A wonderful Match

Oh my - the time marches fast - especially around this part of the year where I prefer to spend more time outdoors on my balcony etc. than sitting in front of the computer or at the easel. So I have to apologize that I haven't posted for a while.

Checking through my treasury of collected images I found this one of a room vignette where I love 2 things: the colours and the iron work of the 2 tables. It is such a simple setting but it looks so cozy and harmonious. I would love to sit there, read a nice book and listen to some classical music.

(original image source: www.homesolute.com)

Then I thought a painting was missing on the wall to make this harmony really complete. Nautilus is painted on silk and the colours would complement the colours of the wall beautifully.

The silk painting belongs to the Magic Creatures series and is one of my favourite paintings in general. The use of mother-of-pearl pigments together with the silk paints makes this painting really sparkling in light.

"Nautilus"
(from the Magic Creatures Series)
silk, 40" x 13"
©Petra Voegtle

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A sweet little Bedroom in Cream and Green and dreaming of sunlit Valleys

** A very HAPPY and PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR **

to everybody!

When the light is missing and the days are dull,cold and unfriendly don't you long for some friendly and cozy environment too? 

I miss the green outside and the colours but mostly the green. That feeling is coming back, the fainthearted question arising whether it will ever be warm again and whether there will be any colours ever outside again. Of course there will but at the moment it does not look like that. I hate this kind of weather, the winter, the cold and I wish to be in warmer regions and say goodbye to winter forever. Truly!

In the meanwhile I am dreaming of sunlit valleys on tropical islands, of wonderfully green palms and other trees which are swinging in a breeze and I imagine being in this bedroom, having a good night sleep there and waking up in the morning and seeing the ocean outside...heavenly...

Below is the original photo of this bedroom and I thought it needs a bit more art on the wall than just these tiny frames with the kids photos or grandchildren on the wall behind. To be honest would YOU hang these photos above your bed? There are better places for these...

The art work is a silk painting inspired by the landscapes of the Hawaiian Islands - where else? It is called The Valley.It is ready to be hung with or without additional frame as it is gallery wrapped (the staples are on the back only and it's sides are painted too).

"The Valley"
(from the Magic Landscapes Series)
silk, 21" x 40"
©Petra Voegtle

Other room examples with this painting can be found here.

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Colours of the Desert - Dry Land - a surreal Landscape

This painting belongs to a series called The Magic of Landscapes and I have shown it already several times in different environments. Here are now some details about it. The series is also part of a concept and the theme of this concept is to show the magic that surrounds us everywhere and is recognized easily when we open the eyes. This series explores the magic of landscapes and special places, the moments of awe when we see the miracles that are created by nature rather than human phantasy, the moments of spiritual connection with the past and the future and the moments of transformation through human imagination.

Dry Land is a semi-surrealistic landscape. Inspired by the colours of the desert, which can change completely during a day, this work shows the paradoxa of a landscape that obey the natural laws of nature. While the dune like formations seem to be a solid mass, the surface of the dried river bed  appears  fragile and delicate. But in reality the opposite is true: dunes are the fragile element, ever changing with the wind and the dried river bed has turned into solid earth, hard as stone when the water is all gone.

(click on images for enlargement)

"Dry Land"
(from the Magic Landscapes Series)
40" x 21", silk
©Petra Voegtle

Under following links you can find some room examples featuring this painting: interior1, interior2, interior3

This painting has been painted on silk, has been gallery wrapped and is ready to be hung with or without additional frame.

(This work won an "Artist of the Year" award at the Boxheart Gallery in Pennsylvania and a solo show.)

In addition I am presenting here a version of the painting how it could look like when framed in a sophisticated frame. It makes a difference - doesn't it?

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Matching Colours again...

I must admit that I really have fun with matching colours. The challenge is to find objects in rooms which repeat or complement a certain colour. As I can do this only virtually I never can be sure whether you see the same as I do colourwise, depending on the value settings of your monitor. Never mind...

The painting shown here belongs to the series Reminiscenes - I have written about it here . The fun part is that these paintings are very colourful and fit into many interiors, be it modern, classic, romantic or any other style. I find they can really brighten up the day and change a bad mood to the better. The important point is to mount them in a complementing frame (which I have done here virtually again) and then place them into the right context:

 original image source and with courtesy of 

http://www.livingetc.com

"Amarillo"
(from the Reminiscences series)

26" x 18", acrylic

©Petra Voegtle

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A Bathroom with a mysterious Landscape

I love mysteries. I love mystery stories, I love mysterious people and I absolutely love mysterious landscapes. I love to explore caves, gorges and all those places where you don't know what you can expect turning around the next corner. It is exiting, it is food for inspiration, it is a source for dreams of another world. What would our lives be without mysteries and dreams?

I am especially fascinated by stalactite caves. They are truly mysterious and your phantasies can go berserk when you look at those glitzy stalactites and stalacmites, the forms and patterns they create, sometimes looking like sculptures of humans or aninmals, sometimes filigree like crotcheted lace even in different colours depending on the minerals they contain. A natural miracle and mystery. Beautiful beyond any words.

This is how Mother Nature designs her interior:

all images are from ARGE Höhle & Karst Grabenstetten e.V.

And this is my humble example of re-creating a landscape from below the surface on silk:

"Underworld"
(from the Magic Landscapes Series)
silk, 40" x 21"
©Petra Voegtle

And in which interior design would I place this painting? F.e. in this bathroom where this painting would certainly add a mystic touch. Imagine you relax in your bathtub after a long working day and you dream of landscapes which do not seem to be on this world...

(unfortunately the original image source got lost...I apologize)

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A Dining Room with Magic

I like this dining room. I like the materials of the accessories and I like the colours. I like the simplicity of this room. There is no schnickschnack, no redundant decoration. This room is perfect to have a nice dinner with your husband/wife and your best friends.
What I missed though in the original composition is a little extra for the visual senses, a tiny touch of exotic, a reminiscence perhaps of travelling to foreign countries, memories...

I would always try to give a room a very small but special attraction, just in order to tease the senses and so I would replace the original painting by this one, Maya, a silk painting that talks of ancient cultures, of secrets that may never be fully unsealed.

In my opinion it is a mistake to hang a painting or any other object d'art in a room with the same subject i.e. I would never hang an image about food in a dining room - honestly that is quite boring. It would be equally boring to hang a nude in the bedroom. Where is the fun then? And what do YOU think about this?

    original image source from http://www.getdecorating.com

You can find more detail photos in my last post if you like and read a bit about the Maya and their culture.

"Maya"
(from the Magic Symbols Series)
40" x 13", silk
©Petra Voegtle

As usual the silk painting has been gallery wrapped (stapled on the back not on the sides) and can be hung immediately with or without additional frame.

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Maya and the Tree of Life - a recurring Symbol in all Cultures

Ancient Maya believed in recurring cycles of creation and destruction. They had a very precise view of how earth and heaven was built up in layers and where trees were supposed to support the sky. The painting is showing Pacal Votan* descending the tree of life.

"Known as a magician of time, he understood mathematics, or numbers, as a type of language that transcends the subjectivity of human verbal experience. His sentiment "All is number. *God is a number. God is in All." is an intriguing way to catalogue the Maya's message that we are intimately linked with and informed by the Galaxy. All of life is ordered by the same basic, re-occurring patterns." (from www.13moon.com)

"Mayan science was not separate from their religion, for they embraced the microcosm of the atom and the macrocosm of the infinite. Their universal philosophy teaches us that "the human body belongs to the earth, and the human spirit to the Universe." The Maya understood human existence as "nothing less than a faithful reflection of cosmic energy." As manifestations of cosmic consciousness, the Maya regarded all things and beings that exist on Earth as products of the projection of energy in the form of vibration. Their world view is a paradigm based on wave harmonics and resonant fields. The Mayan sages were aware of the sensory and extrasensory characteristics of trees and plants, and, understanding that the tree is the best regenerator of the air we breath, revered the tree." (from www.13moon.com)

For the Maya the tree of life represented the world center, it constituted a symbolic vertical line uniting the three realms of underworld, earth and heaven. The Mayan considered the Milky Way itself as the world tree especially at the time when Sagittarius was well over the horizon and the Milky Way rose up from the horizon and climbed overhead into the North. The star clouds that form the Milky Way were seen as the tree of life where all life came from.

"Maya"
(from the Magic Symbols Series)
40" x 13", silk
©Petra Voegtle

Btw - the hieroglyphs have no meaning - in order not to touch any copyright laws I simply took the single known hieroglyphs, re-painted them and combined them deliberately...

*Pacal Votan was the sage-king of the Maya. He lived from 603 - 683 AD

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Interior Design on Ranches and their Signatures

The interior design of a ranch would certainly include the appropriate symbols and signatures of a life on the country and living with its animals. But sometimes you can do a little too much I find as in this case.

The entry hall is quite dark and makes you well aware where you are and including a new object of interest like this silk painting adds even more focus to the land instead of a photo or painting with another "ranching" motif such as a typical "cowboy" motif. See original below. Or what is your take on this

    original image source from http://www.getdecorating.com

 

"Dry Land"
(from the Magic Landscapes series)
40" x 21", silk
©Petra Voegtle

Other vignettes with this painting can be found here and here.

A Firework of Colours - in a Crystal

Remember the other painting about tourmalines? It is here. This is another one with completely different colours and different shapes. Tourmalines belong to the most variegated minerals. Take the complete colour wheel and you will have all potential hues and shades of the crystal.That's so fascinating with tourmalines.

This one has been painted in acrylic on cotton. You can hang it with or without an additional frame. Illuminated with the right light the colours of this painting start to glow...

(Click on the images for enlargement)

"Tourmaline II"

(from the "Crystals and Minerals" series)

40" x 13", acrylic on cotton

©Petra Voegtle

Some virtual examples of a room with this painting on the wall are enclosed in the following links: interior1, interior2

I have added some photos of this fascinating mineral:

(image source: http://mineralminers.com/)

And here is another, very unusual tourmaline crystal in order to show you how variegated this mineral is:

(image source: http://www.crystal-treasure.com)
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The Palace - a Silk Scroll as an alternative Decor

I am always looking for alternatives and different ideas. I think any room with a traditional interior design could also become something very special with a tiny exotic touch, something not everybody calls her/his own. This could be any object or a very special piece of art.

Today it is quite common to mix styles - every epoch has at least one speciality - so why not take advantage of the parts which we like and avoid the rest we may not like.
Curved lines are combined with straight ones, bright colours are mixed with subdued hues and as long as there is a certain harmony depending on layout, objects and space everything may be used if you like it.

Natural taste is as is known very subjective and driven by subconscious vibes. Yet there is another taste that can be taught and learned i.e. you need to learn about the rules of composition. These are in principle the same rules you need to know when creating an excellent piece of art. A good painter will always recognize whether a painting is unbalanced and inherits severe mistakes - a good interior designer will know immediately when objects (including furniture) are positioned the best way, where colours, textures and patterns compliment each other and where focus is necessary to lead the eye: when everything plays together to form a harmonious unit. Harmony in my opinion is the most important part in a room in order to feel peace and affinity.

Here is a great quote that says it all.

"A harmonious room will be achieved when the rules of scale, balance, contrast and rhythm are followed. In addition, a harmonious room will have furnishings and other elements that relate to one another within a interior decorating scheme." (Interior Decorating)

What I have done here was virtually replacing the original display cabinet with this silk scroll.The original image (see below) had an open build-in display cabinet with a collection of very beautiful and probably very expensive china. But you have to see this in detail very near. From the distance this somehow retreats into the background despite the lighting. I would be looking for an eyecatcher, something that draws you in even from a greater distance.

  original image source from http://www.getdecorating.com 

the original design

The scroll is from the series of ornamental silk scrolls which depict motifs from southeast Asia/India. The Palace is an hommage to the sophisticated ancient architecture you can find in India. If you would like to read more about the "making of" this extravagant piece and see a lot of large detail images please check this link.

"The Palace" 

( from the Ornaments series)

75" x 23", silk scroll
©Petra Voegtle

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Bright Red or a fascinating Landscape on the Wall?

I must admit when I saw the picture of this hallway I was fascinated. I think the interior designer did an excellent job by placing that bright red photo(?) as focal point on the wall. It sends a lot of heat into these white walls - a wonderful and necessary contrast. You can see the original photo below.

But then I thought as brilliant and eye catching this bright red photo is, it probably will soon lose its attraction - I mean there is not so very much to discover in this photo, it completely lives from the colour. It's a similar issue with a bright coloured dress or maybe even a car - it might be a screamer for some time, a prominent focus for everybody but after some time you get bored with it and you wished to have chosen something more sophisticated. I am offering here an alternative: my suggestion would have been this triptych, a large silk painting that consists of 3 panels. But judge for yourself.

Btw - the peculiarity of this triptych is that you could hang each panel separately because it was painted in a manner that each panel shows a complete landscape in itself...

original image source from http://www.getdecorating.com

the original image

(Click to enlarge)

 "Canyon"
(from the Magic Landscapes series) 
40" x 63", Triptych, silk
©Petra Voegtle

If you would like to see more detail photos about this painting please check this link. Here are some more room examples for this painting: interior1, interior2

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