My Garden is my Sactuary

Finding my muse at the moment and not being able to get into the swing of things...... so, to treat myself I took 6 paintings to the framers on Monday..... just because I wanted to see my work enhanced by frames and not just lying around getting grubby, also I thought it might give me the inspiration to paint something worth sending to the framers and.........just because I can!!!

So unfortunately dear friends, all I have to offer today is a study of an Amaryllis flower which flowered so beautifully for me earlier this year.It's the most glorious pink - one which isn't in my paintbox. That was the challenge - trying to find the right colour to portray this beautiful flower. I think I have made a lovely pink using Quin. Magenta and a touch of Indian Yellow. This is a study for a larger painting I'm thinking of painting....... this is minus a preliminary sketch, on really crappy paper. I have a lovely piece of Archers I want to do this on!

 

Amaryllis Study

A Rose - LOVE

Today I painted roses......
This month being Valentines month and today being my anniversary, I thought I'd paint roses (purely from my head)..... the symbol of love and and peace.

Antique roses

Artichoke and Gerbers studies

My cousin's artichokes in her veggie garden had gone to flower so she picked a few for a vase in her kitchen. They were huge and I fell in love with the lovely fluffy purple tops against the glorious green hard spikes, so she gave them to me to paint.

 

Artichoke Flower Studies 

  

The inspiration

The flower store was offering 3 pots of Gerber's on special so I purchased a baby pink one, a cerise pink and a lovely orange pot. Here are a couple of studies of the orange one I did..... I have studied the sketches and there is definitely some room for improvement here, I'd like to do others with more lost edges around the petals.

 

Gerber Studies

Phoebe the Allens Hummingbird

This is Phoebe the little hummingbird. I to have jumped on the bandwagon to sketch her.
Two Blogger friends, Maree  http://naturesketchers.blogspot.com/2010/01/allens-hummingbird-maree.html. and Vickie  http://vickiehenderson.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html. have also painted sketches of her sitting on her eggs.

 PHOEBE

Sketched from a live video-cam link http://www.ustream.tv/channel/Hummingbird-Nest-Cam. set up next to a house near a rosebush in a yard in Orange County California. It was quite easy sketching her as she ignores the camera lens on her and I had the opportunity to really study her. One can see her from different angles and get to see her markings quite well as she turns around to settle in the opposite direction.

This little hummingbird is sitting on two eggs at the moment and are expected to hatch any day now. So follow this link if you are keen to get a good sighting of Phoebe and the hatching of her eggs. The eggs were laid on the 2nd & 4th of Jan and are incubated for about 17 days. Apparently this is her 5th clutch laid in the same yard.  It's so exciting watching the live feed of this busy little lady who flits in and out of her nest and wriggles around re-arranging her eggs. I must admit, I do get carried away with watching her... it's addictive.

We do not have hummingbirds here in South Africa, but they are similar to our Sugarbirds and Sunbirds.

Till later.......

Playing with Washes

I add this little sketch with trepidation. I feel it is not worth the viewing but I thought, for prosperity's sake I'd add it to my blog as I do plan to take this further. I'll enjoy coming back in about a year's time to view how my painting style as evolved. This is a little sketch, playing with a 'first wash'. Minus pencil.  I was challenging myself with the encouragement from a friend to work in a loose style. Watch this space.................

This week was not very productive painting wise... I had a few distractions which kept me away from my easel. But in the evenings when the family were in dreamland I managed to dabble in a few small watercolours 18 x 13cm. Thought they would look good either as a series on a kitchen wall or as a triptych.

Artichoke

Pears

  Pomegranate

 

  Cherry Tomatoes