Completed 12th March 2025

1500 Pieces

One dot at a time - by Elspeth McLean

Ravensburger, 2018

 The artist was born in Australia and lives in Canada. She invented the so-called Mandala stones and assorts them to stunning collages. The jigsaw puzzle shows her "rainbow collection".

You can find more about Elspeth on her website here (about) and here (mandala stones).

Under construction: "One dot at a time" - 1500 pieces - updated 12th March and completed

  

"One dot at a time" by Elspeth McLean 

Ravensburger, 2018

I started this one yesterday and it seems that it won't be a quick ride. Already assorted the pieces and assembled the frame. Pics will follow 

assorted by colour ... somehow :-)

Yellow and red catch my eyes every time

 

Some success on the pink and turquoise

A successful weekend with a bit of assorted pieces

 

... here wo go with colours and dots, dots, dots

a final photo before completion

 

 

Finished 10th October 2019 ** Renoirs flowerbouquet

1000 Pieces

Bunch of flowers

Original title: "Fleurs dans un pot en terre cuite" 

by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Oil on canvas, 64,8×54,3 cm, approx. 1869

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA

Picture by Schapowalow/Plessner

A Ravensburger jigsaw puzzle of 1983

 

Finished 1st October 2019 ** vintage flowers

759 Pieces

Stilllife with apples

A vintage jigsaw puzzle by Pelikan

 past ... and present

(Aster dumosus)

Finished 15th August 2019 ** Flowers in full bloom

1000 Pieces

Watering Time

by Simon Kayne (2014)

A Wentworth wooden jigsaw puzzle

assembled by my husband and me

Picture of all Whimsies hidden inside this jigsaw puzzle

taken by a friend who already assembled this jigsaw puzzle

Finished 6th October 2018

500 Pieces

Summer arrangement

Photographer: Ulrike Schneiders

Ravensburger, 1994

Finished 25th February 2018

300 Pieces

"Roses, 1890"

by Vincent van Gogh

National Gallery of Art, Washington (USA)

90 x 71 cm, oil on canvas

painted shortly before he left the asylum in St.-Rémy in may 1890.

He felt much better and started painting life in full bloom. 

Van Gogh used so much paint that it took a month and more to dry. 

He received the parcel from the asylum in late june 1890. 

Weeks filled with creativity followed but also conflicts with his brother Theo

One month later Vincent Van Gogh died in Auvers.

A Grafika jigsaw puzzle

Finished 10th February 2018

1500 Pieces

Delicious Flavors

Photographer unknown

Manufacturer: Castorland (Poland)

Joylevel: extremely high :-D

Finished 8th March and updated 9th March 2016

140 Pieces

William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham and his Family dining (1567)
by: Master of the Countess of Warwick
Dimension: 120 x 92 cm - Oil on Wood
Longleat House, Wiltshire

A Wentworth Wooden Jigsaw with some interesting details

I visited an exhibition in Hagen yesterday - with a friend

 Emil Schumacher (1912-1999)

Born in Hagen, representative of abstract expressionism in post-war Germany.

To show his art in an appropriate way, a museum was built during 2006-2009. You already saw this building a few weeks ago.

At the ground floor the artist's atelier is on display:

used brushes, tons with colours, huge bags with pigments - the easel is covered with

layers and layers of colour 

climbing up to the first floor 

 The onion (1990), oil on wood

Whenever I see this vibrant red onion, I stand there and watch it. 

No idea why, but I like this thing, that looks half tomatoe, half garden-reddish.

At least, I don't have to explain.... art.

Helios (1988), oil-paint on canvas

Inscripton on the wall: "Emil Schumachers Art is neither strictly abstract nor explicit graphic. His early work is already applied with themes like arcaded sidewalks, ladders, birds, horses and wheels." 

Impressions of Marocco (1983)

Art on a whitewashed peace of cardboard

Impressions of Assur, Iraq (1988)

Postwar still-lifes

 Still-life with pumpkin and clivia (plant), 1946

Bottle and Pumpkin (1946)

"1945 - Meeting at the wreckage"

 is a special exhibition on display right now:

it shows the horror of war as well as the hard times in german post-war years

 Bombing-raid on a city (1946) - a series of four woodcarvings

 Phosphorus bombing on a city (1946) - a series of four horrifying woodcarvings

 Sodom (1957) - Oil on canvas

There were hard times for old men in the post-war years. 

Starving, nothing to do, nowhere to go. While younger men died in war or were kept in war-captivity, the older men resigned starving. This is what Emil Schumacher wants to show.

 

Man with a bottle (1946), ink

 

 Sitting old man (1946), coloured pen

Women and children collect wood in front of bombed houses. 

Linocut is the perfect medium chosen by the artist to express the hopeless and 

hard work of a starving family

 Woodcollector (1945), linocut

Is there hope to find the way back to a normal life?

Is it allowed to amuse a few years after the war ended?

Is a fun fair the symbol for hope? I guess so.

Kirmes (1948), Linocut

******

Emil Schumacher also worked on ceramics and porcelain:

 Porcelain, KPM (1992-1993)

1989: on his daily walks he found slate rooftiles to be casted away. In the same year he created a circle of fourteen birds (Uccelli). Mr. Schumacher scratched the slate and painted with acrylic colours. He left all signs of age and human usage (nailholes, breaking edge) and framed the tiles in used-wood-frames.

Uccelli (1989), slate, acrylic colour, wood

Last, but not least:

A coloured linocut of 1951 "The Organ-grinder"

Papermill Kabel, an urban district of Hagen (1949), oil on wood

 The papermill is still going strong...

It was interesting to find a way to the art of Emil Schumacher yesterday.