New paintings and regular art updates.
Butterflies, summer creatures
Hide in crevices
Overwintering
Blood like antifreeze
Or lay their eggs
Somewhere safe
To form a chrysalis
That will emerge next spring
Or flutter south
To warmer places
Migrating to survive
And moths?
Do they do the same
Flitting to darkened spaces
To wait out the cold?
Mild winters fetch them out early
Cold and hungry
Where can they feed
If plants are dormant
Not in flower
No leaves to eat?
A delicate natural balance
Disrupted
I’ve collected some seeds from seed heads, including poppies and nasturtiums and marigolds. I need to store them in a cool dry place and I think they will be OK in a kitchen drawer. I need to remember that are there, if not they will be wasted, also when to plant them, I guess I will Google that, or look on the back of seed packets when we go to a garden center.
The back yard in summer, there are still a few flowers out there now at the end of November, but nowhere near how these looked. Summer is a wonderful season if you live in the northern or southern latitudes you have that wait when the sun gets lower in autumn and only returns in the spring. I’m sure equatorial countries have some variations, but I don’t think there is such a change in temperature and light. I think plants bloom all year round. I wonder how climate change might effect plants. Will we have continuous blooms even through the winter? What have we done to the world?
On a tomato plant at the back of the yard. Eight tomatoes in November. We have eaten four but we are waiting for the rest to ripen. But it’s NOVEMBER! How on earth have they lasted this long.
Tomorrow the weather forecast is for temperatures of 19°C. That’s about 8°C above normal. The COP 27 Climate change conference just discussed trying to keep temperatures from going above 1.5°C higher than before the industrial revolution. Only a small rise, but enough to cause damage and disaster. So what? Flooding in costal cities across the world, dangerous increases in the ferocity of hurricanes, tornados and typhoons. Melting icecaps and glaciers. We must all try and do something about it.
I decided to do a bonus small painting to go with my bigger close up of a poppy. It’s called red poppy. It’s hard to come up with an original title. Lots of red used in these but I’ve tried to vary them and give that wrinkled feeling that poppies have.
Nasturtiums sprawling in the back yard. They are in our front hedge too. There are flowers six foot up in the air. You can tell its nasturtiums because of the shape of their leaves, sort of like umbrellas. The leaves, as you can see, are sometimes variegated. The colours vary from pale cream to deep red. I’ve never seen a blue or purple one? Maybe they will do some genetic modification to change that? At the end of summer they are something cheerful to look at.
The back yard looks very green now. The flowers are going and there is some wilting, but temperatures have stayed reasonable so there isn’t any frost damage yet. I suppose we will have to compost the plants if it gets really cold, but I’m one of those gardeners that keeps going as long as possible. Successes are the fushias which have woody stems, also the begonia that is in the shelter of the wall. A few lobelia remain and the nasturtiums hubby planted into the old brick wall are trailing everywhere!
Poppies and other flowers, I started painting this a few days ago and am trying to make progress. The flowers and tangle of vegetation is based on a photo I took at Trentham Gardens this summer. I hope it can be a meditative piece for a quiet room at the gallery which I have work in. I’m going to press on with this, it’s keeping my mind off things.
When the ink bleeds through the back of a sketch you can draw contours around the splodges of ink. I think the negative space it creates is quite interesting. You can vaguely tell its a still life (with Christmas cactus and flowers in a fish shaped glass bottle. The original felt pen drawing (sharpies) is about three years old.
Painted this today, only 5×5 inches. I might add more to the background. It’s meant to have droplets of water (like tears) on the petals. I’m also trying to emphasise the flower with a strong red but I don’t know if I should darken the greens. Still I have at least painted again.
Mallaband-Brown