Archive
Iris graminea–a painting a day
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday. size 4 in x 6 in 12cm x 15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
Yes there were more strawberries today, they are really very good, there is almost no mould in the patch and as I am removing even the damaged ones,( slugs and or woodlice) there should be no problems with mould until we get some rain. I am still waiting for that nocturnal deluge.
Today I went back to the health centre to explore the ‘aqua exercises’. This was less embarrassing than the gym as, in a swim suit with an atmosphere of chlorine, I think that I’m 13, thin, and fit… as long as there are no surprise mirrors. The exercises could have been devised by John Cleese as they were principally a series of silly walks done on the bottom of the pool standing chest deep. I swam a bit as well which is always my preferred form of exercise. Now I am tired and my knee hurts.
The picture today is of one of the few flowers there are this year on the Iris graminae which I spoke about yesterday. It looks almost Japanese in style, the flowers are below the level of the top leaves. The best place I ever had it planted was in a bed that some steps climbed up beside, the flowers showed up better there and there were lots of them. It was south facing and hot in the summer and the Iris loved it. It also copes however with damp shade (I expect it got a lot of that in Yorkshire). The general design is the same as the big Iris or flag but the petals are all narrower so that the curved petals which point outwards are much more visible (I have just looked them up and they are called style arms and they are not really petals but part of the stigma or female bit of the flower).
Alison
#67 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Rugosa rose, open for business –a painting a day
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday. size 6 in x 6 in 15cm x 15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
My MP’s secretary e-mailed back wanting to know where I lived….will the Big Man be sending round the boys?
Perhaps she thought I was writing to the wrong MP, she can hope.
It occurred to me today in mid-rant that if our new ministers were in a new job (aka normal employment) they’d be on probation for the next six months and it would be a foolish employer who let them loose on Big Ideas which could go horribly wrong; horribly wrong Big Time. It’s not as if they were all headhunted for their specialist skills is it? So there’s no reason for them to get Big Headed and think they can run before they’ve learnt to toddle….there’s a theme here, I’m trying to remember what inspired it.
Thank goodness for that little bit of rain, it has meant that instead of watering I have moved a number of plants into their permanent position. I am doing this on the basis that the weather forecasters are right and we will get further rain on Saturday to keep them alive. In the shady area two of my Tiarella seedlings are in flower they are lime green not white but that’s fine. In one corner I found that the Epimedium had just sprung up from nowhere…I was sure I had lost it. I am now on the hunt for a golden hop to plant where the sun will shine through the leaves.
In the mean time we continue to consider the risks of ionising radiation on the Marshall Islands and the relative merits of sand and crushed coral when trying to persuade the disposed to move back to their radioactive tropical paradise …GCSE Science is so complicated.
I decided to have another crack at this opening rose its just possible to see the stamens in the centre, I love that ,it reminds one of the form of wild roses while being infinitely more luxurious.The variety is Roserie de l’Hay. I love all those rambler roses bred in the 1920’s they are often semi-double..e.g. Cornelia and Penelope. I am very fond too of Buff Beauty but I have not been able to buy or establish a really strong growing specimen. I tried in two gardens to make an apricot and lavender blue bed using this rose but only partially succeeded.
Alison
#60 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Rugosa rose –a painting a day
Sold size 6 in x 6 in 15cm x 15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
Yesterday I forgot to mention that I got really close to a strange fat dragonfly in the garden, I wanted to know what it was and discovered a really good dragonfly site which made it possible to work out that I had seen a Broad-bodied Chaser (Libellula depressa) female the site is:
www.dragonflysoc.org.uk/index.html they have a really easy way to report sightings, you can say whether you are sure about the ID or not.
Today I had a go with the electric strimmer and tidied up yet more edges and rough bits. Just cutting down rank weed growth doesn’t cure the problem but it does make it look a whole lot more doable and neater in the meantime.
I also wrote to my MP and asked him to find out why Michael Gove is in such a tearing hurry to get as many schools as possible to convert to academies by this autumn. Does he know how this will work? He’s had recent similar experience? If you rush things they do not work well …and when it’s my children’s education being dismantled I worry. If the schools rush to become acadamies then the local authority will lose funding and all the central shared services will be cut out or at least I imagine that will be the effect.
Things are moving on very fast, next doors peonies are out and mine have fat buds, the first large clematis has opened and the climbing roses although behind their normal slot are opening. The rose hedge has about thirty flowers fully opened out. They smell delicious. The other rose with a fabulous but different smell is Etoile d’Hollande which normally opens earlier in the month for my brothers birthday ( we used to call it his birthday rose when we were children) it has three flowers open and more to come.
Alison
#59 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
The first rose bud begins to open – a painting a day
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday. size 6″x6″, 15cm x15cm, watercolour on heavyweight rag paper
There is something sweet and wild about this rose bud. It is as if it has unruly but beautiful hair. We bought these rosebushes very cheaply about two or three pounds each from a hedging supplier. Although they do not repeat flower in the late summer they are great value as you get thorns to repel school children who want to sit on the wall and smoke, you get scented flowers, rose hips in scarlet and a beautiful yellow autumn colour on the leaves.
I am very short of time again today.
Alison
#55 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
The first rose bud – a painting a day
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday. size 6 inx6in15 cmx15cm watercolour on heavyweight rag paper
This was a mixed up day it felt warmer which was good, it looked like sun then it looked like rain and then it kind of did neither.
I am still chasing appointments which is very annoying.
I picked the best looking bunch of asparagus so far which was good and only two days after the last lot.
Looking round the garden it is about to hit the early summer stage and pass out of the late spring stage. The first flags or rather Bearded Iris have opened, I won’t paint them as they have a bright white splash on a strong purple base the contrast is a bit absolute for my painting style I think. The first hardy geraniums are opening , Geranium sanguinum or the Bloody Cranesbill one flower, , Geranium clarkei several flowers and the mad , Geranium pyrenium alba is about to burst out like a firework there are enough flowers open to say the fuse is well alight. It’s not really mad but it likes it here so much it grows twice the size it grew in the old garden and I have to treat it like a weed as it self sows everywhere
I got up the ladder to look at the roof garden. There are plenty of plants ready to give it a go and invade up there, mostly they are testament to how much the birds like scuffling around up there…currants, strawberries, hypericums, cotoneaster and rowans all have seeds which make bird food. I discovered an extra Lewisia over the one I thought had survived and found a small bit of Pulsatilla another one I thought had died. There is a very pretty alpine hardy Geranium up there deep magenta as pretty as can be , I will try and remember to read the label and photograph it. There are several Penstemon smallii which is not really an alpine and a hairy Salvia which should come out as it’s too big for the space.
The bed is two years old I think , we got the plants from Ingwersens nursery just before it closed and got fantastic help with choosing alpines to survive on a roof. They only charged£ 2.50 per plant and threw in some gone over alpine bulbs to boot. Most of their recommendations worked we have lost one pulsatilla one libertia and a couple of Lewisias but I think that’s because I put them in too upright. Well thats what Roy says and he’s a retired professional.
The beginning of early summer…a rugosa rose bud, Roserie de l’hay from the rose hedge.
Alison
#53 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Columbine deep blue – a painting a day
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday. size 7.5 inx 4in 19cmx11cm
Today I recovered from the weekend; I also went round the edges of the flower beds in the front garden and excavated the mess a rat had made of my compost bin area. The wretched creature had found it difficult to get into the plastic composter so it had burrowed under the concrete pavers that it was sat on sending them squiffy and opening up cracks through which it had presumably got compost to eat. I will have to put a harder mixture under the slabs or I could coil up the remains of the boundary barbed wire to make it harder to dig out. I heard of one farmer getting desperate and making concrete full of shards of broken glass to stop rats trying to chew their way in to his feed store. There must be rats and rats because I usually do not have much trouble with the compost, ie a plastic composter bin does the job but when people start to talk about rats in places where there is a lot of food stored it’s unbelievable , they will try and chew through cans of food I am told.
While I was going round the edge of the flower bed I cut this columbine or aquilegia by mistake. They are very pretty but once you have one it’s too easy to have too many : unlike the forget-me-nots they are not easy to remove as they have a thick tap root.
If the time or energy only reaches a short way the most productive thing to do is to make all the edges look distinct and neat. Then once the grass is cut and the plants in the bed fill it well the eye is at least 90% satisfied. Next time I should do a before and after photo and time it.
Alison
#52 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
A small sprig of Apple Blossom – a painting a day
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday 6inx6in 15cmx15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
This is a fast and furious very wet on very wet watercolour, I hesitate to use the word technique as I think that would be over selling what I just did here.
The colours are quite sharp which is right.
Today was busy with visitors. I made the remains of the venison casserole into a pie with some additional mushrooms and very good it was again. I always feel that I have scored if there is a meal to be made from what is already prepared in the fridge. We opened a bottle of red that had been in the cupboard under the stairs for a couple of years, and it turned out to be terrific, South African Brede River Origin. It was 15% alcohol so everyone became very boisterous and inclined to insult each other. I think it was a bottle that came mail order in a mystery bargain mixed case, I am a sucker for that sort of deal, the unpacking and consideration of each bottle is great .
In the afternoon I went to see Cheek by Jowl do Macbeth at the Theatre Royal Brighton. It was completely packed in the centre of Brighton but the theatre was only half full. It was one of those pared down productions and parts were brilliant but at times it was hard to pick out all the words and that made it less vivid. The porter is utterly fabulous and Macduff magnificent. It felt like one of my less even paintings, there was a need to get the levels consistent.
Alison
#50 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Apple blossom –a painting a day
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonaday size 9 in x 6 in 23cm x 15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
This is not giving me everything that is good about apple blossom. I love it for its’ sturdily curled petals and its subtle blushes. The blossom is soft and opulent and the supporting twigs are knobbly and grey.
I saw my first cabbage white butterfly of the season this morning, they used to be so common in London when I was growing up, the caterpillars were a familiar sight destroying my father’s cabbages. In the bush in Botswana, and come to think of it in town, clouds of white butterflies would drift past on the breeze. Here I look up if I see one.
I picked some asparagus today in honour of my brother in laws visit; it looks rather weedy still but was crisp and delicate stir fried. The strawberries have 30% blackeye from the frost which will prevent fruit forming. Some of the plants have set fruit already so it’s to be hoped that they at least grow into edible strawberries.
Alison
#49 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
The tulip face on – a painting a day
size 4.5 in x 4.5 in 11cm x 11cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
I had a very aggravating day with appointments flying around being delayed and changed. I had another look at the Esperanto tulip and did a quick sketch looking into it head on.
I also went to the allotment looking for asparagus but as it has been both cold and dry there was little to pick. Everyone whose potatoes were through was bemoaning the frost damage. The leaves had turned dark and wet looking. I do not know if these frosts will do for the apple crop most of the apple blossom is fully out only one tree has finished.
It is going to be cold again tonight they say although we have had a little rain.
#47 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
“Esperanto” a tulip – a painting a day
size 9inx6in 23cmx15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper
I tried this tulip in the bed I took photographs of a week or so ago. It requires a pink tulip with a striped leaf. This is all of that but it does not work as the pink is just a little too far into strawberry mivvi territory. The only one I have found so far that works is New Design. There is a candy striped one which is too harsh.
Anyway I have painted it ,on its own it is a very pretty tulip and perhaps I should buy more and use them where they are not arguing with the pulmonaria. It’s a type of tulip called viridiflora most of them are interesting because of the colour breaks which streak the petals.
And then there was the political situation, a result for the LibDems? Yes, a result for the country….I have my doubts.
Alison
#46 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Lemon a day 