordpress.com)
I have yet to find exactly the right words to describe how I feel when someone likes my work. As for when they like it enough to blog about it, I’m almost speechless, which is rare! Cassie Peters of Angel and Spot has done just that on her blog, A Day in the Life of Angel and Spot. You are an angel in disguise, Cassie.
Today’s Store Showcase
Today I will share a few products from First Night Design. This store is not mine but belongs to a friend of mine that I met through Zazzle. There are so many beautiful products to choose from in this store that it is going to be difficult to select just a few of them to show you in this blog posting.
Cassie has some rather delicious designs of her own at Zazzle, including the pretty collage below, and several different stores. I recommend a visit. Look out for her enchanting Iowa barns of which I’m particularly fond.
Take care and keep laughing!
![Artful Pumpkins © Sarah Vernon [Redbubble]](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/hl008blog.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "Artful Pumpkins © Sarah Vernon [Redbubble]")
![Gabrielle d'Estrees and one of her sisters [unknown]](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/ma015frame.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "ma015frame")
![Butterfly Cascade © Sarah Vernon [Crated]](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/e250blog1.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "Butterfly Cascade © Sarah Vernon [Crated]")
![Original & vintage art © First Night Design [www.firstnightdesign.wordpress.com]](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/e221blog.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "Bring up the Curtain")
![The Boat House Tote Bag © Sarah Vernon [Fine Art England]](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/totebagfae.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "totebagfae")
![Yacht: https://www.flickr.com/photos/zakhark/572331622/in/faves-83665426@N05/ Texture: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kerstinfrank-design/19581317079/in/faves-83665426@N05/ Original & vintage art © First Night Design [www.firstnightdesign.wordpress.com]](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/e303blog.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "Sailing to the Moon")
![Bird on the Beam © Sarah Vernon [Crated]](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/e254blog.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "Bird on the Beam © Sarah Vernon [Crated]")
![Original & vintage art © First Night Design [www.firstnightdesign.wordpress.com] Vintage Henry Irving and Ellen Terry as Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing from The Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/97514042/ The background is a blend of the interior of The Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in 1851 from an old encyclopaedia — the venue was originally built in Hyde Park and the exhibition was organised by Prince Albert and Henry Cole — and textures from “2 Lil’ Owls”:http://2lilowls.com. http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/g/great-exhibition/](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/e284blog.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "Beatrice and Benedick")
![Photo Unsplash Texture - 2LO Haunting 14 & 2LO Haunting 23 - “2 Lil’ Owls”:http://2lilowls.com. Original & vintage art © First Night Design [www.firstnightdesign.wordpress.com]](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/e285blog.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "Night Landings © Sarah Vernon")
![Venetian Rose Water © Sarah Vernon [Crated]](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/e257blog1.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "Venetian Rose Water © Sarah Vernon [Crated]")
![Original & vintage art © First Night Design [www.firstnightdesign.wordpress.com] Advert from The Graphics Fairy](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/e286blog.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "Vintage Pettit’s Eye Salve")
![Photograph from the ex-Mrs FND Photograph from Unsplash Texture 2LO Ancient times 2 Clock created for Behind Time Original & vintage art © First Night Design [www.firstnightdesign.wordpress.com]](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/e353blog.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "Beating the Blues")
![Original & vintage art © First Night Design [www.firstnightdesign.wordpress.com]](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/photorehabcovermakeoveraugust.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "#photorehabcovermakeoverAugust")
![Romance in Stone [framed] © Sarah Vernon](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/romanceinstoneframed.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "romanceinstoneframed")
![Original & vintage art © First Night Design [www.firstnightdesign.wordpress.com] Green-painted fence https://unsplash.com/photos/FxeeNx_yMpw Lake Annecy by Mindy Sommers Celestial Eruption by eberhard grossgasteiger on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/NvesrDbsrL4](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/v057fb.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "Valentine Blush")
![Original & vintage art © First Night Design [www.firstnightdesign.wordpress.com] Photograph by “Nicolai Bernsten”:DJ;KGH; at “Unsplash”:http://unsplash.com Textures “2LO Confetti 17 and 2LO Distressed 12 from”:http://2lilowls.com](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/e289blog.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "The Boat House")
![Butterflies from China, Japan, and Corea: “Biodiversity Library”:http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/45490916 Texture: “Kerstin Frank”:https://www.flickr.com/photos/kerstinfrank-design/9181048645/in/photostream/ Flowers: “Rijksmuseum”:https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/my/collections/150967--sarah-vernon/mijn-eerste-verzameling/objecten#/SK-A-3899,0 Original & vintage art © First Night Design [www.firstnightdesign.wordpress.com]](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/e309blog.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "‘Happiness is a Butterfly’")
![Original & vintage art © First Night Design [www.firstnightdesign.wordpress.com]](https://firstnightdesign.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/ma077blog.jpg?w=159&h=159&crop=1 "The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra - Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (")
