Blooming Beyond

Week 19's colours are Jade, Pumpkin, Mallow and Scarlet

It’s Monday 12 May and the Colori Flori Summit has kicked off.

Lori Siebert’s lesson titled Blooming Beyond has just been released and she demonstrates how to create a bold and colourful 3D floral vase based on a Vanessa Bell still life painting which is the source of this week’s Coloricombo prompt.

If you’ve joined the Summit, you will get a load of information from Lori’s lesson about Bell, the Bloomsbury Group and Charleston house. If you’re still thinking about joining, registration closes on 25 May.

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Vanessa Bell (1879-1961) was was an English painter and interior designer and was a member of the Bloomsbury Group. She was also Virginia Woolf's equally talented but often overlooked sister.

While Woolf conquered literature, Bell transformed British art by bringing Post-Impressionist bold colors and experimental forms to a country still stuck in Victorian stuffiness.

Bell was at the core of the infamous Bloomsbury Group, a circle of friends who gathered in London's Bloomsbury district to tear down conventional thinking about art, relationships, and society.

Members included Bell’s sister, the author E.M. Forster and the economist John Maynard Keynes. Two other members featured in Coloricombo of Week 23, 2023: the artist Dora Carrington with her portrait of Lytton Strachey.

After Bell’s marriage to art critic Clive Bell cooled, she began a lifelong relationship with fellow artist Duncan Grant. Beginning in 1916, they transformed Charleston Farmhouse in Sussex, England into a living artwork, painting everything from doors to furniture. This country retreat became the ultimate creative playground where the Bloomsbury set could live by their own rules.

Read about Charleston Farmhouse in House & Garden magazine here. If you’re close to Lewes or Brighton, there’s a Vanessa Bell exhibition on there until 21 September 2025, read about it on the official Charleston website. Finally here’s the Christies auction of this work.

“Autumn Bouquet”, oil on board, Vanessa Bell, 1912

Colour Combination

The chosen colours this week are Jade, Pumpkin, Mallow and Scarlet. Use the colours along with a contrasting dark and neutral light colour if you wish. Create an artwork in any medium or style.

I love seeing what you’ve create. If you’re posting on Instagram, please tag #coloricombo and #estemacleod and join us in the private Facebook group Creative Prompts.