New paintings and regular art updates.
Beauty on a spring morning. Petals turned toward the sun. Glistening pink surfaces. Yellow/orange centres. They look edible, like gorgeous sweets. Crisp and crunchy, or like cupcake icing. Sugar lumps of tasty colour. Then the dark green shining leaves. They add a polished background to their jewel like flowers. How strong they grow in early spring. The frost sometimes nibbles petal and leaf. But on a bright sunlight morning, what better sight.
A drawing of Sunflowers from a photo of a Summer thunderstorm in North Dakota, by Thomas Kee (used with his permission). I’m using felt pens and building up the colours light to dark.
When I was young I used to practice drawing perspective using one or two vanishing points. When our #bandofsketchers prompt came up as construction I thought I would do something along those lines. Then thinking of Ukraine and how it will need rebuilding I decided to colour it blue and yellow.
Colour theory
Just remember
Orange and blue
Make brown..
Red and green
Make brown
Yellow and purple
Make brown.
Yellow and red
Orange
Yellow and blue
Green
Blue Red and a bit of white?
Purple
Colours…
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was brush so I drew my three Winsor & Newton watercolour pens and brushes (one end is a pen and the other a brush). Red yellow and blue primary colours. That’s it really.
At Trentham Gardens today.
Red leaves on plants at Trentham Gardens today. Usually leaves are green but these have a strong red colour. The light shines through them giving them a glow. I remember hearing about other plant colours that happen in autumn. The green chlorophyll is absorbed back into the plant (usually a tree) and other underlying pigments that help to phosynthesise carbon dioxide and water to join together into simple sugars that can then be transformed into cellulose and other plant structures.
As the chlorophyll is absorbed, red phycobilins, yellow xanthophylls and orange carotenes are left in the leaves giving Autumn colours. This usually happens as the temperature cools and the plants start to store food and chemicals for winter.
I don’t know if these plants are doing thus? They remind me of the colours that are found in Swiss Chard.
A couple of months ago we found a budgie loose in the street. We didn’t know where it had come from but we took it to an emergency vets called Vets Now.
When we took our cat there last week I remembered to ask about the budgie. Despite being mentioned on social media no one came forward to claim her. (I think it’s a she). So it has now been rehomed in an aviary. I just thought I would post the details here incase anyone sees this.
Huge and tall, these stunning flowers had grown up at Trentham Gardens today. Everything was massive and blousy. I’m trying to reduce my file sizes so I’m only adding small images. But you get the idea. Nice walk with friends in exploring mode.
I was sitting watching TV when I saw a man’s head looking over our side gate so I tried to open the front door and ask him what he was doing. The door was locked so I called my hubby. He went out and followed the man up our hill. When he caught up with him the man explained he was a motorcyclist and had recently had his bike stolen.
My hubby decided he probably wasn’t a thief and the man was contrite. Then…..
They both spotted a budgie fluttering on the pavement. I was standing at the bottom of the street and saw him take his tee shirt off?
He walked down the hill and explained he’d found a beautiful budgie. He had it gently held in the tee shirt.
Next we tried taking it to the pdsa vets nearby but they were closed so I found their number and rang it. After a brief conversation with their emergency vets in Meir Heath they agreed to take it.
We then had to get the budgie into a suitable container. Luckily I’d got a brown paper bag, but while I was trying to shoo one of our cats away the budgie got free!
We had to get the cat away and I threw a tea towel over the budgie. Popped it in the bag, safe and apparently healthy. Then off to Lyme tree vets at Meir Heath. Tel: 01782 417882.
If its yours I hope you will soon be reunited.
When I come home it’s lovely to see the Lilac in flower, it’s turned from a bush to a tree. I think the Latin name is Syringa? The white is unusual and we have a white buddliea behind it that comes out a little later. The bees and butterflies love it. Then in front of the house on the pavement we have an assortment of yellow and purple flowers including the aqualegia and Welsh poppies. There are also pansies and other plants. Later on the year there will be nasturtiums. I’m surprised we’ve only had one pot taken in all the years that my hubbies been doing this. It cheers me up.
Mallaband-Brown