Someone asked about the garden…

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A  fellow blogger asked if I used permaculture in the garden, I actually don’t know what that is? We’ve been here about twenty five years and when we moved in the garden was a patch of land fenced off by the woman who used to own the house. It had three lilac bushes a patch of what turned out to be Japanese knotweed and lawn. We rented it off the old owner of our house for twenty years then bought it. I only used weedkiller at the start because of the knotweed. Since then we put in a pond, planted all sorts of trees. Some of its too shady. The walnut tree must be forty foot high. Just put a bit of fertiliser on occasionally. There is rubble and broken pottery under the soil. You get archaeology when you dig it.

I did not believe that we could get mature trees in a little over twenty five years. Some of them seem to grow like weeds. The back of the garden has had a shed and a summerhouse put on it. I’m hoping to do some art in there. We are trying to get perennial plants to grow. I have lots of geraniums but most of all we have a lot of ivy growing everywhere.

It is good to sit in the garden, but I feel sorry for people who don’t have anywhere green to sit.

Stay safe,

Keep well.

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The garden

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This is what I was trying to draw. As you can see it’s very complicated. Lots of trees and branches.

Behind me when I took this photo are two greenhouses with green plastic covers, ones got tomatoes in it, the other is waiting for tomato plants that my friend says she will drop off over our gate when they are ready to plant out.

The weather is set to turn, it has been warm and sunny, but the wind whipped up this evening and you could feel the temperature starting to fall.

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I took these photos of cherry and pear blossom. As you can see the sky was starting to darken. There have been reports on the weather forecast of thunderstorms nearby. It certainly was getting windy, I hope some of the blossom gets pollenated before it blows away. And then there was a warning of Frost!

Drawing our Easter Garden

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Day 25, urban sketchers challenge. Suddenly the blossom has burst in the garden, where there were buds a couple of days ago, now tiny pinky white flowers are sprouting out of the branches and twigs. I’ve seen and heard a very loud bumble bee, and also worker bees and hover flies. Hopefully they will do their job of pollinating the blossom and we will have cherries and pears and plums as the summer progresses.

The garden was hard to draw because of all the details. I can get the branches approximately right, then adding leaves and blossom complicates things. Distinguishing between leaf shapes and colours for instance.

I used two thicknesses of black unipin pens, fine line water and fade proof pigment ink (0.5 and 0.8). I also used a Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen black 199*** S size. Then I shaded in with a 3B graphite pencil and a charcoal pencil. I would have liked to add some dabs of colour, but I think the overall effect is quite good. I’ve taken a picture and used a black and white filter because I took the photo under electric light and one corner, a bit turned up, was reflecting back quite a bright yellow.

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Mask for today?

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Digital drawing I did at the now defunct sketchfu web site, several years ago now. I called it owl mask, which is what it is. The site got too popular and the owners couldn’t afford to keep it going. I have lots of art from there and other websites. Luckily I saved a lot before it closed.

These days there seems to be less freedom, more colouring in images that someone else has drawn, for instance. Less chances to do different styles and ideas.

I think it’s also because of the ubiquitous play stores. It seems hard to find pure drawing websites that aren’t about gaming. Why aren’t more ideas are allowed. It’s hard to know what is going on.

Keep drawing, stay safe.

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Trains

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The stuff we have in the house. As I start to tidy up, I find my progress impeded by things like toy trains. They seem to be proliferating. I don’t know if they are multiplying or just coming out of the woodwork…. This one had no undercarriage or whatever its called. Marooned on the kitchen cabinet, awaiting a swipe from a cat?

If they multiply any more they will become like star trek tribbles, falling off cupboards and blocking the sink…..

Things that go bump..

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In the night…

Funny how monsters always come out of the dark. They are huge, spikey, or furry, look like giant animals or insects. With mouthparts from squids or tapeworms, and massive claws.

In stories, someone brave, normally male, but more frequently female these days, stands up against the monster and wins the day. Usually after recovering from several setbacks, and getting injured in the final fight.

So why, when it comes to it, are we fighting a tiny virus? Not zombies. And it’s happening in daylight, morning, evening and night. A virus far tinier than bacteria. Basically some RNA (ribo nucleic acid) wrapped in a coating. It invades your cells and uses them to replicate. The disease happens because your body fights back and damages the bodies cells. Touching infected surfaces and then your mouth or nose infects you.

So a tiny virus, a giant monster. I know which one I’d rather fight. See you down by the woods tonight.

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Playing games

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Oh, the things you find under the cupboard, covered in years of dust. I put it away ages ago because one of my old cats used to squirm under there and get stuck.

My chess set is glass. I hope to play a few games whilst things are locked down here. I’m not good at it, I can’t tell you how far ahead check mate is, and I’m never sure how or when to ‘Castle’.

I drew this because today’s sketching challenge from USK Stoke was playing games and I don’t know where my scrabble set has gone….. Day 24 of thirty. Drawn in pencil crayons and permanent markers.

I enjoyed using these colours, they may not be an exact match for the reality, but red and green are complementary colours, as are orange and blue. I thought they gave it some pizazz…!

 

Buxton Opera House

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Today I got together, virtually, with a bunch of friends from Urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent.

We had agreed to meet up and draw a local landmark. So we went ‘out’ on Google Street View, and using Zoom, we each drew the view of a photo of the opera House.

The perspective was interesting, a bit fish eye lens ish, and there was a red bus in the foreground which I think has been truncated because of the method Google uses to take images.

The drawings today are not part if the thirty day #uskstoke challenge, but instead is one for our fortnightly expeditions. However I think we are doing this weekly.

My drawing is in my A4, Windsor and Newton sketchpad. I drew it in the landscape position and it’d dark grey felt pen (nibb ® permanent markers). I used the point to draw the lines, then tipped it so that I coukd use its edge to do some softer shading.

I’ve also used Zoom for the first time. I gradually learnt how to use it, with lots of help from the people in the group and a helper that Zoom technicians had given us for the meeting.

It was good to hear people’s voices, and see them when I’d sussed out the video bit.

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Two tier cats

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Two cats are taking over the kitchen. The boy is up on the cupboard, while the girl races towards me as soon as I get my phone to take their pictures. I just managed to snap this before she got to me.

I want to get out later on and try and get a photo of the cherry blossom in the garden. It’s just starting to burst, but the forecast is for the weather to get cold again in a couple of days so  I hope the blossom stays safely furled till after the weather improves again.

Anyway the cat wants a love, so better go now. X