Sweatshirt and Skirt Outfit for SIA: Carolyn Zimmerman + DIY Jewelry

Marsha at Marsha in the Middle is the curator for this round of Style Imitating Art (SIA), and she selected the oil painting "Buon Giorno Venezia" by American Californian artist Carolyn Zimmerman. She initially was considering a floral work by Georgia O'Keeffe, but when she stumbled upon this painting, she knew it was the one; she thought the different colors and lines had a lot to offer in creating a fun outfit.

Source: marshainthemiddle.com

The colors, lines, and ripples in the water immediately made me think of my multi-colored softly striped sweatshirt (which I also wore 2 years ago for another SIA challenge).

Because Winter has us once again in its cold, snowy grasp, I knew I'd need to style the sweatshirt with a skirt, tights, and tall boots for warmth. I chose my thrifted slate blue M.M. LaFleur skirt and cognac leather boots to create a version of the Blue/Orange complimentary color scheme. I could have worn either brown or navy tights with this combination, and I went with navy.

For additional warmth and more splashes of blue, I layered my denim shirt and a pretty blue pashmina (both thrifted) with the sweatshirt. (Luckily it was not so cold that I needed to layer a quilted vest over the top.)

OOTD 3/25/24

A button up shirt offers a nice space for adding necklaces so I chose to layer three different ones: a seed pearl necklace made by a friend about 30 years ago, a two-strand seed bead and pearl-on-chain necklace from Loft, and my DIY orange/peach/gold multi-strand seed bead necklace. Had I skipped the scarf, I would have included a long necklace as well, but in this context, these three looked good to me. The "two above the collar, one below" styling was an experiment that worked out pretty well.

My all-DIY daily bracelet stack is based on a brand new paper bead bracelet set in a color scheme of soft blue, soft indigo, sandstone coral and yellow with gold metal. For this outfit, I drew on the soft blue and yellow colors in choosing my supplemental bracelets; I made all three of them from stone beads in muted colors. {bicone paper bead tutorial} {stretch bracelet tutorial}

The top paper bead bracelet with the blue flower charm started out as a calendar page with an image of the sea, mountains, and an island in various soft shades of blue. I applied gold marker to the edges to cover the white paper core, but I also used the gold to cover up the dark green of the trees, which wasn't part of my color palette. I love how these beads turned out with the mottled blue paper and bold golden stripes. This is a good reminder that if you like a page for making beads "except for...," you can always change that part of it using marker, paint, etc. so that is suits your purpose.

I made the second paper bead bracelet using a full-page illustration from an alumni magazine article about Venice, which is also the subject of our inspiration painting - nice, right?! I thought this would be a fitting tribute to the SIA challenge. I made liberal use of my gold marker again on the white paper core as well as the white text. (This particular article had a lot of gorgeous illustrations on nice thick paper so you will be seeing more "Venetian" paper beads in the future.)

This paper bead bracelet set was the result of multiple inspirations. I had come up with the initial color scheme by drawing on accent colors in this floral dress - the soft blue tones, sandstone coral, and yellow. The set I'd previously made for the softly striped sweatshirt used silver metal, so I decided to do this one with gold. The two specific pages I chose, one with the sea and one with Venice, were slam dunk options for this SIA's Venice painting.

This week I can check off "slate blue + gold" from my bead soup earrings-to-make list with this new DIY stack earring pair that I made specifically to match the color of the skirt I'm wearing. It's just 3 beads (and 2 daisy spacers) on a stick, but the combination of faceted glass, smooth stone, and metal flower beads is quite pretty and delicate.

Now for favorite part of the post: choosing our Rabbit Imitating Art bunny! I decided I wanted a white rabbit that would stand out well against the busy, colorful background of the painting, and this lovely and serene Californian rabbit volunteered.

Californian, like the artist? you might ask. Indeed, it wasn't until I reached this point in the post that I realized "Californian" was resonating oddly. I went back to Marsha's outfit post and saw that the artist is a surfer from California (who visited Venice for chemo and recovery from breast cancer at the age of 32; luckily the treatment worked, and she currently lives in Laguna Beach, CA). I have now amended the start of my post to call her a Californian artist rather than an American one (since we all know that Californians are a breed of their own).

Thus I present our improved artwork: a Californian in Venice! We definitely needed a laid-back bunny for this one since she's riding in a gondola...which, let's be clear, would not be most rabbits' first choice.

Buon Giorno Venezia "improved" with Californian rabbit

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 Marsha in the Middle.

As we quickly approach Easter, are you in full-on spring weather yet? Are your boots put away for the season? It's snowing as I write this post, and I'm rather glad for it because it has been a dry winter.

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