So much blossom

Posted on April 16, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blossom, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Life, Photo, Plants, Russian vine, TreesLeave a comment

As I sit quietly at home I’ve realised how good the weather has been, and how much blossom is on the cherry and pear trees. And then, my friends have all been posting photos of blossom near them. Clouds of pink and white.

I will try and get a photo against a blue sky, but I just wanted to share this. The bees have been buzzing so they are happy.

I was thinking how the blossom comes out before the leaves. Is that to make it easier for insects to pollinate the flowers?

Now we need rain, it’s been dry for most of the month. Without it the farmers, who are struggling with lack of workers, will struggle even more. Time will tell…. Cherry’s and pears will ripen, hopefully.

In the meantime the Russian vine we planted a few years ago has started taking over a couple of parts of the garden. It ‘rushes’ along, growing fast, and wrapping itself around everything. My arms hurt after spending a couple of hours trying to cut it back.

Today’s draw, something old, something new.

Posted on April 15, 2020April 15, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Cherry blossom, Drawing, Garden, Ivy, Old and New, Plants, Sketching, Spring View, Urban sketchers Stoke on trent2 Comments

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Sketch of new cherry blossom and old Ivy. It was black and white, drawn in uni pin 0.1,0.5, and 0.8 fine line black ink pens ( made by mitsubishi). On A4 paper. USK Stoke-on-Trent 30 day challenge. Day 27…. ! Really? Where has that gone?

Once I’d finished I decided to use a couple of green permanent markers to define where the ivy and other vegetation was. This had the effect of making the blossom more visible.

I’m pleased with the result. I hope the blossom all turns into cherries. We get them from the bottom half of the tree, the birds get the top half!

Easter egg photo

Posted on April 13, 2020April 13, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art apps, Easter, Easter egg, Experiment, Flipped, Garden, Helibores, Layout app, Multiple images, Photo, PlantLeave a comment

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My friend made a beautiful picture of some tree branches, she mirrored them (flipped one side to mirror the other) then somehow surrounded the image with a black egg shape which was fuzzy at the edges. It’s beautiful and complicated.

I asked if I could use the idea. But didn’t want to copy. She said yes. So I put two photos of helibores through layout, an app where you can add different pictures together. I had to crop the image in my editing app, I then opened it in another sketching one. I drew an elipse round one side of the image, and freehand filled the background in with black. I used a spray tool so the edges were softened. I made sure to narrow the top half to give it more of an egg shape. Finally I cropped the image so that only half an egg shape was in the image. I went back to layout and duplicated the image. Then I flipped one side over so that there was finally an Easter egg shape on a black background. I don’t know how my friend did hers, but I respect the effort she must have put into it, and I thought I would describe what I had done in case anyone else wants to have a go.

Someone asked about the garden…

Posted on April 12, 2020April 13, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #forestwood, Cherries, Garden, Gardening, Growth, Hard work, How to Ping back?, Land, Nettles, Pear, Plants, Trees, Walnut, Weeds7 Comments

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.

The garden

Posted on April 12, 2020April 12, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bees, Blossom, Cherry, Environment, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Hover flies, Life, Nature, Pear, Plants, Tomatoes, TreesLeave a comment

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

Posted on April 12, 2020April 12, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Blossom, Easter, Flowers, Fun, Garden, Life, Plants, Sketching, Spring, Trees, Urban sketchers Stoke on trent3 Comments

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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.

In the summerhouse

Posted on April 9, 2020April 9, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Clear out, Garden, Recycling, Rubbish, Scrap yard, Summerhouse, Tidy4 Comments

It needs a spring clean. It’s full of junk, bits and bobs, old magazines, a cat bed, basically it needs a good clear out. But where can I put the rubbish. The scrap yards and recycling places are closed. And even if we were we are not allowed to go. Bottle banks are full. Rubbish will build up so when things eventually get back to normal people will be fighting to get rid of stuff. As it is we had a problem with fly tipping (people leaving rubbish in alleyways and behind buildings). Now because people are not allowed out that has stopped to some extent, but no doubt it will start up again….. I’m going to make sure we dispose of our rubbish responsibly. But not everyone seems to have got the message.

Garden pictures

Posted on April 7, 2020 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Cat, Daffodils, Fun, Garden, Gardening, Photos, Plants, Summerhouse, Sunny, woodyLeave a comment

Oh its coming on…. I’ve been cutting back a few bushes and tidying up. The summer house is full of junk so it needs clearing out. I’m keen to go out there and paint. The weather has been lovely, we’ve not really had any April showers yet. I guess they will be in the way.

Oh I ache from trying to cut back overgrown buddlias and ivy climbing up the cherry trees. When the cherry blossom is out I will try and share photos.

By the way the cat is Woody, he’s the outside cat we look after. He’s really enjoying lying in the sun now the weather has improved. But we have tomato plants, so I’m scared he will squash them!

Today in the garden

Posted on April 6, 2020 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #uskstoke, Art, Drawing, Flowers, Fun, Garden, Narcissi, Plants, Sketching, Spring, Spring flowers, SunshineLeave a comment

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I drew this today, sitting in the garden, looking at a jumble of narcissi and other plants ( I’m not sure of their names).

Another of the USK Stoke thirty day challenge. I’m really enjoying this series of sketches. Every day a different way of stretching our practice. So many different sketches by different artists. I hope you like this.

Spring garden

Posted on April 3, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Daffodils, Dicentra, Flowers, Garden, Helibores, Muscari, Primroses, Pruning, Pulmonaria, seasons, Spring, Spring Garden, Spring plantsLeave a comment

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Various views of our spring Garden, top view is flowers, including Daffodils, Muscari Hyacinths, Primroses, Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra), Helibores, Pulmonaria, and Celandine. The bottom photo shows the Pear tree propped up with some wood, the weight of the pears pulled it over last year, Cyclamen in a pot, the path to the summerhouse, with some railway track and our back yard, waiting to be tidied up.

I did a bit of pruning today. I’ve had so little exercise these last few weeks that I felt very wobbly when I’d finished.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Garden