Waiting

While I'm waiting for summer to come back I've been inside fiddling with paints and fabric.  This also involves lots of waiting - waiting for crackle glaze to crackle, waiting for rusting powder to go rusty, waiting for paints to dry etc etc.  The trouble is that while I'm waiting for one thing I start something else and totally forget about the first thing, hence I currently have many half finished projects and a lot of mess!  Guess that's my random brain again!

I've also been waiting to have some time to join in with Gina's sketchbook project, and I've managed to start!  The challenge was to use one main colour and things close to home.  I chose purple, and flowers - obviously!

 

After preparing the background, (I used brusho, rather than watercolour, and clingfilm) I cut out a template of a fuchsia and rubbed round it with white oil pastel and then painted inside.  I then tried using markal paint sticks as well as adding pencil details.  I like the shapes that come from cutting away the page to reveal some of the next.
I also really like the shading that's left on the template!

I didn't do so well with the next bit - using a potato to print with.  I changed my shape to an aquilegia seed head (as the fuchsia was too big for my potato!) and think I got too fiddly.  I quite like them when there's hardly any paint on them though.  This is the area I've picked to enlarge (the next task):

I will show you more, but you'll have to wait as I got side tracked - again!

Sunsets, Froglets and a Blackberry.

I was told today that I had a "random brain".  Personally I don't think it is random, it's just that other people can't keep up with my train of thought (which is totally logical to me).  However this post is slightly random so maybe they have a point!

I thought I'd share a beautiful sunset that we had here the other night.  The change from orange to pink was quite stunning.

A few evenings later this little fellow appeared outside my patio doors.  He looks big in the photo but was actually only about 1.5cm long (the leaf he's on is a tiny wild violet).  He must have jumped all the way from the pond (about 150 feet away) and didn't appear to mind my neighbour and I watching him for ages.  We were fascinated with his tiny, perfect feet!  

But I haven't just been watching the sky and baby frogs, I have been a little bit constructive too.  Courtesy of my day job I'm now the proud (?) owner of a blackberry - not the edible kind, but the phone kind!  As we've all got identical ones I needed a case to identify mine and rather than buy one I thought I'd make one.  Following a little research on the internet I decided on a design and after a lot of trial and even more error produced this one:

Even if my brain is "random" at least it livens up meetings, and if it doesn't then my blackberry case does instead!

In Love

I think I'm in love - with hydrangeas!  I love how their exquisite little green flower buds

Hyrandgea Preziosa

gradually turn white

Hyrandgea Preziosa

and then pale pink

Hyrandgea Preziosa

I love that these unassuming buds

Hydrangea Paniculata 'Vanilla Fraise'

turn into these beautiful flowers

Hydrangea Paniculata 'Vanilla Fraise'

And I love that they can have flowers as big as these less than a year after planting!

Hydrangea Arborescens 'Annabelle'

I thought you might also like to see the "help" that I've had today whilst I was working from home...

it's of the less than helpful kind!  She did eventually get fed up with me trying to type over her and reluctantly relocated to my lap. I'll show you what her brother was up to another day!

Little Gems

Some of you will know that when I moved here three years ago the garden was rather neglected as it had been rented for two years to non-gardeners.  In fact ivy ruled!  But the owner was a passionate plants' woman and some of her special plants somehow managed to survive the neglect (and the ivy).  This is one of those special surviving plants - a real little gem:

Rosocea

Roscoea

It was one of the first "gems" to flower that first year, and has multiplied since so I have about four in flower now.  I think I've identified it correctly, but if you know exactly which variety it is then please let me know...

Also in flower this weekend is my dierama which I planted the first summer I was here and it has stubbornly refused to flower since - until now that is, and it was worth the wait:

Dierama

(Apologies for the not brilliant picture, you'll have to trust me that it looks lovely, but it's on the far side of the pond and is slightly difficult to photograph, even with the zoom, without risking falling in!)

A Rainbow of Colours

It's raining here today, and the sky is very grey so I thought I'd cheer things up with a rainbow of colours from the garden (taken on a sunnier day!).

RED - forgotten variety of strawberry!

ORANGE - Runner Bean 'Enorma' flowers

YELLOW - Sisyrinchium

  

GREEN - Rudbeckia Occidentalis 'Green Wizard'

BLUE - Delphinium Magic Fountains 'Dark Blue Bee'

INDIGO - Aquilegia vulgaris 'Miss M.I. Huish'

VIOLET - Scabiosa 'Butterfly Blue'

There - now that's better than grey skies isn't it?

Spring Greens - 3rd Attempt

I've been playing with textiles again, trying to create something inspired by the greenness of spring.  I know we're nearly in summer but it's taken me a while to get something I'm vaguely pleased with!  My first attempt ended up being cut up although bits of it were embellished into number two (whose fate is still being decided).  But one evening last week I just started to fiddle with some scraps that I'd got left over from the previous attempts and produced this little piece:

Spring Greens

The background is left over silk and scrim that I'd dyed in the microwave, with a silk carrier rod stitched on using the flower stitcher.  I'd made the tyvek bead earlier in the week and stitched it on adding some beads.  It's only tiny (4" x 2.5"), and rather "random" but I prefer it to any of the previous (more planned) attempts!

Blowsy Blooms

This week my peony has opened.  Not many buds (actually only two have made it to the flowering stage, but that's double last year so I'm reasonably pleased!).  It's very blowsy, but also looks delicate and subtle in its shades of white with a hint of pale pink:

Peony Shirley Temple

Peony Shirley Temple

But it's not all tasteful and subtle here at the moment as this oriental poppy has also opened:

Oriental Poppy Garden Glory

I don't usually do orange in the garden, but this is more salmon than bright orange and it does bring a splash of colour onto the patio.   I love its frilly edges.

Oriental Poppy Garden Glory

 
You can't beat a bit of blowsiness occasionally can you?!