Wildlings

 

Mixed media Collage — W&N watercolour, newspaper cutting, ink sketch and acrylic on Amedeo 200gsm 

Wildflowers don’t worry about how they’re going to bloom. They just open up and turn toward the light and that makes them beautiful. 

—Jim Carrey

Evening Primrose

Mixed media of W&N watercolour and candle wax on Bockingford 300gsm

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I wanna be

the mild fragrance

of an evening primrose

gentle and sweet

beneath your sheet

cluster of petals

which bloom

white blossoms

to wither softly

into your sleep

— unknown

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In the Bulrushes

 

Black ink sketch and watercolour wash on a back-ground done with coffee on Bockingford 300gsm

The sun begins its red plunge down the sky.

Deep in the earth a locust’s eyes snap open.

Frogs resume their trill

And punctual to the minute

down the path,

tottering on jeweled sandals, comes

the beautiful lonely princess

— Extract from “In the Bulrushes” by Katha Pollitt

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The warmth of Summer

 

The warmth of summer is fading, slower here at the Coast than inland, but already the mornings are nippy and require long sleeves or a light jersey before heading out.

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Coffee Daisies

 Coffee Daisies Done on Bockingford 300gsm watercolour paper with coffee. Dedicated to all coffee-lovers 

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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!

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Enthroned in his earthenware pot ...

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

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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.