Archive
Narcissus in a Poole vase – a painting a day
Click here to bid size 12in x 7in approx
The winter seems gone; today there was an air of spring about …everything really. Even Clapham Junction felt as though something had lifted. So of course the weather man tonight after the news has to smirk and offer colder weather later in the week and beyond that a possibility of more snow. Hmm I dislike turning into the sort of old person who bewails the snow rather than enjoys it…but I feel we have had quite sufficient for now thank you. It was only yesterday I was congratulating myself on the amount of wood left in the store; there might be as much as a third left to help with next winters supplies if it stays as mild as it has been. It is midnight now and I am sitting up typing wearing just a T-shirt and it’s not unbearably cold.
This painting, strictly speaking, was a two day painting, however as I was out of the house almost all day today collecting lovely aunt from her holiday in Suffolk and calling on mother as a bonus I have justification in calling it a daily painting, well a days painting. I am not at all sure I like it…I like bits of it. It would normally at this point be put away for me to think about but as there is a big gap on the blog where the paintings should be, it is going public.
Using the same sort of warped logic that applies to “Embarrassing Bodies” on TV, here’s a picture I would cheerfully hide from myself -now watch me put it where anybody can see it . DIY Dad, who is having something of a Revival in DIY enthusiasm at the moment, thinks I am a pathetic perfectionist , he can’t see anything wrong with it, No1 son says its “OK really, no really I do like it” No 2 just reminds me that anything I do ( at all ) is crap. Not in so many words or those exact words ( he’d be fined if he tried that-again). Which averages out at “ No Comment” pretty much. As the person who has the casting vote I come round to sticking it on the blog but pretending it’s in a cupboard and ignoring it for a safe period after which, by magic, I will be able to tell if its good or not or at least spot the mendable parts and then reassess. Hopefully.
#196 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Sheffield Park the rough draft
This is a very rough idea of the colours at Sheffield park last weekend, the little sketch is a pencil sketch of the central interest. Possibly the information here and from the snapshot taken at the same time can produce a finished picture…..watch this space ( don’t hold your breath however ).
The strangest thing about this year so far in the foraging department are the wild mushrooms, the best pickings we have had this year of ceps and parasols has been this week, its nothing like last year but there have been enough to eat some and dry some.
It is a fine view and the question is will the picture end up reflecting(!) this?
#184
Orange chilli peppers with bay leaves, painting a day
SOLD 6.5″x6″ 16.5cm x 15cm watercolour on heavyweight rag paper
Painting a day is not always easy, I am finding that not all the pictures are how I expect them, there is a difference between painting when you feel like it and painting everyday…and the difference shows in the picture, it’s very strange. Other people seem to like them so it’s a question of keeping on until a work hardened style emerges from the struggle. The peppers have ripened, here they are with bay leaves ready for a beef curry.
I have picked out about thirty hellebore seedlings, they are all in a little divided tray of compost with slow release fertilizer granules, they seem to be growing away, producing their first true leaves (true leaves being the typical leaves of the plant, the first leaves out of the seed are usually quite different). Looking at how many I had and how many more I could pot up it occurred to me that I could do a really big planting of these magic plants underneath the oak tree, then there would be two years to wait to find out if they had come true from their parent or whether they had crossed with the others. I am not sure if hellebores cross pollinate, not all plants do. I could mix in some Brunnera Jack Frost by dividing the plant or going back to the lady I bought it from to see if she has anymore. The effect could be white hellebores with divided dark leaves, delicate sprays of blue flowered Brunnera with simple leaves netted with silver. Lush….snowdrops underneath maybe for the earliest colour; gardening is like painting, first picture what you might like slap it down and then wait two years for the paint to dry, dig it all up in frustration then wait two years for the second coat to dry. I have a brilliant cheat for working up perennial bedding schemes though. Get a really big plant pot and do a test run in there, it will be transferable if it all works and if it doesn’t you can drag it round the back somewhere out of sight and rework the elements. It’s good for getting the timing as well as the colours all lined up, you also see the relative heights of things.
There is a big empty patch where the spoil heap from the house extension was flattened last week by mini-digger. It needs to be filled with shade loving plants. I am going to photograph it and mark the lines of a path. Most of what goes in there will be grown from seed or divided. I collected seedlings of my hardy geraniums up last year and I have a tray of seedling of some sort of Tiarella (I think that would make a good first name for a girl when Kaylee gets past its sell by date, in fact I am surprised Katie Price hasn’t used it yet). I can only say they are some sort of Tiarella as the seeds were fished out of my pocket after a visit to a huge garden.
Alison
#9 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog
Lemon a day 