The hollyhock made a pretty tag. The challenge was to gingerly and generously cover it in bubble wrap to ship.

Here are two 16" by 20" botanical graphite and watercolor paintings ready to ship in a custom green marbled folder. When I finished painting the flowers I missed the shadows the three dimensional boxes provide.  So, I laid the flower stems down on a piece of white paper and marveled at the play of all the shadows from my studio's multiple light sources. I then duplicated them in paint to add interest and integrate them with the rest of my work. 

Looking for something pretty and different I took this completed hollyhock diorama outside to try a picture in the late afternoon. The reflected trees and sky were a pleasant surprise but the colors are not at all true. I thought of my studio in Cleveland when on another January afternoon I stamped the snow down and carried this freshly painted tea table out to record. I think the colors and the curves make them a pretty juxtaposition.

Hollyhock placed an advertisement in the current issue of the glossy magazine, Flower. They featured two of my Floral Cartonnage waste paper bins. The ad is shown here in the middle picture. I am delighted to be represented by Hollyhock so this is a great treat for me.  And, I was surprised to see how much the photograph they used looks as if it could be taken in my studio. The last picture shows the corner of my worn studio table.

I used a new technique on these tulips, gouache on each layer. I think it gives them even more dimension and they shipped to Hollyhock today.

We have a Valentine from The World of Interiors.  I am charmed, just as I was when they introduced me to Jean-Philippe Arnould and his paper cut-outs in the December 2011 issue. The photo above is from Arnould's website, www.papers-gallery.com.  

I have a subscription to The World of Interiors now from my dear friend Kathy Sitzwohl.  It was so wonderful to find it in my mailbox, and an added bonus, there is no script over the cover photo on subscriber issues.

Vacation time in my studio sends me down many paths.  I was delighted to find this Christmas card painted by Alexandre Serebriakoff for Charles de Beistegui on the Notebook of David Netto. On the far right, de Beistegui's pyramid folly is depicted under construction. My pyramid folly box is decoupaged with images from an old print found on the front of a Martin Randall Travel catalog. I wasn't certain at first why a bundle of sticks were packed on the camel.  Then it dawned on me, I was looking at blue and white striped tent fabric and tent poles. The tented bed in the last photograph is another folly. I couldn't resist asking Serebriakoff to paint the wall mural and Robert Calasso (author of the book Tiepolo Pink) to funish the flooring.

The boat shape is a favorite of mine, transporting and dreamy.  Here is a stack of valet trays before a Pillement study I painted a few years past. There is an echo in the shape of our crafts.

                        This engraving by Martin Engelbrecht, c.1735-40 depicts a dominotière, or maker of all kinds of colored and printed papers. I was happy to begin the week with her terrific image and a new idea, tacking the first layer in place.  The new lining paper looks like just the kind of pattern she would create.

This is her partner. I think I will pair him with the bold turquoise zebra paper of Jemma Lewis. Martin Engelbrecht created a number of these amusing couples, many represent trades associated with interior design.

This statue of a bronze parfumeur is in Grasse, France outside the Fragonard museum. It was created after a 1697 series of prints by Nicolas de l'armessin dedicated to the trade guilds.  I like them all.

I am sentimental about the German Wendt and Kuhn angels my parents hang on their Christmas tree. Similar angels here perform an outdoor concert on a woodland stage. The three inch wooden frame for this stage is wrapped in a hand stamped Italian paper. This charming, nostalgic paper was designed in the 1930's by Eleonora Gallo.  She named the pattern Siena and designed it after a cross-stitch embroidery found on a Tuscan apron. In her book, Peasant Art In Italy, she wrote:  "'Wait',he says, 'the first autumn rains will hide the burnt-up crests with a mantle of vegetation and they will be covered with browsing flocks'. All the cities in Tuscany endow their country-side with a halo of that art and poetry which is their heritage."

I studied a painting once by an old master who used a checkered table cloth as his canvas.  I delighted in seeing the pattern emerge and disappear in the ground. Here I painted my stage curtain and background on the same Siena paper as the frame. I think I will add clouds.

The porch outside my studio window dressed for the holidays.

 Wishing All a Joyous Christmas: Light shining in the darkness.