Sunlight Streaming Into Rooms
Houses In The Snow
A collection of hygge houses surrounded by snow.
Warm Yellow Windows Which Look Cosy From a Distance
It’s that time of year again in Australia, where the land becomes brown and dusty, I’m stuck inside to avoid the heat, prepping for Christmas, looking at artwork from the Northern Hemisphere, where 90% of humankind live.
Dark, Shadowy Interiors
Some of these paintings serve as dark frames to draw attention to a scene outside a window. But every afternoon in winter there’s a period between full light and dark, where you haven’t quite turned the lights on yet. These paintings capture this mood.
Kitchen Stoves In Art and Illustration
What do kitchen stoves look like throughout the ages?
Writing Activity: Describe The Outside Of A House
A writing activity in which you imaginatively approach a house and describe it.
The Fairytale Importance of the Literary Salon and Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy
First, what is a salon? 1. A RECEPTION ROOM IN A LARGE HOUSE The common feature of a salon: It is set up for social interaction. As shown in the header illustration, “Grand Salon” Hôtel du Collectioneur, Paris 1925. Arch. Emile Jaques Ruhlmann, a salon is also a feature of a grand hotel. 2. WHERE […]
Interesting Ceilings In Illustration
EXPOSED BEAMS CATHEDRAL CEILINGS Header: Interiors of The Winter Palace, The Small Winter Garden of Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna illustratrated by Konstantin Andreyevich Ukhtomsky (1818-1881)
The Home Hearth in Art and Storytelling
In his book Home, Witold Rybczynski describes a typical European house: Heating was primitive. Houses in the sixteenth century had a fireplace or cookstove only in the main room, and no heating in the rest of the house. In winter, this room with its heavy masonry walls and stone floor was extremely cold. Voluminous clothing,…
Writing Activity: Describe a Bathroom
Maurice Lobre – Cabinette de toilette de Jacques-Emile Blanche 1888
Cutaway Houses In Picture Books
Cutaway illustrations are described by engineers and architects as ‘sectional axonometric’ drawings. They exist to show the viewer the inside of an object, with emphasis on its parts. In picture books for children, the cutaway illustration is quite often educational in its intent, for example to show the reader the inside of an object of…
Chimneys In Art And Storytelling
The chimney is a multivalent symbol in storytelling. Chimneys can be cosy and welcoming. A column of smoke rose thin and straight from the cabin chimney. The smoke was blue where it left the red of the clay. It trailed into the blue of the April sky and was no longer blue but gray. The…