a_natural_beauty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bonnard

https://www.wikiart.org/en/pierre-bonnard

Have any of you seen Pierre Bonnard's works?

The recent art book from my library I finished was about Pierre Bonnard. It was a rather big one and so it took me a bit longer to finish than the others. He was born in 1867 and passed away in 1947, living to be 79. He was a founding member of the post impressionist group.

What I noticed and what the book talked about a good deal was his detailed backgrounds. With colors and textures they stood out in an unusual way. Pierre was inspired by Japanese art and having now seen some of his paintings in the similar style I feel it worked well for him. Some of his paintings felt pretty expressive with his somewhat flowing style of clothing, hairstyles, poses and facial expressions. Pierre seemed to have liked painting with his friends and family during dining or lounging or
I liked what the book shared with me but looking online at his other works has been a good experience as well.

https://www.wikiart.org/en/pierre-auguste-renoir/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Auguste_Renoir

For the month of April I read one of my local libraries art books about Pierre Auguste Renoir. To be honest his artwork - paintings throughout the book as well as descriptions of such paintings caught my attention more than the first half of the book about his life. His art is stunning and so realistic I felt like I was looking at paintings. Again, he's another artist I haven't heard of before. So this was a nice treat to learn of him and see his paintings. HIs work felt familiar but I'm not sure why, maybe it's similar to other art I have seen over the years at different art museums.

Pierre Auguste Renoir was born February 25th 1841. He lived to be 78, passing away in 1919. Which I feel was pretty good for those times. He practiced in impressionism. A-lot of his art has beautiful woman and children in them. Truly some lifelike works. With his art he uses a fine range of colors in some paintings and others he uses few - which I think takes a certain amount of talent and skill. I find it interesting that a few of his children grew up to be well known film makers and in related films. And in later years his grandson became a famous artist.

Have any of you heard of Pierre Auguste Renoir?

I think this is my hobby I put the most hours and time towards now. Which is fun and well deserved. I have so many books that I've held on to for years and I'm glad I now am making the time and effort to read them. Plus reading has caused me a certain happiness that I've found helpful in these times with political changes and such related news. I'm grateful for the apps Good reads and Story graph. It's nice keeping track of my read books plus the other uses those apps have.
So I think the last time I wrote about books was at the end of last month? Or middle of last month? I guess it doesn't matter. For once I'm going to write about books I read that I did not like. Because that happened. There will be spoilers for once. You have been warned. I'm not going to go into full details of what each book is about, but feel free to ask me and I will explain further. This post will be rather long. Also you have been warned!

I've been slowly making it through the wizard of Oz series by L. Frank Baum with Mike. It's been an up and down hill battle. Some of them start off good but then just slowly get bad. I've found most just feel repetitive. This last one was 'The scarecrow of Oz' and it was actually somewhat decent.

'At the edge of the orchard' by Tracy Chevalier was just toxic... and at the same time had little to no emotion. It's hard to put into words but this family in this book was all pretty miserable and difficult to read about. The crazy part was the parents ended up killing each other in fight. Also the mother openly cheats on the father at these religious cult-like groups they go to as a family... it was weird. And I feel like that is putting it lightly. I was unhappy while reading it due to mainly this family and how boring the characters were. I didn't care about this family. I didn't care about the plot. It was hard to get through. I guess the writing was okay.

'The promised Neverland' volumes 8 and 9 were amazing! I love how this series has gotten over time! I'm greatly looking forward to reading the rest of the series. There has been so much world building and character development. I like reading manga and returning it to the library. Buying and storing manga stresses me out and I feel that by reading this manga series from the library has opened by eyes up to that option. The series is a total of 20 volumes long so I am almost halfway done.

'The original sin' by Marius Gabriel was so good for about 90% of the book. I love it so much. The writing! Learning about the three generations of woman and how life effected them all differently, there was some drug use which I really haven't read a ton about but it was okay, how the plot keep going and I was pretty invested in the story... but then towards the end we learn of incest. incest between one of the main characters who she basically liked and it turned into an even stranger situation when two siblings (but actually not siblings - plot twist - hah!) get the hots for each other and it complicates things so much more... I get it, the title... I knew something was going to be bad... sinful if you will, but I was not expecting somewhat welcoming incest like that. It left such an awful taste in my mouth. I'm debating if I should keep it or not. It was one of those random smut novels I've had for years and never knew how or why I had it but I'm glad I read it overall... just the way the ending had to go left me disappointed.

'Sung: A collection of comics about dating your best friend' by Catana Chetwynd was overall wholesome but the art style sort of left me feeling weird. I get it most people like those huge eyes but I just found their facial expressions sort of freaky. But the comics themselves were cute. I don't want to sound like a snob when I say that. I know my art style isn't anything to brag about either. It just left me feeling 'eh' at times while I read the comics.

'Always' by Sarah Jio was probably by far the worst book I have read in a long time. Worst than the toxic family from 'The edge of the orchard'... worst than the incest in 'The original sin'... It had parts of it that made me pretty uncomfortable. And I feel like this is such a common theme these days when it comes to romance novels/movies/shows. A girl has a rich, successful - handsome even - man. Then one day an old flame comes back and she questions everything she has. It usually always goes border-line cheating but then after so much confusion she finally picks her old flame and they live happily ever after. It's frustrating. In this one the main character lies several times in the start of the book to her Fiancé, even including spending thousands on her old flame because he's homeless and has a traumatic brain injury, has him over to their apartment without her Fiancé knowing (to stay for a few days while he is out on a business trip) and only comes clean when he's opening the door and finding her and her old flame having a slow dance together. Throughout the story the main character is unlikeable to me and just keeps being wishy washy. It gets old fast. I didn't care for the writing either. Not to my taste.

I forgot to update you guys on the stamp show I went to last week on Friday with Mike. It was the third time I went to this show, a smaller show but still all the same to me I feel like it's a pretty decent size with maybe about a dozen booths/stalls. Usually the same people there selling their stamps so each time I feel I've gotten to know them a bit better and what they offer. This was Mike's first show where he started to buy his own stamps for his own collection and it was nice sorting through stamps with him.
I ended up buying more pages to put my smaller stamps on since I seem to be running out of those these days. And I bought some nice international ones that were new to my collection. I found a good amount of first day covers that caught my eye, so I came home with those also. I need a new album for my first day covers, I'm planning on getting one or two soon. My amount I planed on spending was $20 and I think I went over by a few dollars which isn't bad in all honestly.
Mike and I tried getting talked into joining a stamp group that meets once a month to talk about stamps and volunteer with future shows but in all honesty I don't have time. I know that sounds maybe a bit on the selfish side but I just can't. I know they want younger people to be involved more since it seems to be a rare hobby these days. If I lived closer I would consider it but I live an hour away and have my hands full with working 40 hours a week, my house & yard projects, writing and illustrating my comic, already being a volunteer with my library, helping with my family when they need it, sometimes having a social life and then finding time to enjoy my hobbies which I feel behind on as of lately. Maybe in the future... but for now I will still go to shows and enjoy collecting different countries and learning what I can.

This is also a post I've been meaning to write for awhile now, I figured maybe when the mood strikes I will pick a topic (or a few!) to share of what I am grateful for. Today after work I went to an event at my local library of learning about Viking runes and painting them on a canvas. I wrote my name and a few other runes but on the way out to my car I dropped mine and it smeared on my shorts/leg. I will touch it up and fix it tomorrow I think. But what I am grateful for is to be so close to my local library. I just live a few minutes from mine and they have been doing more projects and things to get the public involved. Also a summer reading program which I have joined. I'm happy to have a safe place to get books, movies, information. It's a blessing.