Shelbee at Shelbee on the Edge is the curator for this round of Style Imitating Art (SIA), and she selected the 1981 oil painting "Grand Canyon from the South Rim" by American artist Robert T. McCall. Shelbee has been enjoying a scientific documentary series recently so she felt inspired to feature artwork with outer space elements. She ultimately settled on this piece illustrating a futuristic Grand Canyon to connect the current challenge to the Grand Canyon poster SIA last month...which I think is a brilliant idea! The poster featured warm autumn tones of orange, maroon, and violet whereas the icy blues and whites of this sci-fi work are perfect for winter.
Well, winter in Minnesota (and upstate New York, where Shelbee lives) anyway! We have two dominant visual modes in winter here. The first mode is the somewhat drab bluish-grey and brown of a cloudy day, as shown in this photo from last January. It looks as though I've applied a Vintage Dreary Winter filter to the image, but that's just how things look sometimes. Despite the lack of color, I find these days have their own beauty from the starkness of the leafless, snow-limned trees; the subtle range of neutral tones in trees, snow, and sky; and the lovely textures that slowly emerge as you look.
The second mode is the brilliant blue and white, dappled with dark shadows, that appears on cold sunny days, as exemplified in this photo I just shared in my How I Stay Warm in Winter post. This is the kind of day I'm seeing in the Grand Canyon painting.
I got strong blue and white textured stripe vibes from the artwork, which put me in mind of winter knitwear. My blue and white ombré sweater from Lands End felt like the perfect piece to create an SIA outfit around.
But when the Grand Canyon with spaceships painting was revealed on Shelbee's site on January 8, I had just worn this sweater in an outfit of the day a few days earlier. So rather than create another outfit based on this sweater, I decided to use this one as the "pre-cog" outfit and style something else specifically for the challenge. So I have two SIA outfits to share this time.
First up, my "pre-cog" OOTD leaned very hard into the white, navy, and range of blues color palette.
The leopard print scarf ties together the lighter blues in the sweater with the navy and dark denim of the bottom half while adding interest through print mixing. Wearing the scarf worn draping long and loose down the front adds a vertical element to the outfit and causes the scarf and skirt to touch each other, creating a strong sense of visual harmony to my eye. The long gold tassel necklace repeats the golden color of my hair and introduces a smooth shiny aspect to the otherwise very textured look. (Completely coincidentally, it also picks up the golden yellow in the lower right corner of the painting.) I would like to give a shout-out to this workhorse of a necklace (Kohls, $20, Dec. 2014) that I have worn 84 times for a current cost per wear (CPW) of $0.24. The gold color combined with the tassel styling gives it a classic-with-a-touch-of-boho vibe that works well for me.
Though the bottom half of my outfit is pretty plain - just shades of solid navy - the mixture of textures from the suede leather boots, smooth tights, and somewhat rough denim skirt creates some subtle differentiation.
With this outfit I debuted a new paper bead bracelet set in shades of blue, aqua, yellow, and orange with gold metal. Blue and orange are a fantastic color combo because they are complementary colors on the color wheel, and the yellow just feels like a lighter shade of gold in this context.
I designed this paper bead bracelet set {bracelet tutorial here} to coordinate with one of my favorite skirts - a pleated skirt with orange, yellow, green, and aqua floral print on a navy background (thrifted Target, $2.99, Feb 2018; 18 wears for current CPW of $0.17!). If you've been around here a while, you may know that navy-based floral prints are one of my top 12 things that "feel like me" when I wear them.
Let's talk paper bead making for a moment {tutorial here}. The top blue striped bracelet with the crown charm started out as this spectacular bird image from Audubon magazine. (Those eyelashes!) I cut 7 1" triangular strips starting at the blue end of the paper so that my beads would be predominantly blue and yellow-orange, with only a hint of the darker red-orange color. I covered the white paper core with gold metallic marker and rolled them up into these nice striped bicone beads.
This paper is somewhat amusing to look at in the context of an icy blue and white outfit, but this brilliant golden orange fall foliage in a Lands End catalog image offered nice complementary color contrast to the mostly blue bird beads. I used the gold metallic marker again, this time to cover up the image of the woman (it's one thing to have part of a giant bird eye appearing on the beads, but I mostly don't like for human facial features to show up at random!). Don't the leaves offer great texture on the finished beads?
Because "hello, I'm Sally in St Paul and I love my coordinating though not matching DIY jewelry sets," I also made a pair of DIY bead soup earrings to go with this bracelet set, once again using the dead easy beads-on-a-stick design. I love how this one simple design can create such wildly varied earrings depending on the beads you choose.
In my how to layer bracelets post (Tip #1 here), I discussed the concept of balancing unifying elements (things they have in common) with diversifying elements (ways in which they differ) as key to creating a great bracelet stack. I find this to be true for designing earrings as well!
For example, for these earrings, I chose the 3 colors (aqua, navy, and gold/yellow-orange) based on the paper bead bracelet set. Differing colors = diversifying element. Working with my bead soup, I pulled beads in different materials/shapes/finishes that were available (diversifying) but in similar sizes (unifying). I incorporated 3 identical gold disk spacer beads in each earring, separating each colored bead from its neighbor, as a strong unifying element. Placing the two golden tone beads at the top and bottom created a bookend effect on the earring (also unifying).
I think that using matching spacer beads and/or bead caps on bead soup earrings can really pull disparate beads together into a piece with a nice balance of visual harmony and interest. Where you want that balance to sit depends on your personal taste and what outcome you're looking for with each individual piece you create, of course. But it's hugely helpful to unifying vs. diversifying in mind when designing. If your design feels boring/one-dimensional, think about how to tweak it with more diversifying elements. If it feels too disjointed, think about more unifying elements.
Moving on to my second SIA outfit...I picked out this long cozy striped cardigan with a lot of texture and marling in the knit as the focal piece for the outfit. It's overall darker than the blues in the painting, but it has the striped/striated quality and a snow-and-shadow look that feels consistent with the artwork.
Because the cardigan is long and thick, it works best with a slim-fitting bottom half. Adding dark wash blue skinny jeans was a slam-dunk for this weekend outfit. To bring in other shades of blue, I chose a cobalt blue long-sleeved T-shirt and my trusty navy suede loafers with the two-tone tassels.
This scarf is not the most obvious one to wear with this outfit, but I had a few motivators in play. First, it contains 3 shades of blue: a very deep navy, a dark cobalt, and a light teal blue. Second, it has a geometric print (not quite stripes, but close) that repeated that feature of the artwork and cardigan. Third, the maroon/red color picked up the red in the spaceship flags on the painting. And fourth, I had identified this scarf as a high priority wear piece for the season based on its relatively high CPW compared to my other scarves (it now has 4 wears with a current CPW of $1.54). I tied the scarf with a simple square knot and wore it at a jaunty angle. I think the square knot is more commonly used with smaller square silk scarves, but it's easy to do with a long scarf as well and is a handy tie to have in your scarf-tying toolkit.
I could also add...Fifth, the light teal color is always a nice one for me to wear next to my face because it works with my pink-ish skin tone and my blue-ish green eyes. Now note these 5 beads on a stick DIY earrings. I did NOT make them to match my bracelet set (indeed, I didn't wear any bracelets on this day because I was busy dip-glazing beads wearing nitrile gloves). I made them to match this scarf!
Yep, I have expanded my DIY earring project to include creating earrings to coordinate with each of my print scarves! Because both earrings and scarves sit in close proximity in the "portrait area," it makes my matchy-matchy heart happy to have some strong visual alignment between these pieces.
Since I started this after making so many earrings to go with my bracelet sets, my bead soup was running a bit low (especially in my most commonly used colors). So for some of the earrings designed for my scarves, I have dipped my hand into my regular bead stash to supplement my bead soup. These earrings are a good example of that. The aqua and maroon beads were from my bead soup. The white striped beads were from a little group of about 6 beads. The sapphire blue crystal rondelles were from a full strand, and the dark navy glass rounds were from a large set. I placed antique pewter spacers at the top and bottom of each stack (as a unifying element that bookends the earrings).
Whew, OK...let's get to the good stuff now: our Rabbit Imitating and Improving Art selection! This is my second SIA in a row to feature a mini lop, but what can I say? These gorgeous droopy-eared bunnies are just such a pleasure to look at, and this particular one is bringing a Vintage Dreary Winter color and texture to bear on our brilliant icy blue and white artwork.
"Bring to bear"? From a rabbit? Rabbits don't like bears all that much. Hmmm. I asked Microsoft's browser AI about the meaning and origins of this phrase, and it answered thus:
I can agree that this GIGANTIC Mini Lop of the Future is exerting force on this spaceship situation...or is about to do so. He lies in wait, ready to grab the spacecraft in his mouth and fling it far. This painting captures the last moment of peace and safety for the unlucky inhabitants of that ship.
It's interesting...when explorers of the 24th and a half century found this region, they were more than a bit surprised to find it entirely unpopulated by people. It's such a gorgeous spot, surrounded by canyons and with water down below...it makes for an obvious area to develop for recreation. True, the outlying lands did contain an abundance of old smashed and rusted flying machines, suggesting that the region was once inhabited, but the reasons it was abandoned were entirely unclear and surely to remain a mystery lost to the mists of time. UNTIL NOW. Nobody expects the periodic predation of rabbits of unusual size (and particularly aggressive temperament). Duck Dodgers and the R.O.U.S: coming soon to a nightmare near you!
Thanks for joining me today for this Style Imitating Art + Rabbit Imitating (and Improving) Art post!
To see other outfit interpretations of this artwork, check out the review on Shelbee on the Edge.
Do you like styling blue and white for winter? How do you feel about stripes? What are dominant visual modes in winter where you live? Do you notice a balance of unifying and diversifying elements in your DIY jewelry/bracelet stacks/necklace layers/outfits?
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