SHEEP

This time of the year is always a busy time in the garden.
I love the ordinary Spring flowers - the forget-me-nots (Myosotis), the Honesty (Lunaria annua) and the Welsh Poppies (Meconopsis cambrica).

SPRING FLOWERS IN THE GARDEN

I left last year's kale plants in the ground in the hope that they would flower and the bees would like them.  Yesterday one furry orange tipped bee came along and tried his best to visit every single flower before the other bees discovered it.
You can see him in the middle, slightly to the right.

THE BEE AND THE KALE FLOWERS

   

I took a lot of photos and this is the best.  He was moving very fast.

* * * * * * *

At "Art Journal Journey"  Erika is asking us to make art on the theme "In the Sky/In the Air".
I found a tiny drawing in one of my never-ending black ink sketchbooks which inspired me to make this.

IN THE AIR

And at "Moo-Mania" the theme is "Just One Word" where we are challenged to make art which must include one word.
For some reason the theme really appealed to me.  
The paints and I played around for a bit and we made a blue sheep.

THE BLUE SHEEP

Hope you all have a great weekend and see you again soon.

A LADYBIRD AND A FROG, A CASTLE AND A FORT

Douglas was busy with his garden duties when he suddenly stopped!  He had seen his first ladybird of the year.

Later on he saw one of his friends and they had a little chat.

I've not had much time for art or the Internet this month due to a house guest (Mr. E's sister) and to helping Douglas to get the vegetable garden ready for the season with hordes of vegetable plants needing sown, potted up, planted outside and so on.

But I do have some art to show you.
You may remember a short time ago I was at a workshop where we painted with unusual brushes.
The others were all making fantastical large pieces, some even covering a wall with their artwork.
Meanwhile I was enjoying working smaller.

I turned two of these pages (top right) into this.
It measures 2½ inches (6½ cms) square.

Of course, then the tutor came round to see what I was doing, and as they always say, said "Don't you want to try something larger?".
The answer to that was "No, not really" but as she was a nice lady, I said "Yes" and she brought me a very large piece of white paper, a long stick and a bottle of black ink and left me to it.

This happened.   The stick did it.

Finally here is my late night biscuit.  Mr. Esmeralda can make even a digestive biscuit into a work of art.

Hope you enjoyed this blogpost.  It's good to be back blogging and visiting my blogging friends again.

I'm linking to "Art Journal Journey" where Wendy is hosting with the theme "Having Fun".

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.