THE VILLAGE THAT WAS GREY

Hello everyone.

I've been absent in Blogland for a while.

Real Life took over again.

I've been happily busy in the garden, digging beds, sowing seeds and potting up plants for the vegetable garden.
Some of the plants are now in the greenhouse, others are still sitting at windows in the house.

It's also been visitor time, with the very best visitor, my sister, arriving for a week.
That meant serious cleaning of the house and lots of cooking and baking.

Don't you think these lentils look beautiful, ready to make a delicious vegetarian main course?

Mr. Esmeralda makes most of the meals, with an artistic breakfast muesli,

a pretty lunchtime salad

and a tasty late supper snack.

Mr. E looks after visitors very well.


I did find time to make a couple of drawings in one of my sketchbooks.

Here is their story.

One of Orange Esmeralda's distant relatives, Mr. Grey Esmeralda, owns a village where every house must be grey.

Mr. Grey Esmeralda does not like to see colour and no-one knows why.

THE GREY VILLAGE

But Mr. Grey Esmeralda does not know that behind the houses is a beautiful field full of colourful flowers.

THE FIELD OF FLOWERS

I'm linking the flowers to three of my favourite art challenges:-

"Art Journal Journey" where Jo is asking us to make art on the theme "Hello Springtime",

"Moo-Mania" where the theme is "Colour" with hardly any or no white areas and

"Try it on Tuesday" where the theme is "Say it with flowers".


Finally here is Douglas, being photo-bombed by Victoria, showing off the crazy daffodil called "Rip van Winkle".

The crocheted mat is a present from my sister.

PATTERNS OF SPRING

It's Springtime at "Art Journal Journey" where the host this month is Jo who makes the most wonderfully artistic collage paintings.

My sister sent me a second Prima Confections Watercolour box and I wanted to test and sample the colours of both sets.
The flowers and leaves are from recent pencil sketches of our Spring garden.




I'm going to completely fill the sheet but had a pause to have some Photo-editing fun.  All of the art below was made from the painting above.  I got rather carried away and the designs below are only a few of many.

The flowers in our Springtime garden are mainly blue and yellow.

THE BLUES AND YELLOWS OF SPRING

Changing the colours.

THE GREEN CHAIR

I use several photo-editors which have different functions - Nero (an old editor which is no longer available), Photoshop CS6 and Tuxpi which is free on-line.

I gave the green chair a shake and a twirl on Tuxpi.

THE GREEN CHAIR TWIRLED

The next was made by playing about with the kaleidoscope function on Tuxpi and the colours were inspired by the lilac Vinca in the garden.

VINCA AND DOUGLAS

VINCA INSPIRED

More colour playing.  This was printed as wrapping paper and used to wrap a birthday book.

THE COLOURS OF THE FLOWERS

The next made a card I really like.  At first I was ambivalent but now it has been sitting on a shelf for a few days I am really pleased with the design.

SPRING CARD

And here is the birthday present and card in Real Life with some Spring flowers from the garden.

I hope you enjoyed my play and designs with the watercolours.
Do you have a favourite?

THE YELLOW TOWER AND THE GIANT SQUARE FLOWERS

We're still being Yellow this month with Rike at "Art Journal Journey".

Even the local Gas Board joined in by leaving this monster cable outside our house for several days.

What to do with the colour yellow?
I found some yellow watercolour pens and made a very quick sketch, 10 minutes maximum, on a scrap bit of cartridge paper, just to see what happened and to see what other colours could go with yellow.  You can see some try-out colours top right.

ORIGINAL YELLOW TOWER QUICK SKETCH

Plan was to make another painting in my good sketchbook but somehow this quick sketch took on a life of its own.   I managed to remove the try-out colours by wetting and blotting (repeatedly).

YELLOW TOWER WITH WILD GIANT SQUARE FLOWERS

Then I decided to have some fun with it.
The giant square flowers are not flowers, now they are search lights.

Do you like the little houses with their windows all lit up and their pink chimneys?

YELLOW TOWER AT NIGHT WITH SEARCH LIGHTS

If you are a blue tower you can have a pond instead of a flower bed.

BLUE  TOWER WITH POND

* * * * * * *

Back in Real Life Land, Douglas and I went in search of flowers in the garden.
He found a Spotted Pulmonaria in the Forest Trail.  We leave this area to look after itself and it seems to do just fine

and he found the Vinca Major Variegata in the Spring Bed happily flowering away, as it does at this time of year.

Douglas is very happy to be back on his gardening duties.

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A YELLOW CAT?

Have you ever seen a yellow cat?

Here's one.

We have gone yellow this month and it's all due to Rike's challenge "The Colour Yellow" at "Art Journal Journey".

Have you met a romantic flower?

Here's one.

"Love is in the air" at "Moo-Mania" and 
the word is "Romance" at  "Try it on Tuesday"

and the cats

 and flowers

 and birds

 are being romantic together.

Have the very best February (my favourite month along with October (and a few other months)) and see you again soon.

THE YELLOW-WINGED GHOST BIRD

My blogging friend Rike has chosen the theme "The Colour Yellow" at  "Art Journal Journey"  this month.

Yellow is a colour I rarely use.
So this is a real challenge.

Out of curiosity I searched my sketchbooks to see if I actually had used yellow anywhere.
There wasn't much.  I found these two pages in an old sketchbook.

So here we are with a pale yellow and a dancing bird.


The flowers and the Yellow-winged Ghost Bird are bopping along at the Yellow House Rave Party.

And here is a little yellow heart.

I look forward to seeing all the Yellow Art at AJJ this month.
I might even become friends with Yellow by the end of it.

THE SQUAREHEADS ARE IN TOWN

The friendly Squareheads are in town.
The mouse made a painting using the basic old version of Windows Paint.  The mouse loves to add the odd squiggly line.

Have you any idea what is happening here?

Maybe they are on a long country walk and are looking for a place to stay overnight?
Or has Mother Squarehead brought her little Squarehead to school?

I'd like to know.

The mouse and I are linking to "Moo-Mania" where the theme is "Squares" and to "Art Journal Journey" where Alison is asking us to make art on the theme "Geometric Shapes".

* * * * * * *

I'm always on a mission to make more cards so made some more designs.

Here is one -  "The Blue Flower".

The original flower was part of a large artwork

and here is the card design.

Of course Douglas wanted to display the blue flower card.

.

What would we do without Douglas?