Sunshine in the rain

W&N watercolour on Arches 300gsm

We’ve been having lots of cold and rainy days and yesterday I felt I just HAD to brighten up the day with something smiling! Not that I don’t smile during rainy weather, I love it!, but  I thought a bit of sunflower sunshine would be nice.

Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men and animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock.
- Henry Ward Beecher

My Geranium would like to see you...

Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

 

“Won’t you come into the garden? I would like my Geranium to see you.”

A few months ago, a friend gave me a Geranium cutting, just a little piece of stalk with one leaf, which I planted in an egg shell filled with potting soil and kept on the kitchen counter. As soon as there were enough roots, I planted her into this Terracotta pot, egg shell and all. Within 2 weeks I had about 8 leaves and another stalk appearing next to the original cutting. She now lives on the patio near my Natal Fig bonsai, and I’m sure I’ve heard them whispering to one another a couple of times! And now every spring she blesses me with a great show of her gorgeous flowers.

It is well known that the whole Geranium genus is highly redolent of volatile oils – lemon-scented, musk-scented, and peppermint-scented. In South Africa folk-lore has it that, if you plant Geraniums in your garden, you will never have any snakes!

.

Enthroned in his earthenware pot ...

Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm – Dried Hydrangeas from my garden standing in my potting shed.

::

From the bottom of the garden, enthroned in his earthenware pot,
the hydrangea god surveys his minions—
lavender agapanthuses bowing starburst heads,
red begonia calyxes trumpeting his fame,
oleander leaves whispering of his misdeeds.
The central path leads straight to him. Behind,
a stained mirror and mossy wall back up his power.
Thousands of crinkled, tiny, white ideas occur to him
with frilled and overlapping edges. No one else
deploys such Byzantine metaphysics. No one
can read his mind. Only he remembers
the children’s secret fort by the cypress tree
among fraught weeds, rusted buckets, and dumped ash,
and how lost the grown-ups sounded, calling, as night came.
- Hydrangea By Rosanna Warren

 

 

Autumn roses

Watercolour in Moleskine 200gsm Watercolour sketch-book

 

You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses!
- Ziggy

I have a couple of those very realistic-looking silk roses which I bring out of storage from time-to-time, especially if flowers are in short supply in the garden during winter months (I know, Winter is not an excuse to not have any flowers in the garden, but this year I’ve left planting a bit late, might still get in some pansies, though!) – and they served as subject matter for a quick watercolour with no sketching before-hand.

Vintage Coffee Roses

Coffee and watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm watercolour paper  

Painted with Coffee (Nescafé instant, very strong) and a bit of Cadmium Red – the rose on the left is from my garden and the one on the right is done from an inverted image of a friend's rose on FaceBook.

Rampage of appreciation

W&N Watercolour in Moleskine 200gsm watercolour sketch-book

 

Flowers from my garden.

Appreciate your friends
and family
and hold them near.
NOW
Compliment yourself
on the day’s achievements
no matter how big or few they are.
Appreciate the stamina of your body.
And who you are.
Turn toward
your perfect life.
It is the best feeling.
Go on a rampage of appreciation.
Relax and breathe into appreciation
of what you shared.
No relationship is ever done.
It’s all eternal.
- Maree Clarkson

From the bottom of the garden...

Watercolour and ink sketch in Moleskine Large Note book

 

“From the bottom of the garden,
enthroned in his earthenware pot,
the hydrangea god surveys his minions—”

Due to the acidity of our soi, which is caused by the many Blue Gum trees planted in the area, our Hydrangeas are mostly mauve, blue or pink, and if we want a white variety, we have to add a lot of alkalinity to the soil.

Charming Naturalness

Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm – A vase with flowers on my kitchen table

 

“He must have an artist’s eye for colour and form who can arrange a hundred flowers as tastefully, in any other way, as by strolling through a garden, and picking here one and there one, and adding them to the bouquet in the accidental order in which they chance to come. Thus we see every summer day the fair lady coming in from the breezy side hill with gorgeous colours and most witching effects. If only she could be changed to alabaster, was ever a finer show of flowers in so fine a vase? But instead of allowing the flowers to remain as they were gathered, they are laid upon the table, divided, rearranged on some principle of taste, I know not what, but never again have that charming naturalness and grace which they first had.”
- Henry Ward Beecher

autumn reds

Black ink sketch with colour wash in Moleskine 200gsm watercolour sketch-book

Autumn – The colourful month of May filled with red daisies and orange leaves.