{Adventures} Culzean Castle


High up on the cliffs along the coast of Scotland sits a beautiful castle, you can hear the waves crash against the rocks and sweep out to sea again like dancing ladies throwing their bodies to and fro. Birds fly high in the sky circling as if they are eager to share their stories of the things they have seen. Taking a stroll in the wilderness of the castle creates visions of the past...where a roaring horse and carriage would have sped past carrying persons of highest esteem and wealth. Walk along the garden walls for they speak of fairy tales and truth. Breath in the sweet scent of flowers blooming, greenery spilling forth, overtaking every inch. Hear the haunting echos of those time has left behind, their spirits beckoning you to explore and learn of their heritage. The fountain bubbling over the lily pads hiding the frogs, the fragrant breeze that pulls and pushes you on your way and entices your senses. The closer and closer you get to the door...what enchantments await you...the heart can barely wait...it races...jumps...glides...this is history coming alive...in this moment...you think...what a glorious way to spend the day!

I hope you enjoy darlings...if you want to see pictures from the inside...please go to their website - here and view, as I wasn't allowed to take them inside.

Have a beautiful day






Dainty Doll's Boudoir:

  
Vintage dress - Sew Vintage / Flower hair clip - gift from my lil' beauties / Shoes - thrifted.














Culzean Castle {said like cull - lane} is a castle near Maybole, Carrick, on the Ayrshire coast of Scotland. It is the former home of the Marquess of Ailsa, the chief of Clan Kennedy, but is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland. The clifftop castle lies within the Culzean Castle Country Park and is opened to the public. Culzean Castle was constructed as an L-plan castle by order of the 10th Earl of Cassilis. He instructed the architect Robert Adam to rebuild a previous, but more basic, structure into a fine country house to be the seat of his earldom. The castle was built in stages between 1777 and 1792. It incorporates a large drum tower with a circular saloon inside (which overlooks the sea), a grand oval staircase and a suite of well-appointed apartments.
In 1945, the Kennedy family gave the castle and its grounds to the National Trust for Scotland (thus avoiding inheritance tax). In doing so, they stipulated that the apartment at the top of the castle be given to General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower in recognition of his role as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during the Second World War. The General first visited Culzean Castle in 1946 and stayed there four times, including once while President of the United States. An Eisenhower exhibition occupies one of the rooms, with mementoes of his lifetime.






{All photos of me taken by Gorgeous Gavin. All other photos taken by me, Kizzy Doll. Please do not use, copy or share without permission. All rights reserved}

{info from castle website & Wikipedia}


{Monday Madness}



I'm a very silly person...crazy even!! Mad as a hatter my husband says sometimes...but it never gets boring in my little world. If things stay the same...I literally go mad, I end up painting my face or tearing something apart to create something new...but I guess that's the mind of an artistic person really. I have to have paper next to my bed or with me always to write down ideas that float into my mind. Madness is genius and silly is definitely better than boring. I can't have blank walls in my house, I have to fill them with pictures and bits and bobs. Or just get my paints out and go to town. I react very much to paints and colour...if the world was just black and white....send me to heaven right now. It's what I love about the world, nothing is as plain as we think it is. There are people who try so hard to put everything in a box...but the world doesn't belong in a box. It's meant to be free, alive with room to grow and expand and continue on. It's just like with art or fashion even, break the rules, create, go mad, be daring...because life's far too short to play safe, follow others or not shine the way you were meant to!! As for me, I'll continue being a mad hatter (or dolly) forever & then I'll know I lived life and not just existed!! Have a wonderful Monday dolls!!

xoxoxoxo


{Taken during winter, it was freezing, I had to do something to keep warm}



{Enjoying a mud mask, I got bored waiting for it to dry, so I decided to add the butterfly and take a picture}



{The very last time I wore trousers in the winter, I felt the urge to jump}




{An out-take from my hat shoot, when we've been taking pictures for a long time, I just end up making faces}





{Artist} Margaret MacDonald



Margaret MacDonald (5th of November 1865 - 10th of January 1933) is not as well known as many other artists, sometimes getting cast in the shadows of her husband Charles Rennie Mackintosh. But, she was one of the most gifted and successful female Art Nouveau artists in Scotland at the turn of the century. She created a wide range of watercolours, graphics, metalwork and textiles. Her greatest achievements no doubt were in gesso, a plaster-based medium, which she used to make decorative panels for furniture and interiors.

Margaret was born in England and came to Glasgow with her family around 1890. She became a student at the Glasgow School of Art with her sister Francis, where she met Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Herbert McNair. She eventually left in the mid 1890's and set up an independent studio in the city with her sister. They worked together until France's marriage and departure for Liverpool in 1899. MacDonald married Mackintosh in 1900. 

Collaboration was key to Margaret's creativity, with her sister, she produced metalwork, graphics, and a series of book illustrations. With her husband Charles, she primarily produced the panels for interiors and furniture, notably the tea rooms and The Hill House. Not a lot of details of their relationship is known, because very little documentation survives. However, we do know that MacDonald played a highly important role in the development of the decorative symbolic interiors of the early 1900s, including the House for an Art Lover portfolio, the Rose Boudoir, Turin and the Willow Tea Rooms. Her husband once wrote in a letter to her saying, "Remember, you are half if not three-quarters of all my architectural.." and also reportedly said, "Margaret has genius, I have only talent"! It is not known which of his work she was involved with, but she has always been credited with being an important part of her husband's figurative, symbolic interior designs. Gustav Klimt himself, was said to be taken with her creations and was arguably an influence on him after they both exhibited at the 1900 Vienna Secession.  (Smart women influence everything).

Sadly, poor health cut short Margaret's career - as far as anyone knows, she produced no work after 1921, She died in 1933, five years after her husband. The largest single holding of her work is housed at the Hunterian Art Gallery at the University of Glasgow. 

Her best know works include the Gesso panel 'The May Queen', which was a partner to Charles Rennie Mackintosh's panel 'The Wassail' for Miss Cranston's Ingram Street Tearooms, and 'Oh ye, all ye that walk in Willowood', which formed part of the decorative scheme for the Room de Luxe in the Willow Tearooms. All three of these are now on display at the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow. 

I've had the pleasure of viewing her work at the Kelvingrove Museum and it is a must see. The simplicity yet intricate details of it is a delight to the eyes. 

Have a wonderful weekend darlings!!

xoxo

Some of her work


November 5th

Date: 1894
Margaret Macdonald paints the world as she sees it on the day of her 29th birthday: a woman nestles, hands beneath her chin, within a mound of earth as she watches the rockets of Bonfire Night light up the sky.



O Ye, All Ye That Walk in Willowood

Date: 1903


Panel for the Salon de Luxe, Willow Tea Rooms, Sauchiehall Street.

(Painted gesso on hessian, set with glass beads)





Summer

Date: 1897



Summer

Date: circa 1894
May have been a design for a stained glass window



Winter

Date: 1898



The Queen of Diamonds

Date: 1909



The White Rose and the Red Rose

Date: 1902



The Opera of the Winds





The Opera of the Seas

Date: circa 1915



The Heart of the Rose

Date: 1901



The Mysterious Garden

Date: 1911
This is an example of the large watercolours which Margaret MacDonald began to exhibit after 1910, inspiring Charles Rennie Mackintosh to turn to watercolour painting as a full-time occupation. As Billeliffe observes, however, 'while his subject matter remained firmly based on nature, Margaret retained her interest in obscure legend and myth or the stories of Maeterlinek'.



The May Queen (detail)

Date: 1900
One of three panels for the Ladies Luncheon Room, Ingram Street Tea Rooms.

(Oil painted gesso on hessian and scrim, set with twine, glass beads, thread, mother-of-pearl, and tin leaf panel). The May Queen was a girl chosen, especially for her beauty, to preside over the May Day celebrations (the first day of May, traditionally a celebration of the coming of Spring). The eve of May 1st is known as Walpurgis Night, which is believed in German folklore to be the night of a witches' sabbath on the Brocken, in the Harz Mountains.




The May Queen

Date: 1900 Sketch




Ophelia

Date: 1908

The Treasure Hunters


Hello cherubs! I hope your week is going grand so far! I'm getting back into the swing of things now after being away for the week. Almost finished editing all my photos, so I'll be able to share them with you as the weeks go by. These ones are from the first day actually, we had a lazy day and slept in, then got up and drove to an antiques place that we had read about. It was marvellous, this old house turned into a shop, so it had rooms and rooms stuffed with beautiful treasures, as I kept walking I thought it was going to never end. Tables, chairs, mirrors, vases, everything. Even the barns outside were filled with stunning furniture available to purchase. My husband and I decided we would go back with a truck and buy some furniture at another time since we loved so many items. Up in what would have been the loft was this amazing Chinese screen with this beautiful bird on it, I actually let out a squeal when I saw it, but alas it was tagged 'sold' so I had to move on from it :) On the way back home, my husband spotted this nice building by the waterside and decided to stop and snap some photos. Enjoy & have a gorgeous day dolls!!

xoxoxoxo






Dainty Doll's Boudoir:
 An easy, but pretty outfit for finding treasures! 
Skirt - vintage / Shirt - bought years ago / Shoes - TKMaxx.





This is what we bought:


{Antique Weighing scales, I thought it was pretty. I'm going to put lace on the dish at the top and fill it with shells or flowers}


{Little vintage/Antique bags. One is a wash bag, 2 are drawstring bags and the little one on the bottom right is a beaded clutch bag...so gorgeous}


{Antique box I bought for my husband for our 11th wedding Anniversary, he collects antique boxes, we have them all around our house with old money, stamps in them or sweets.}



{All photos of me by Gorgeous Gavin. All other photos/editing by me. All rights reserved}




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