Trial of coloured pencil drawing technique

 I'm just dipping my toe in a different art style.  I tried water colour botanic painting, and have often though maybe pencil drawing or colouring would be less messy and possibly easier.  Yesterday I found online some courses, with the possibility of  of attending an 'in person' course.

I downloaded an on line tutorial given by Linda Hampson. This is a free taster tutorial and over the course of a couple of sessions over two days, this is what I produced.

Yesterday I worked on the petals part of the rose...

Of course this is a first piece, a learning piece in which I learnt lots of technics and already I can see what I would do differently next time! Of course I had no techniques at all under my belt.

In a Vase on Monday - 30 December 2024

 Feeling less than inspired today I had a quick look at Cathy's post before starting this post.  She is keeping the home fires burning which is really good of her.  Each week she leads by example with an arrangement from the garden. Having seen her effort I really felt I ought to make the effort too.  However I got chilled from a short walk on the top of the Mendips and feel that fresh material will have to wait till next week.

Yes this week my arrangement is from the garden, however it is one I prepared many weeks ago!  I think this will be allowed as after all don't we prepare our Christmas feast in advance.  This year I made just a six inch Christmas cake, and after lunch Mr S and I shall share the last remaining slice.  

I didn't follow the traditional way of drying the hydrangeas by having them stand in just an inch or so of water, but simply picked a few stems in the summer, removed the leaves and hung them together in a bunch upside down from the end of the curtain pole in the dining room.  The sticks were left over when I took all the poppy seed heads off.

The Book by Annabel Streets is called 52 Ways to Walk. This was a surprise/unexpected gift from my friend Eileen.  Like me she loves finding out about things, and I believe she may have given several copies to friends as presents, as a mutual friend Sandra who was with us for Christmas dinner, had also been given this book by Eileen. I have already ordered a copy for my lovely daughter in law, who is doing the two miles walk a day challenge in January, and if you hear people humming as they are on their walk, it may be that they had been given a copy of the book and had learnt about the protective effects of Nitric Oxide. 

Six on Saturday - 28 December 2024

 Its been damp with fog or low cloud and the garden is dripping. For maybe fancier flowers and great turns of phrase, you will need to go over to Jim's where we all hang out.  Its Birthday Cake time here, but I expect to still have time late tonight to see what others have posted, or else at leisure tomorrow.

Here are my six...

Everything is rather shoehorned into the garden, and for the size of the garden I think I may have reached capacity.  I've even moved some plants for fear they may have been growing over the top of some snowdrops!

Galanthus Godfrey Owen is looking 'champion' up by the seating area.

Galanthus Godfrey Owen

Having started my quest to grow some nice snowdrops soon after moving to this garden, I was glad to receive some from friends and also buy at the Snowdrop Fairs in the locality and also on garden visits.  Sadly many of my labels have either been moved, have disappeared or the writing has faded beyond recognition, and I am having to try to sort through my notes and my blog to seek clues as to their names. Godfrey Owen however is easily recognised!

2. I had put some of the parsley seedlings in a spare pot, where I also had planted a flowering  Lathyrus latifolius 'White Pearl'.  To support the white pearl I had in my normal fashion used some 'sticks' which I had recently made when I was pruning back the pink flowering Phlomis pupurea 'Matagallo'. 

To my surprise more than half the sticks used are sprouting new plants from under the soil.  I know my friend Maggie was very keen to acquire a plant of this, and I will be potting them up during early March. 

3. Although the coums are starting up in flower, I wanted to add just a small selection of the foliage of Cyclamen hederifolium.  They give such a variety of patterning and great foliage all through the winter months.

4. Another good winter leaf can be found in shady border...

5. Another shrubby Phlomis that has proved itself in the garden is Phlomis bourgaei. It is just starting to form shoots that look as it they will bear flowers.

Phlomis bourgaei

6. I left the flowering spikes on the herbaceous Phlomis russeliana and now that I have seen the effect will leave then again next winter.

Phlomis russeliana seed heads

In a vase on Monday - The Tuesday before Christmas

 I had it all ready, to be truthful it was complete on Sunday, with photographs taken, but Monday went by in a blur....

Here is the vase, a heavy brass container of which I shall say a little more another time.  In went some greenery from the garden, mistletoe left over from my botanical art class, and some old man's beard gathered on our country walk.

We no longer put up a Christmas Tree which we gave away along with many of the decorations November 2023, and the Chimney Breast is now the focus of decorations...gradually some favourite old decorations were added. We also no longer send out Christmas Cards. I have over the last few years cut and cut, and this year went cold turkey!  We are not having any turkey either....

A couple of strings of lights  completes the look.

Happy Christmas to Cathy who hosts this weekly get together, and to all the people who contribute their arrangements via a link to Rambling in the Garden, and of course best wishes to all who visit my posts.

Six on Saturday - 21 December 2024

Take it from someone who has gardened since being able to move around ie crawl, not even  the shortest day, where in the UK I heard that we have 7 hours 49 minutes of light (of course that depends on the latitude), is not a barrier to going into the garden and being in the fresh air where plants or maybe lack of plants catch my eye. For many more plants please visit Father Christmas Jim himself for more gardeners' views of Six on Saturday.

Here are mine: 

1. Galanthus plicatus 'Three Ships' was added to the garden in 2023, and I am delighted that it is up for Christmas 2024, named for the Christmas Carol ' I saw Three Ships'  by John Morley who found it growing under an ancient cork oak at Henham Park in 1984.  Hopefully next December there will be three bulbs flowering and then I shall be able to say I see Three 'Three Ships'.

Galanthus plicatus 'Three Ships'

 2. Over on the Amelanchier the Mistletoe continues to grow, but I am yet to find out whether it is female or male. Should it flower next year, I'll be able to tell, for now it is just a curiosity. Well it is a curiosity for me, since it is just at eye level.  In many trees in the locality you can see great balls of the stuff, but they are high up in the canopy of the trees.

3.  Sometimes it is a question of just being out in the garden at the right time to observe that even rain drops dripping from grass leaves  can be a thing of great beauty.

This grass was given to me by a friend and I have no idea of its name.  I like to move the pot around the garden.

 4. Two pots of Tropaeolum tricolor with some of my sticks and copper wire structures are trying to catch some winter light.  Should freezing temperatures be forecast, they will be moved back to the shed for some protection.  Their thin and brittle stems are starting to wind their way up. I do have two matching pots, and at least I ought to use those next year.

Tropaeolum tricolor

5. The golden baubles clipped balls of Lonicera nitida 'Baggensen's Gold in the front garden have been kept neat for the first time by regular clipping, which I came to enjoy more that tackling the long growths. Just keeping them trimmed regularly meant that I could just brush the clippings under them, rather than bag waste to send out with the green bin. As I go round the garden I enjoy remembering which plants I propagated by cutting and these are amongst the ones I grew myself.

6. I clipped ivy from our narrow side alley to make up our Christmas wreath. Now that I have also picked enough to decorate our living room, I can get on with the job of trimming it well back, and it won't be long before the robins start their nesting...as they are already starting their territorial shenanigans in the garden.

If I had but a Holly Bush I would have had the theme for another Christmas Carol! I used to have a great Holly Bush in my previous garden, and maybe it is time I looked out for one here?