THE ONE EYED GARDENER SURVEYS HIS GARDEN

It's always exciting to find what the new challenge is at "Art Journal Journey" and this month Gill is asking us to make art on "Anything with Eyes".

Of course I immediately thought of the one-eyed gardener and here he is, looking pretty pleased with his garden.

I'm pretty pleased with our garden too which has been looking its best with all the hot sun and cool rain.

Come along the Cobbled Path

to where the little sheep is looking after the yellow oxalis in the Rock Garden

and the most beautiful geum ever is flowering in the New Flowers Bed.

I hope everything is flowering in your world too and see you again soon.

TWO LITTLE BIRDS LOOK AT THE FLOWERS AT A GARDEN PARTY

Hello everyone.

I am still trying out the new colours and colour combinations from my "new" paintboxes, combined with my older ones

and continuing with the art I showed earlier.

If you are wondering - the objects on the windowsill are poppy heads from the huge double pink poppy which went insane all over the garden.

I don't think this piece is going anywhere but it has a few interesting bits and serendipitous colour combinations

as here, where I like the sweet innocent lime flowers

and here where I like the circles and the shade of pink in between. 

There's an interesting challenge on Instagram just now called "Garden Party Challenge".   We're given a list of easy prompts

and using the ideas from the painting above I made this.

TWO BIRDS LOOK AT THE FLOWERS

It's not a card (yet) so I think it is allowed at "Art Journal Journey" where  Chris is asking us to make art on the theme "We're all/going" which pretty much covers everything and my contribution to the theme is "I'm going to play with my colours and then enter a new Instagram challenge".

And for those of you who like to see my garden, here is a little border which is always a surprise as in Spring it is covered in Spring flowers and I always think, that's it over for the year, then it produces something like this.

Hope you have a good week and see you again soon.

GOING IN ALL DIRECTIONS

Hello everybody.

Over the past few months I've been going in all directions, often all at the same time, so Chris's "Art Journal Journey" theme this month "We're all going..." is very appropriate with

holidays -

the garden, always the garden, and especially the vegetable plot together with flowers for the bees,

and a rare collector's item - a photo of me in my gardening clothes, gardening face and hair, and my knitting, following the suggestion by my sister that I could sit in my garden occasionally (eh? what? sit???). 

I've been experimenting with some new watercolours in the paintbox and made some larger pieces which turned into rather nice cropped pieces too (for card and wrapping paper designs).

"Small Tower"

"Small tower" cropped and photo-edited

And a photo-edited version of the whole piece -

Going round the bend in all directions

I've missed blogging and visiting and I hope to see you soon.

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.