Archive
Three strawberries – a painting a day
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday size 5inx6in 13cmx15cm watercolour on heavyweight rag paper
The strawberry theme continues although there is some background here. I have made this very loose and applied the paint wet on wet and then in some places flooded it with oxgall.
Today I put out a big group of Tiarella seedlings in the shady area that got flattened recently following the build. The soil is very patchy; there are areas where I was digging holes and then throwing into the hedge base the yellow lumps of clay that I dug out. At least if I scrape around there are bits of soil to be found in places. I watered all the young plants very well and top dressed with a mixture of mulch and chicken manure pellets. There were one or two little seedlings of some species geranium that had emerged from the compost after I pricked out the baby Tiarellas. I hope they don’t mind shade.
I also went looking for patio pot survivors from last year , this was quite productive, I have four white fuchia Annabel, four fuchia in shades of pink trailing which made it indoors overwinter, several Erigeron Profusion which is trying to flower, two diascias, several rooted cuttings of Pelagonium on the kitchen window sill plus three parent plants and lots of trailing nepeta which is also starting to flower. In addition there are two good plants of fuchia Thalia indoors still. One or two pots that I have dragged out from shelter have some interesting looking seedlings too. I only really need to buy some lobelia as I have one e-bay pack of mixed hanging basket plants being brought on.
Things are really moving fast in the garden, lots of big hitters are out or ready to go any minute . The clematis Montana is almost out , the honeysuckle Dropmore Scarlet likewise. There is a delicate bush honey suckle opening with pink flowers L. tartarica I think .
My star bit of permanent planting is at its peak, here is a sequence of photographs. First shows the tulips still in bud and yeaterday there they are open in the sun. You can just make out the striped leaves.
The art exhibition was better than expected although it was clear that another class had had one really good project that exhibited very well and looked like they had enjoyed it.
Alison
#35 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
A sweet strawberry – a painting a day
Sold 4.5″x6″ 11cm x 15cm watercolour on heavyweight rag paper
I was out of order here as I could have bought some English strawberries grown under plastic but they were the favourite with the growers Elsanta and they always disappoint on taste. I suppose they last a long time on the shelf and work better for the supermarket, but a strawberry is nothing without taste and perfume. So unless I require something sturdy and scarlet to decorate a cake or display I shall not buy Elsanta; it is ruining the reputation of strawberries everywhere.
This strawberry filled the studio near me with its perfume which was quite a task as the garlic from yesterday is still there.
Today I went to Sheffield Park a very beautiful garden belonging to the National Trust near here. I took my paints but there was too much there for me to settle and find a small subject for a quick small picture. The highest of the lakes was covered in waterlilies and something with oblong leaves and pretty frilly white flowers. I should have liked to try that but it would have been an all day task. A swan crossed the lake perhaps thinking my painting bag contained crusts.
There were dogwoods with big flowers, soft deep purple cones on low growing firs and more azaleas, magnolias and rhododendrons than the mind can take in easily.
At home the plants are finally going into the area formerly known as the Somme. Last night husband transplanted the magnolia, I know it’s very late but there is rain due at the weekend. It will need cosseting with regular water all summer now. Two of the bamboos went in and most of the rest of the planting it placed on the surface…the gaps are huge as this will be an area of big plants providing screening and a backdrop. It’s going to look rubbish for a couple of years at least. I am also going to have to find a cheap and cheerful temporary groundcover plant.
It will be No.1sons GCSE art exhibition (the one he forgot to mention) this evening . A must see, my friend and I wish they would put the boys and girls stuff separately as we can’t help expecting that the girls will have done so much more.
Alison
#34 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Pears on a tartan cloth – a painting a day
4.5”x6”, 11cmx15cm, watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
That completes the first four weeks of painting a day, its hard somedays and then others it just happens and flows and works.
Today’s picture is quite a fast wet watercolour the mad thing was trying to somehow express the chequered fabric without getting into masking fluid. Not that I don’t approve of masking fluid, I just don’t have any right now. The cloth is a scrap from a favourite pair of my son’s pyjamas. I also worked on another picture which is SO bad I will restart it another day. It too has a sentimental background, a handkerchief of my grandmothers. It will be better when I try again I’m sure. Paintings often are better second attempt, but mostly for the blog I have gone with my first effort.
I did one of the dullish jobs in the garden today, compost management, swopping bins over and sieving the old stuff. Dull but necessary and gets you to the useful bit the black gold. There’s just never enough so I will need to cough up the money for a load of manure this year.
There are several trees coming out now my favourite is the cherry which weeps slightly, it opens pink and fades to white against lime green foliage. Lots of bits of the lilac tree here and next door have died in the winter, it’s only now that one can tell.
Alison
#29 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear – a painting a day
SOLD 6 inches by 6 inches, 15cmx15cm, watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
On a handkerchief with madras pattern, i.e. the pattern is woven in. It’s a very old hankie, as you can see it has been ironed and I haven’t touched an iron in fifty years I swear. It looks like a gardeners hankie to me, bought for a chap who used an old spade sharpened until it was stubby- with an ash handle of course.
The teenagers returned to their school today. No.1 son came back to tell me that his Geography teacher says he doesn’t need to write in full sentences or punctuate his work. Excuse me, isn’t it supposed to be intelligible? What’s the point of learning to construct a sentence in English if, in other subjects, any old text message type garbage goes?
Alison
#26 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Two Pears on Blue Table Cloth – a painting a day
4.5″x6″ 11cm x 15cm watercolour on heavyweight Fabriano paper
I am having another go at that beautiful camellia of mothers. Then again there are some pears in the fruit bowl and I haven’t done any pears yet.
Yesterday was too busy to paint there were so many plants to rescue from the lack of water; it did not rain on me while I was away which was lovely, but then it was torture for the recently transplanted or potted plants.
I spent today trying to reduce the number of plants in pots by getting them into the ground. I then ruined all my good work by discovering a pot with some cuttings from last summer. Hoorah they had worked…some of them…now where are those pots I just emptied…..better find some fresh compost.
There really are situations in real life where you run as fast as you can and find yourself back where you started, Alice found it perplexing and so to a degree do I.
On the other hand the cuttings will be useful , two are Siberian wallflowers and all the ones in the ground gave up the ghost over winter including the variegated one I bought new last year. I grow a very strange cultivar the flowers open yellow and change to purple or the other way round, it’s possibly called Chelsea Jacket but there’s no real way of knowing as the original cuttings were labelled with two names. They came from a church plant sale. It sounds vile but in a mixed border is really very pretty.
Yesterdays print comes from a photo I took when we camped at Kubu Island in Botswana, it’s not a real island as there is neither a lake or a sea, but all the land around it is grey flat salty mud which sometimes holds water if the rains have been good. It’s one of the most atmospheric places I have ever stayed. The trees are very old and very contorted; in the sand around the island you can find old bushman beads made of ostrich egg shell and tiny stone tools made from moss agate. The only reptile I ever saw there was a tortoise but other people said the place was alive with black mambas….certainly Motibedi thought it a very uncomfortable place to stay and he has the Motswana sense of where is safest.
We camped in small tents taking our own firewood and water, there is as far as I know still no other way to stay there. It’s quite a well known place, and sometimes strangers would drive into the prospecting camp looking for the track to Kubu. The instructions run something like travel along DeBeers calcrete road towards Matshumo, once you pass Garnet salt pan turn right, follow the track until you emerge onto the salt pan so big it stretches to the horizon and then bear left until you reach the gate in the vetinary fence, be nice to the guys guarding the gate they have a hard and boring job. Turn north until you reach the stick with the beer cans on it and then turn east, continue cautiously across the salt pan making sure you do not sink through the surface. You will see Kubu, it stands on higher ground. They seemed aghast that there were no sign posts, no maps just a pattern traced in the sand that needed to be committed to memory.
Incidentally I just cannot wait until the whole do it yourself ethos is released onto our public services (as long as I can go and live somewhere else of course).
My mind goes back to voluntary management committees peopled with worthy people so varied in their outlook that the only common factor was they were certain to disagree. There was the religious man who picked his nose and ears in meetings(and if you are wondering what he did with it…what would a three year old do with it?), he was fanatically opposed to political correctness because of SOMETHING THAT HAD HAPPENED IN UXBRIDGE, there was the active pensioner who had brought the local tenants association to physical blows( they were all over 65!) his skill at producing dissent was unerring, there was the woman who never felt a meeting was complete unless she had regaled us with something smutty that had happened at her work and there people who said little until they decided that they did not agree with what we had agreed in detail a month before. There were people who did not turn up for six months on end and then were offended that they had not been recommended for higher office. There were people who were there to promote their professional interests and then there were one or two brave kind souls who believed in their duty to make something useful happen and did it. Those few were few then and I imagine will be fewer now as jobs become more stressful and pensions less likely to provide a living.
We could have schools for the kids who only really enjoy sport, the schools for the kids who like the social side of it but not the learning, the schools for the children who are academic and want to learn from professional teachers…Oh wait a minute Michael Gove (shadow education minister) says that’s a grammar school and not allowed, DEFINITLY not allowed.
Alison
#23 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Jazz apples and the turquoise mug – a painting a day
SOLD 7.5″x6″ 19cm x 15cm watercolour on heavyweight rag paper
This is not yet finished as I start writing , better not mess it up then, the apples are really tasty and it seemed sensible to buy some more so that I did not get greedy and eat the still life. Actually that did once happen, I was letting a room in the house I’d rented in Nicosia and this English girl came round to look at the room, sat down at the kitchen table where I painted and ate a clementine from the still life!!!!Even though I was desperate to split the rent I wasn’t that desperate….I think I was painting in the kitchen as it was huge and also it was one of the few warm rooms in a very cold house. Stone floors and uninsulated flat roofs mean you can be colder there than in freezy England. Naturally there was no heating as most of the year you did not need any.
The garden is growing at a terrifying rate the time to move plants and root out weeds is so short.
Today I moved a day lily to somewhere it will get a little more sun and flower for once. I also moved the species clematis which were in pots.
Alison
#16 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
One and a half Jazz apples – a painting a day
Sold 4.5″x6″ 11cm x 15cm watercolour on heavyweight rag paper
I like these apples they are really really tasty and there are 50% extra free in the bag I bought. It’s a new variety and it will grow in the UK.
Today I was a total sucker for offers and chocolate as granny sent money for forgotten eggs .Almost all the eggs had gone with the exception of some lovely Barbie eggs which nearly made teenage sons sick on the spot. They happily substituted various exotic bars: chocolate with ginger, cherries, pieces of raspberry and Belgian truffles in a bar. Did we get this sort of delight when we were young? A bar of Bournville was the height of sophistication, in Easter eggs if we were lucky we got Black Magic the chocolate was really nice on those then, I think they may have downgraded it since. The egg snapped when you hit it in a very satisfying way.
The best bit was one boy went over budget so had to give up a bar…I thoughtfully relieved him of the plain chocolate and raspberry ( Fairtrade no less), the boys got taste… in chocolate at least.
The painting is a really fast impression.
Alison
#14 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Lemon a day 