garden interlude

June is rose season around here. Most of the roses are putting out their first flowers around the same time so it's a great time to go shopping and see what you're getting.

I've pulled out a few more big euphorbiums from this bed that died over the winter and the blank spaces seemed like they needed new roses. Last weekend was lovely and sunny (not that you'd know it from these gloomy photos from today) so me and the boy went shopping.

The top photos are of my own personal method of garden design: buy some pretty things that go together and then move the pots around until I like the effect :) I'll leave them in their pots and make sure I'm happy before I put them in the ground. I like making a composition out of the flowers and it feels very similar to putting together a collage - all the pieces are cut out and I just move them around until it all works (I hope).

The roses are (from top): Darcey Bussell (new), Eden, Rose de Rescht, Gertrude Jekyll, and Heritage.

Garden update

Not a whole lot of art-making going on around here today...I've got family visiting tomorrow so I've had to cram a bunch of things that normally live in the guest bedroom into my studio.  I did go outside to take some pictures and thought this little snail had some star quality and deserved a little internet fame.

This is my Eden climbing rose - it's only been in the ground for a couple weeks so it hasn't done a lot of climbing just yet.  I love the lush blooms.  For me, roses are definitely a "more is more" kind of thing.

Some flowers for you

The unknown roses have started to bloom.  I was hoping I would like them but they had no tags on so I had to wait until I could look at the flowers.  Anyway, this is how they look in a vase until a cat pulls them all out in the night and scatters them around.  Oh, and the tall thing in the middle is stock which I love to grow for the scent.

Paintings and collage

This is the start of the second canvas.  I'm kind of just messing about with these because I'm not really sure what I want to do with them.  It makes sense to find a local coffee shop or boutique to hang canvases since a) I don't need to frame them to hang them and b) they're more expensive than prints and therefore more difficult to sell online.  Besides the fact that stretched canvases would be sort of tricky to ship safely.  

This is a digital collage I made to put into a frame that I was bored with and spray painted an electric blue.  I wanted something that could compete with the frame--hence the pink and orange.  I kind of like how it turned out, though, so I'm thinking of adding it to my shop.


That's all for now...I'll add another Photoshop how-to soon with a couple of my little tricks I used making this.
   

Roses again

Another new piece...drawn, scanned, colored, collaged, etc.  

I tend to start drawing in my sketchbook without thinking too much about why I'm drawn to a particular subject or image.  Once I'm going back through my recent sketches for something to work from, I give a little more thought to what it is that caught my attention.  For example, the subject of gardening in general is really interesting to me right now--planting and transplanting, pruning away something to make a stronger plant or a better flower.  I feel like moving away from where I grew up is making all these things resonate for me at the moment.

As far as why I want to draw and work with roses the past few weeks, I think that's more specifically about leaving my roses in the old garden.  I'll start a new rose garden here and I'm starting to look for places I can buy the roses I planted before.  It's still sad to leave them there, of course.

Side note:  I prefer to grow old-fashioned or old-fashioned looking roses.  However, I think the modern shaped roses read better as line drawings, as here.