Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 48.26 cm x 35.56 cm
Producer: The Canadian Group, Sure-Lox, Keepsakes series, Reusable gift box with magnetic closure, #442220-2
Artist: Klaus Strubel
Painting: photo
Notes: grace, –noun
1. elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action.
2. a pleasing or attractive quality or endowment.
3. favor or good will. [Dictionary.com]
Tag: landscape
Puzzle: Paradise
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 73cm x 48.6cm
Producer: The Canadian Group, Sure-Lox
Notes: The Paradise garden is a form of garden, originally just paradise, a word derived from the Median language, or Old Persian. Its original meaning was “a walled-in compound or garden”.
The paradise garden takes some of its character from its original arid or semi-arid homeland. The most basic feature is the enclosure of the cultivated area. This excludes the wildness of nature, and includes the tended, watered greenery of the garden. The commonest and easiest layout for the perimeter walls is that of a rectangle, and this forms one of the prime features of this kind of garden. Another common theme is the elaborate use of water, often in canals, ponds or rills, sometimes in fountains, less often in waterfalls of various kinds.
The rectangular or rectilinear theme of the garden is often extended to the water features, which may be used to quarter the garden. This layout is echoed in the four rivers of the Garden of Eden, and much of the use and symbolism of the paradise garden is derived from this connection. The contrast between a formal garden layout with the informality of free-growing plants provides a recurring theme to many paradise gardens. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Hearst Castle, San Simeon, CA, U.S.A.
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 73cm x 48.6cm
Producer: The Canadian Group, Sure-Lox
Notes: Hearst Castle is a National Historic Landmark mansion located on the Central Coast of California, United States. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan between 1919 and 1947 for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who died in 1951. In 1957, the Hearst Corporation donated the property to the state of California. [Wiki]
Depicted on the puzzle is the Neptune Pool.
Construction for the Neptune Pool spanned 1924-1936. Three swimming pools were built on this site, each successively larger.
Unique aspects of the Neptune Pool include the oil burning heating system, the light-veined Vermont marble decorating the pools and colonnades, and four 17-century Italian bas-reliefs on the sides of the colonnades. [Hearst Castle site]
Puzzle: Tea Rooms
Size: 750 pieces
Dimensions: 59.7 cm x 39.4 cm
Producer: The Canadian Group, Sure-Lox
Notes: A tea house or tearoom is a venue centered on drinking tea. Its function varies widely depending on the culture, and some cultures have a variety of distinct tea-centered houses or parlors that all qualify under the English language term “tea house” or “tea room.”
Tea drinking is a pastime closely associated with the English. Tea first arrived in England during Cromwell’s protectorate and soon became the national drink. Tea drinking became a national pastime for the English. As early as 1784, Rochefoucauld noted that “[t]hroughout the whole of England the drinking of tea is general”. Nevertheless, Anna Russell, Duchess of Bedford, was credited with the invention of afternoon tea in 1840. It spread to other parts of English society by 1864, when the female manager of London’s Aerated Bread Company is attributed with innovating the first commercial public tearoom. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Purple Sea
Size: 1000 pieces
Producer: Golden, Royale
Notes: A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, the term refers to a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean. It is also used sometimes to describe a large saline lake that lacks a natural outlet, such as the Caspian Sea.
Sunset or sundown is the daily disappearance of the Sun below the horizon in the west as a result of Earth’s rotation. The time of sunset is defined in astronomy as the moment the trailing edge of the Sun’s disk disappears below the horizon in the west. The ray path of light from the setting Sun is highly distorted near the horizon because of atmospheric refraction, making sunset appear to occur when the Sun’s disk is already about one diameter below the horizon. Sunset is distinct from dusk, which is the moment at which darkness falls, which occurs when the Sun is approximately eighteen degrees below the horizon. The period between sunset and dusk is called twilight. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Dairy Farm, Wisconsin
Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 48.26 cm x 35.56 cm
Producer: The Canadian Group, Sure-Lox, Images
Artist: Dennis Hallinan
Notes: Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or an animal husbandry, enterprise, for long-term production of milk, usually from dairy cows but also from goats and sheep, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy factory for processing and eventual retail sale.
Most dairy farms sell the male calves born by their cows, usually for veal production, or breeding depending on quality of the bull calf, rather than raising non-milk-producing stock. Many dairy farms also grow their own feed, typically including corn, alfalfa, and hay. This is fed directly to the cows, or is stored as silage for use during the winter season. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Paddle Boat Landing by Susan Brabeau
Size: 500 pieces, 2 missing
Dimensions: 45.72cm x 60.96cm
Producer: Collectible Puzzle (?), The Art of Susan Brabeau series
Artist: Susan Brabeau – The imagery of Susan Brabeau appeals to the viewer on several levels: bringing forth moods and sentiments of a by gone era, creating an illusion of life so completely that the viewer can almost hear the sounds within an image.
As with all good story-telling art, the imagery of Susan Brabeau is meant to be felt as well as seen. [The Art of Susan Brabeau]
Notes: A paddle steamer is a steamship or boat, powered by a steam engine, using paddle wheels to propel it through the water. In antiquity, Paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans.
The paddle wheel is a large wheel, built on a steel framework, upon the outer edge of which are fitted numerous paddle blades (called floats or buckets). The bottom quarter or so of the wheel travels underwater. Rotation of the paddle wheel produces thrust, forward or backward as required. More advanced paddle wheel designs have featured feathering methods that keep each paddle blade oriented closer to vertical while it is in the water; this increases efficiency. The upper part of a paddle wheel is normally enclosed in a paddlebox to minimise splashing. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Emerald Dreams by Hiroo Isono
Size: 500 pieces, 1 missing
Dimensions: 51 cm x 41 cm
Producer: Ceaco, # 1124-2
Artist: Hiroo Isono – Born in 1945. Graduated from Aichi Kyoiku Univ. and started his career as a free-lance illustrater from 1970.
Isono’s work with mainly its theme in nature such as jungle and tropical nature are filled with serene atmosphere appealing nature’s wonder strongly.
Isono has travelled various places such as Yaeyama Archipelago, Solomon Islands, Yakushima, Amazon, North America, Kenya, Tanzania, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and other forest region.
1991 corporate calendar using his work received an award at Japan Ntional Calendar Exhibit. [Character’s Village site]
Notes: Printed on Holo-Glow shimmer paper
Puzzle: Cher Bourges Cathedral
Size: 500 pieces
Dimensions: 48.26 cm x 35.56 cm
Producer: The Canadian Group, Sure-Lox, Churches and Cathedral series
Notes: Bourges Cathedral (Cathedrale Saint-Etienne de Bourges) is a cathedral, dedicated to Saint Stephen, located in Bourges, France. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Bourges.
It is based on the Notre-Dame in Paris but with significant differences in design. The cathedral is noted for its unique feats of architecture, impressive sculptures and thirteenth-century stained glass windows.
Bourges Cathedral has a highly unique floor plan. It has no transepts, which form the cross-shape of most churches. This lends the cathedral a unique appearance inside and out. On the exterior, thick walls and a myriad of flying buttresses support the unbroken weight of the long nave (122m).
Bourges Cathedral retains almost all its original ambulatory glass (apart from the axial chapel), dating from about 1215. The iconography used in many of these windows uses typology (such as Old Testament episodes prefiguring events in the life of Christ) and symbolism (such as the pelican who pecks her breast to feed her young on her own blood and the lioness who licks the malformed cub into shape) to communicate theological messages. Other windows show the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, the story of Dives and Lazarus, and the Apocalypse. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Hogwarts Castle, Harry Potter
Size: 550 pieces
Producer: Mattel (I believe)
Notes: I do not have a record of the producer of the puzzle as I do not have the box anymore. A clarification is welcome – if you have any clue as to the details regarding this puzzle, I would much appreciate that information.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry or simply Hogwarts is the primary setting for the first six books of the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, with each book lasting the equivalent of one school year. It is a fictional boarding school of magic for witches and wizards between the ages of eleven and seventeen.
Rowling has suggested that she may have inadvertently taken the name from the hogwort plant (Croton capitatus), which she had seen at Kew Gardens some time before writing the Harry Potter series.
In the novels, Hogwarts is located somewhere in Scotland. The school has numerous charms and spells on and around it that make it impossible for a Muggle (i.e., a non-magical person) to locate it. Such people cannot see the school; rather, they see only ruins and several warnings of danger. The castle has extensive grounds with sloping lawns, flowerbeds and vegetable patches, a loch (called The Black Lake), a large dense forest (called the Forbidden Forest), several greenhouses and other outbuildings, and a full-size Quidditch pitch. There is also an owlery, which houses all the owls owned by the school and those owned by students. It should be noted that some rooms in the school tend to “move around”, and so do the stairs in the grand staircase. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Waits River, Vermont
Size: 500 pieces
Notes: I do not have a record of the producer of the puzzle as I do not have the box anymore. A clarification is welcome – if you have any clue as to the details regarding this puzzle, I would much appreciate that information.
The Waits River is a 39.4 km-long river in eastern Vermont in the United States. It is a tributary of the Connecticut River, which flows to Long Island Sound. According to the Geographic Names Information System, it has also been known historically as “Wait’s River” and as “Ma-houn-quam-mas-see.”
The Waits River rises in southwestern Caledonia County in the town of Groton and shortly enters Orange County, where it flows generally southeastwardly through the towns of Orange, Topsham, Corinth and Bradford, to the village of Bradford where it joins the Connecticut River.
In the town of Bradford, it collects a short stream known as the South Branch Waits River, which flows eastwardly from Corinth. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Moritzburg Castle, Saxony, Germany
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 51.12cm x 66.52cm
Producer: Big Ben, MB Puzzles
Notes: The original castle was built from 1542–1546 as a hunting lodge for Moritz of Wettin, then Duke of Saxony. Elector John George II of Saxony had it extended and between 1661 and 1671 the chapel was added after designs by his architect Wolf Caspar von Klengels, a fine example of the early Baroque style. After in 1697 John George’s grandson Elector Frederick Augustus I had converted to Catholicism in order to secure his election as King of Poland, the chapel was consecrated in the Catholic rite. Between 1723 and 1733, Augustus had the castle largely remodelled as a pleasure seat by the architects Matthaus Daniel Poppelmann and Zacharias Longuelune, including a formal park, several ponds and a game preserve. The last resident from the House of Wettin was Prince Ernst Heinrich of Saxony, dispossessed in 1945 by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. [Wiki]
Photography cards: River Sunset
Puzzle: Ocean Terrace
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 73cm x 48.6cm
Producer: Sure-Lox
Notes: An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.
More than half of this area is over 3,000 metres deep. Average oceanic salinity is around 3.5% Scientists estimate that 230,000 marine species are currently known, but the total could be up to 10 times that number. [Wiki]
Puzzle: Volcano Moon
Size: 750 pieces
Dimensions: 48.1cm x 64.8cm
Producer: RoseArt, Borders series
Box: photo
Artist: A volcano is an opening, or rupture, in a planet’s surface or crust, which allows hot magma, volcanic ash and gases to escape from below the surface. The word volcano is derived from the name of Vulcano, a volcanic island in the Aeolian Islands of Italy whose name in turn originates from Vulcan, the name of a god of fire in Roman mythology.
Volcanoes are generally found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging. A mid-oceanic ridge, for example the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, has examples of volcanoes caused by divergent tectonic plates pulling apart; the Pacific Ring of Fire has examples of volcanoes caused by convergent tectonic plates coming together. By contrast, volcanoes are usually not created where two tectonic plates slide past one another. Volcanoes can also form where there is stretching and thinning of the Earth’s crust in the interiors of plates, e.g., in the East African Rift, the Wells Gray-Clearwater volcanic field and the Rio Grande Rift in North America. [Wiki]
Puzzle: The End of a Perfect Day, by Darrell Bush
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 50.8 cm x 68.58 cm
Producer: Karmin International, The art of Darrell Bush series
Artist: Darrell Bush – Awared-winning artist Darrell Bush brilliantly captures the unspoiled, simple beauty of the outdoors. From a North Woods campsite to a polished wooden runabout resting on a quiet lake, Bush’s acrylics suggest that these peaceful settings are only a memory away. He familiarizes the viewer with outdoor and wildlife subjects while often adding a touch of nostalgia.
In 1984,after graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in commercial art from Northern Illinois University, Bush moved to Minnesota and worked as a commercial illustrator for five years. “It was during this time I began pursuing a second career, my true love, wildlife art,” he said. In 1987, he won his first major award, the Idaho Uploand Game Stamp Competition. In 1990, he became a full-time artist and one year later signed with Hadley House.
Since then, Bush’s success has escalated dramatically. He received international recognition when he was chosen for the September, 1996 “Wonders of Nature” exhibit in Hong Kong. U.S.ART named him among America’s Most Popular Artists in 1995, 1996 and 1998.
He and his family reside in Moline. [Puzzle box, mistakes omitted]
By the same artist the other puzzles available in the series are: “Crescent Moon Bay”, “Autumn Lake”, “Twilight Calm”.
Puzzle: Japanese Garden
Size: 750 pieces
Dimensions: 59.7 cm x 39.4 cm
Producer: Sure-Lox
Notes: A catalogue of features “typical” of the Japanese garden may be drawn up without inquiring deeply into the aesthetic underlying Japanese practice. Typical Japanese gardens have at their center a home from which the garden is viewed. In addition to residential architecture, depending on the archetype, Japanese gardens often contain several of these elements:
* Water, real or symbolic.
* A bridge over the water, or stepping stones.
* Rocks or stone arrangements (or settings).
* A lantern, typically of stone.
* A teahouse or pavilion.
* An enclosure device such as a hedge, fence, or wall of traditional character. [Wiki]
Puzzle: San Francisco, California
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 51.12cm x 66.52cm
Producer: Big Ben, MB Puzzles
Notes: The Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District of San Francisco, California, is a monumental structure originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in order to exhibit works of art presented there. One of only a few surviving structures from the Exposition, it is the only one still situated on its original site. It was rebuilt in 1965, and renovation of the lagoon, walkways, and a seismic retrofit were completed in early 2009.
Built around a small artificial lagoon, The Palace of Fine Arts is composed of a wide, 1100 foot pergola, an arch formed by rows of Corinthian columns framing a wide walkway, around a central rotunda situated by the water. The lagoon was intended to echo those found in classical settings in Europe, where the expanse of water provides a mirror surface to reflect the grand buildings and an undisturbed vista to appreciate them from a distance.
Ornamentation includes Bruno Louis Zimm’s three repeating panels around the entablature of the rotunda representing “The Struggle for the Beautiful” symbolizing Greek culture, while Ulric Ellerhusen supplied the weeping women atop the colonnade and the sculptured frieze and allegorical figures representing Contemplation, Wonderment and Meditation.
The underside of the Palace rotunda’s dome features eight large insets, which originally contained murals by Robert Reid. Four of the murals depicted the conception and birth of Art, “its commitment to the Earth, its progress and acceptance by the human intellect,” and four depicted the “golds” of California (poppies, citrus fruits, metallic gold, and golden wheat). [Wiki]
Puzzle: Vila Real de Santo António, Algarve, Portugal
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 51.12cm x 66.52cm
Producer: Big Ben, MB Puzzles
Notes: Vila Real de Santo Antonio was erected at great speed, in only two years time (construction took place between 1774 and 1776). The Marquis of Pombal was responsible for its planning. He designed the town in a Pombaline orthogonal grid. In a pioneering technique, entire buildings were prefabricated in pieces outside the city, and then transported to their final destination to be assembled. This procedure permitted a fast and methodical construction of the town.
Vila Real de Santo Antonio started to thrive by the end of the 19th century thanks to the growth of the fish industry and concentration of fish-processing plants in the city. Tuna and sardine were particularly important to the city’s economy. In 1886, it became the first city in the Algarve to have gas lighting installed. The fish industry came to a decline in the 1960s and tourism quickly took over as the principal income generator.
Several artists were born and/or worked in Vila Real de Santo Antonio, providing a rich heritage in literature and visual arts. The native poet Antonio Aleixo was particularly prominent. [Wiki]
Puzzle: New Palace Gardens, Warwickshire, England
Size: 1000 pieces
Dimensions: 51.12cm x 66.52cm
Producer: Big Ben, MB Puzzles
Notes: Warwickshire is perhaps best known for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon. Even today, road signs at the county boundary describe Warwickshire as “Shakespeare’s County”. The county has also produced other literary figures such as George Eliot (from Nuneaton), Rupert Brooke (from Rugby), and Michael Drayton from Hartshill.
Much of western Warwickshire, including that area now forming part of Birmingham and the West Midlands, was covered by the ancient Forest of Arden (most of which was cut down to provide fuel for industrialisation). Thus the names of a number of places in the northwestern part of Warwickshire end with the phrase “-in-Arden”, such as Henley-in-Arden, Hampton-in-Arden and Tanworth-in-Arden. The remaining area, not part of the forest, was called the Felden – from fielden. [Wiki]