Lemon a day

  11 inches by 6 inches, 27cmx15cm, watercolour on heavy weight rag paper

This is one of those, let’s get a fast impression of what the colours and the light are doing, paintings.

I always like to get these flame coloured tulips and sit them against a turquoise painted wall. The colours really start to zing. They are not quite opposites but close to the opposite. Then when the evening sun shines on them….

The jug came from my aunt’s house, it may have come from her mother’s it’s a little eccentric- like all of us who have not been cloned for average features and personalities.

I got called into the school and told that the GCSE course work was being worked on all the time my son and I thought it had disappeared; apologies were proffered for the distress and the delay that was admitted to…mmm I’m thinking.

The ground in the garden is already hard and baked in the worst beds, in fact one has already cracked. I am half way down the water butt and there seems to be no possibility of rain until the weekend.

However there are bits of the garden which are taking off the red leaves on the pieris have suddenly eclipsed its flowers.

Alison

#27 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog

   3.5″x3.5″ 8.5cm x 8.5cm watercolour on heavyweight rag paper

Not at all sure at this point what I will paint, the sky is a milky blue with the balance favouring the milk. I think that it would be the perfect weather for some digging up and replanting as it will rain on Tuesday (I think they said). As things warm up I try not to disturb plants unless there is rain forecast.

I want to do some more culinary pictures. I noticed that the garlic was not the most popular image I have done so far, but I still think that there is much more to see in a head of garlic than in a rose. It certainly has hidden strengths!

There are some bits of the garden coming on that I am pleased with, the new bed has been given a cheeky line with mowing stones ,or rather recycled concrete slabs that were in the garden already, they have the advantage of looking weathered. The bit by the front door which was drab and pinched a very short time ago has started to work again, there are primulas and primroses all the same shade, Pulmonaria and coming through from underneath are the striped leaves of Tulip’ New Design’.

Thus there are spots and stripes on the leaves and a limited colour range, I love it, when the tulips flower it reaches its peak, they have a pink cream and yellow colour mix which is so subtle you don’t really register what is there.

The whole shed business rolls on, we took the shed apart yesterday afternoon, the area it sits in is actually flat and it will be great to see it liberated and tidied up. It will form the pathway into the woody part of the garden. The path will lead past two hazels coppiced and my favourite holly. The holly tree was growing in the gloom made by the leylandii plantation, it has a trunk which has formed from two melded in several places leaving holes which go right through. One of the first things we did when we moved here was to start cutting down the thickets of 30’ high leylandii cypress trees which the previous owner had hidden behind. It’s a suburban garden and I swear we have taken out 50 of the dull green monsters, I know they are cheap to buy but 50 was insane. We have left one which is golden higher up and a landmark tree for the surrounding houses. There is one other straggly one but its days are numbered. We are still burning the wood from this mammoth tidy up and have enough for another winter.

It’s a lemon part zested, I am making rice pudding with sultanas and lemon zest, its cold enough for that I think.

Alison

#18 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog

http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday  5″x6″ 12.5cm x 15cm watercolour on heavyweight rag paper

No1 son came home smelling of fritters or doughnuts yesterday, how did it go? He had made everything he set out to do, he said, and eaten the lot for lunch, so had eaten an onion, garlic and ginger, chilli some prawns, a green pepper, two tomatoes, four potatoes, and a banana, all fried, then he had been offered surplus doughnuts made by someone else, he ate three, and still managed some cake from one of the girls……the wonder is he’s as thin as a rake still. Oh yes and then we took mother out to a pub for a late Mother’s day treat in the evening and he ate a big two course meal with ease.

I had ham hock in a spring broth which was a kind of transition meal somewhere between a wintery dish and a lighter summery thing. It had beautiful white beans in it, fennel and tiny kale leaves.

In honour of the curry, the remaining chilli peppers today in a yellow bowl, I seem to be slightly better today but I like one of the chilli peppers better than the rest, it would work better if they were all as good as each other.

Alison

#6 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog

SOLD  6″x6″  15cm x 15cm watercolour on rag paper,  for sale on Etsy search for lemonaday

I moved the lemons and did them in extreme wet on wet, I like the random way the paint flows sometimes, ok not entirely random, if it goes in completely the wrong direction I just blot it up with bog roll and try again or tip the pad so it flows off somewhere better.

These lemons are sat on the plate glass I use for rolling printing ink; I really like the watery blue that you get in thick glass.

I forgot to mention yesterday I found quite a lot of ear fungus growing on some sickly looking elder trees half way up the downs. As I think they taste like crunching on a real ear they are not my favourite so I dropped them off at my favourite gastro-pub on the way home.

Alison

#3 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog

5″x6″, 12.5cmx15cm, watercolour on paper for sale on Etsy’ lemonaday’ shop

This is a blog of two or three parts, it will have a painting every day or a drawing or a print.

There will be pictures of the food I buy or cook and of the garden or things from the garden.

This is where I spend my time ; on the phone to the school about teachers who persist in not marking homework, in the studio trying to forget about unfinished GCSE course work , in the garden trying to tackle the weeds and the grubs, in the kitchen, either making something that will do, or in the kitchen enjoying making something different. Before you ask, no, it’s none of it idyllic or remotely perfect. I could make it look/sound that way by being really selective, but I shall try not to.

When I write something I will most likely be rude about things or people, as it is what I do best, and it seems like a really good opportunity. After all there is such a wealth of stuff to complain about.

Please do not expect consistency or a constant stream of lemons, cherries and mandarins…have you noticed they are rarely satsumas when in an oil painting? Why are satsumas not artfully significant? Bananas do not feature much in fine art either, would Cezanne, had he had a good supply of cheap bananas, have painted them? In fairness, I think many of the painting-a-day lemons are lovely and I am amazed that there is such a voracious world-wide appetite for lemons in oils and similar themes. Lucky artists who are able to work like that. However when the portfolio consultant looked at mine she said…”do you have schizophrenia?” in other words I don’t do consistency. Sometimes I sketch, sometimes I print, sometimes I doodle and sometimes I do a cracking great painting. Annoying that if I would/could only do a lemon a day I could possibly be an e-bay millionaire instead of an overweight, cash-strapped, mother of provoking teenagers, with inky fingers and muddy shoes. Perhaps I should try the lemon diet…

Today I painted two lemons on a blue cloth in watercolour just to see what they came out like…ok. Tomorrow I shall find something from the garden and also get some prints ready to sell. I shall continue to chase the deputy head who has not marked my sons course work since at least January 25th when he wrote to us complaining it had not been handed in…it was on his desk all the time we discovered after we had had the house turned upside down and the mother of ‘don’t lose your homework ever again’ rows. When I was at school I spent my time hiding from teachers who were chasing me for homework which I had not done , now I am chasing teachers for my sons homework they have not marked. I suppose the teachers are from my generation and we are all monumental skivers.

Alison

#1 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog