Hard to believe another month has passed and yet … at the same time, not. Days sometimes feel long, but weeks seem to pass in quick succession. My son was complaining about how fast time was going a while back, and part of me was, like, “kiddo, just you wait!” It’s fun seeing the world through his eyes, though, even if it makes me even more acutely aware of how long ago I was in his shoes. Next up on the agenda: prepping for Halloween. You best believe that, if not for the kids, I wouldn’t be marking the occasion in any special way. Some people are Halloween people; I am not. Nothing against Halloween, but the whole hoopla around it is exhausting to me. And I feel like I’m running on fumes at the best of times.

How about some outfits?

Not a bad month even if it was full of neutrals. Thrifting has picked up again in a major way, so I’ve had quite a few new pieces come into my closet. It makes me feel like I need to step up my game. I also have to take stock of what’s in my closet and decide if it’s in need of some editing (Narrator voice: “it always was”). With winter around the corner (and the short, cold days ahead) I don’t want to fall into a rut. For next month, I’m going back to a monthly colour scheme in an effort to stay away from wearing all black, all the time. I’m thinking green and mustard yellow (goldenrod?) but we shall see.

The last time we talked about painting, I was exploring landscapes and still lives. Let’s see what’s been happening since then.

Well, I decided to try my hand at portraits. First, let me say that while I love portraiture, I have always struggled with it. I can draw a basic cartoon face well enough, but realistic portraits are challenging. Even so, I have been saving inspiration pictures on my phone for a while; I am drawn to interesting faces, not necessarily conventionally pretty ones. Strong features, memorable angles and lines. One of the portraits I’ve been wanting to do for a while was Grace Coddington. Initially, I wanted to make an embroidered portrait, but that never came to pass. Instead, I decided to try a painting.

Here was the photo I chose for inspiration:

I started this picture on a whim, and put brush to canvas without doing a sketch beforehand. I have never attempted to paint without a guiding sketch before, much less a portrait at that. It was kind of terrifying but also compulsive. I did the rough “draft” of the face in about 30 minutes and … it wasn’t as bad as I feared it might be.

The painting ended up taking about a week to complete, in small spurts, and while it’s by no means very good, I felt it was a decent first effort.

Rather than jump into another portrait right away, I took a detour and tried a new approach to landscapes. A more abstract, colour-focused approach. I liked the results a lot.

Then I ran into a creative rut. I tried a few pieces that didn’t work no matter what I did. I felt stuck and very frustrated. It was my first experience of self-perceived failure since I started painting, and it was very demoralizing. Eventually, I decided that the only way to move forward was to chuck the pieces that weren’t working (they were too heavy on the texture to try to paint over) and start fresh. An article on Edith Sitwell caught my eye, and I decided to make her my next portrait subject.

I love how this one turned out, even though my mom did ask if I was painting Morticia Addams. To be honest, I don’t care if it looks more like Anjelica Houston than Edith Sitwell. I want my portraits to have atmosphere, and I think this one has it. I found it a spot in my library, and I love how it looks there:

Then I went back to the drawing board again and decided to do a still life again … but in my own way. A contributing factor in my earlier creative rut was the fact that I was looking online at how other people were painting the kinds of things I wanted to paint, but was having trouble making that work for me. For this painting, I found inspiration in my own work – namely, the floral embroidery work I did a while back. Remember this blazer:

I did a semi-abstract still life based on those flowers and using a colour scheme that just spoke to me.

I was pretty pleased with how this turned out; so much so, that I decided to find it a spot in the house too. I took a couple of my paintings (plus an original acrylic I recently thrifted at Value Village) and updated the gallery wall in the master bedroom.

I love the splashes of colour, and I am thinking that there are a few more prints that I want to replace with original art.

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these posts, but I’ve been sitting on this outfit idea for weeks, waiting for the weather to catch up. With fall in full swing, the time has come.

Ok, I know. This outfit (from the Brandon Maxwell Fall/Winter 2019 runway collection) probably doesn’t scream “autumn” but wait till you see my interpretation. This look was one of the major standouts for me when I perused the Vogue runway collections edition; to be honest, I really wish I could own these exact pieces because they look so incredible. I also wish I lived a life that would allow me to wear this outfit like it’s no big deal. Alas.

Belted blazers are apparently a trend again. Some of the looks I’ve seen remind me of what we were all doing back in 2012-2013, though I think most of us were skinny-belting cardigans at the time more so than blazers. Belts are tricky for me these days – I can usually only wear them for about half a day – but the beauty of belting a blazer is that, well, if you take off the belt, you still have a perfectly acceptable outfit.

Here’s my take:

The main piece is the skirt – although it’s not satin like the original, it has a similar fluidity – one of my favourite elements from the inspiration. I tried a couple of blazers, and in the end chose this Giorgio Armani; it’s impeccably tailored and slim-fitting which is key because you don’t want extra bulk around the belt. This obi belt was a long searched-for item. I spent years scouring eBay for something like this, but ended up finding this one at Value Village for $12; it’s real leather, and a collab between Greta Constantine (Canadian designer) and Danier. It’s a wonderful finishing piece, and the adjustability makes it easier for me to wear for longer periods.

As with most of my runway-inspired outfits, this was not a literal translation but one that I felt captured the spirit of the original (or, at least, the part that spoke to me) and worked for my actual lifestyle.