New paintings and regular art updates.
Nine years since I painted this poppy with a white centre. I think that makes it look fresh and cool. Poppies have paper thin, crinkled petals. They look so delicate. I have lots of yellow, Welsh poppies in the garden, but not as many red ones that seem to need more sunlight. This was an acrylic on canvas and I think it sold quite quickly? But after almost a decade I still love it.
I need to start gardening again. I haven’t emptied out the old pots and put in new compost yet. It’s May and I’ve hardly been round the garden. We are trying to save money and so we have delayed making a start. But the perennials in the main garden are growing. The Russian vine is growing like mad after the rain. We have lots of lesser celandine and bluebells coming up, plus wild garlic. Geraniums are getting big enough to flower and the bushes keep growing. Oh so much to do and not enough energy or strength!
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This little purple flower with a white centre with five spiralling petals is called a Vinca. It has glossy dark green leaves and sprawls across the ground under dappled shady patches. We used to have some in our garden but I think the shade got too deep and other plants grew over it. We will have to try again. It cheers me to see this purple among the muted colours of helibores and fading tulips. Soon the summer will arrive and the flowers will change again.
Clematis on the fence. Duplicated photo, magical early flowers before the leaves come out. Pale pink, fresh looking, giving the Spring a start. Daffodils over, bluebells opening. The new season is coming. Hardly any rain for a month. We’ve been trying to hand water every day but I haven’t got my pot plants sorted out yet. That will happen in May. Hanging baskets to come soon. It all needs a good tidy up.
One of the metal sculptures / plant supports in a planter at Trentham Gardens retail Village. I like the art nouveau or is it art deco feel to these (I can never remember). They are already pretty but come high summer they will be packed with bright and cheerful flowers. Vines climbing up the sculptural sections of metal.
It’s almost the end of tulips and daffodils season. Soon it will be bluebells and other spring flowers… Leaves are opening on the trees. Buds swelling with the water that is falling from the April showers. We decided to go out for the day and headed south for a few miles. You could see more leaves on trees the further south we went. I remember hearing on a TV programme once that you could see the spring slowly creeping up the country as the days lengthened and the daffodils flowered. It might have said it takes two weeks to go from the far south to the far north? Not absolutely certain though.
Rain on my window, blurring the view smeared across the surface. April shower crashes down. No thunder or lightning but we may get some. Hidden tomato plants snug in the plastic greenhouse.
My friend now has an allotment. I have offered to water her plants while she’s on holiday. An old gardener there said the plants in her greenhouse will need watering daily! I’m glad of the showers now, they will help fill up the water butt’s. Large blue barrels filled with rain water. It’s good, we had a very dry march so the rain is welcome.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was Peace. I decided to draw yellow roses against a blue background. Used felt pens, Hoping for peace in Ukraine. I know its a vain hope but I can wish.
Not this years ones, they haven’t opened up yet. But they are starting to grow up. I just can’t wait. I’m used to waiting for spring but sometimes it seems to take an awful long time to get here. A couple of weeks ago the temperatures were in the high teens Celsius, last week they dropped to freezing or below, and there was a snow in a few places across the UK. We didn’t get more than a bit of hail and snow here. Meanwhile the daffodils and snowdrops are up. We haven’t had much rain though, so the buds on the trees are not fully open yet…
What do you call a mixture of Snow and Hail? Sn-ail! I think it was ‘sn-ailing’ this afternoon. We went out to Trentham Gardens in Stoke on Trent and bought a few plants, maybe it’s a bit cold to plant them though.
Mallaband-Brown