Spring painting, garden inspiration and some sketching.

To plant a garden is to have an endless source of inspiration, when you like to paint.
I have been busy creating both a front and a back garden here in my new Scottish home. I have not been so busy, that I haven't had time to paint.
Once the work is done and the plants are growing, I take some time to sketch and to paint. This way, not only do I work in my garden, but I take some time to enjoy it also. Physical work is good, as is feeding the soul. Gardens and painting do both for me.

The painting is from my front garden - and I call it "Spring"

and the sketches come from my back garden, which is still being created. You can follow that progress, if you'd like to see it, HERE

Sketch one is a metal trellis of leaf and birds and two was the beginning of a trollius (globeflower) . That will have to be finished another day, because the sun was so hot, the paint dried before I could complete my wet-in-wet washes!
Both will eventually become fully worked up paintings - these quick sketches are pleasurable to do and help me decide if I want to go further with them. 
Saunders Waterford paper was used throughout. I like my sketch paper to be the same as my painting paper - and Saunders suits me down to the ground!

Until the next time, happy painting, happy sketching, happy gardening!

Call of the Wild

or Hoe, Hoe, Hoe!

Spring is well and truly here, the weather has improved no end, we are seeing sunshine and a multitude of weeds coming up in the garden!
Weeds - so many of the little blighters - and all needs removing so I can enjoy the pretty flowers without them being choked.

The quandary for a gardening artist... to paint or weed? Weeding won this weekend and now the garden is beginning to show its treasures - and there are more opportunities to photograph the fleeting flowers for later use in paintings.

Gardening reminds me a lot of painting.
There are paintings which are like evergreens, always there and always loved as they give a backbone and structure to the look of my house.


There are other paintings, which are beautiful when I make them - but are always destined to brighten up someone else's life - like gorgeous flowering perennials they brighten my day- but become evergreens in a different climate - the home they were meant to live in.


And then there are the weeds. How can paintings be weeds, you ask?
Weeds are only plants you don't want in your garden at that time.
Many herbalists would love to have dandelions and cleavers growing, as though weeds to most of us, they are useful little plants, with medicinal purposes.

So it is with many paintings and sketches. They are useful little things - they help me improve my techniques no end. But if I hung them all, you wouldn't see my great ones for the multitude. Of course - just like dandelions - they are great to someone else!


So even when I garden, painting is not far from my mind.
Both are enjoyable and creative.

I hope you managed to do whatever was enjoyable and creative to you, this past weekend.