Life in tiny, slow, quiet bits...

The sun burns hot and the smell of the new mown grass pulls hard. I sit with my knees and chest soaking up the heat. All around are the many signs of the glorious Florida summer...tiny iridescent green flies with lavender wings, yellow jackets diligently boring into the fence post, feverfew growing four and five feet tall around the deck, fat cardinals gauging ways to sneak around me to get to the feeder, and a giant, shiny brown dragon fly that sweeps me away as I imagine being a fairy princess riding along on his back.

There's American Beauty berries shining in the sun, confederate jasmine, and honeysuckle blending their scent pleasantly with the cut grass. I watch the sun tea grow more golden in the heat. I am impatient to taste it's sweet bitterness over ice. Baby birds in nests all around make their presence known begging for mom or dad to bring some goodies. A fat, bright red male cardinal sits in the ancient camellia tree waiting to see if I leave his feeding territory. He drops to the ground and gives me the evil eye. Mama flies right by him, lands on the feeder not five feet away, grabs a beak full and shows dad how it's done. She is so proud of herself!

It's been four years since I even took a look here. I am not sure a "blog" is my talent. I still draw, color, and paint my tiny dots. Chronic illness has taken over a bit and my world has been shaken recently by a particularly bad spell. I am moving into a semi-retired state of day-job work-being and we are looking for a smaller, tidier place to spend our days and nights. 

Though summer is here, the gardenias have a long way to go yet. This is a fantasy rendition of a photo taken by a friend of a gardenia in low light. In the reference photo, the petals are an almost tan color. I chose pink. This has been an ongoing experiment with watercolor washes, splatters, ink, colored pencil, more watercolor, more colored pencil, etc. It's a thoroughly enjoyable work-in-progress.

May your days be filled with warm sun and your nights with bright stars. 

Autumn Splendor!

We recently took a trip "up North" to visit with family in North Carolina, Maryland, and Virginia. The trees were spectacular! Such amazing colors - especially through the mountains of the Carolinas! Just prior to this trip, granddaughter and friend found some wonderful Fall leaves and I am smitten. I have begun a series of single leaf illustrations. One is complete, one is in the color stage, and on one I have just completed the inking stage. Here is Autumn Leaf #1:

I am loving that yellow! I am not sure what tree this came from. None of the trees in our yard look to have these.

Next is the beginning of a dark, flaming red one:

I am so loving this one! The picture is a little dark and I promise to lighten the finished one. This has bits of yellowish tan in it along with brown and black on this glorious deep red background.

On this third one I have just finished the inking. I used a combination of both brown and black ink. I am still deciding if I like it. I will definitely finish it as I do like it that much. But I have yet to decide if I will do another one like this.

I am anxious to see how this looks when painted. It has a lot of dark olive green on it with some deep salmon colored areas. I am experimenting with the background on this one, too.

It was hard not to collect thousands of Fall beauties while up North. But I had to stop as I have a lovely collection and hope to be able to do them all!

A Whale of a Tale

Sometimes we get an idea in our heads that makes sense in our heads but not so much when put on paper. This project was a not-so-shining example. I desperately wanted to do a whale. I was committed to it heart and soul! I got the idea in my head that once the pen work was completed, I could wash the whole thing in aqua to look like it was truly in its own habitat. I have worked with fine pens for years and found one that I particularly like. It is very fine, indeed! So I got down to work and drew this magnificent creature. Here is one of the first progress shots:

And here is one that was quite a bit further along:

Now I know my camera skills leave a lot to be desired but I think you can see the amount of fine detailed work put into this project and it is not a small one either! It takes up most of an 11x14 piece of cold press. 

So. Once it was completed, and I loved it at this point, I could hardly wait to get that aqua wash of watercolor across the whole thing. I had this idea - in my head - that would make him look like he was swimming in the depths. Well here is how it came out:

He lives in the murky depths and much of the mid-tones are lost. I lived with the disaster for a while and put it away for a while. Then decided something had to be done or I was going to "Deep Six" it - literally. So I decided that nothing ventured would be nothing gained and washed it, in the sink, in warm water and gently scrubbed as much of the watercolor off as I could. The paper is permanently stained and along with the blue came some of the ink. After he dried, I took some gray and white colored pencils to him to give him a little more dimension and though I will never be happy with it, I will allow it to be framed and place up for sale. This is the final result - does it look any different to you?

Detail:

I still love him, but I am not completely happy with the fact that what I had in my head could not be easily translated to paper. He's not quite as lost in the depths as before and he lives on despite my best efforts to kill him off. He has become my own personal Moby Dick.

The Life and Language of Flowers

I have recently started a series of florals with the idea of what these flowers could say - if they could talk. If your favorite flower could communicate with you, what do you think it would say? What kind of personality would it have?
Some people say that Florida doesn't have "real" seasons and I thought that too when I first came her almost three decades ago. But the seasons are just alive here as they are in the rest of the county. We just never have to shovel snow! All the better, right? Here in North Florida, the seasons are very pronounced. Every year we have been in this part of Florida, we have experienced many nights in the upper 20s. We have even occasionally had to scrape a little frost of the windshields in the early mornings! However Spring truly does come early and it gets really warm really quickly. I am so glad for that!
All that being said, we still don't see many Jonquils here in the Spring. Some local gardeners are pretty successful in getting them to bloom and keeping the bulbs safe from the long, hot Summers but usually Jonquils in Florida are seen at the commercial and public gardens. I have often thought about trying to keep some in a pot and might yet try that. For now, here is my Jonquil...

 And the following one is one I completed a few years ago...

Spring has finally sprung around most of the country and these "beautiful blondes" will be shaking their bold heads around everywhere! I would love to see pictures of the jonquils, daffodils, and narcissus in your garden!