Yellow Roses in Watercolor and Ink

Mail Art, Inspiration and Creativity

A friend made this card using bits of envelopes an photos I'd sent her. Now it's my turn to run with the theme and see what I can do to make it more fun.

The first thing I did was to add more sunflowers and leaves to the  card before painting an envelope to match.

I'll ink them when I get back to work.

As long as I had paint left I couldn't resist doing a few more envelopes to get a bit ahead on next weeks mail. I tried a couple of roses too and this ant came over to watch.

Easy Garden and Pantry Salad

Sometimes your garden can let you down and you find that there isn't quite enough to really do anything with. Don't give up-there is a solution.

To the ingredients from the garden, I added a small can of green beans, 2 ribs of celery from the grocery store and some inexpensive Italian dressing.

This recipe is easy, inexpensive and fast. Everything I like in the kitchen and i hope you'll enjoy it too.

It made several servings and is good freshly made or left in the refrigerator to marinade.

Transplanting and Making Changes in the Garden

I shot these photos from the wheelchair ramp to give you a better perspective on the whole project.

Here's where the rescued flowers landed. When the lilac, lilies, iris and geraniums get larger they should shield this container from the road. I use it to hold all of the planters that i'm not using at different times of the season.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the garden where we're moving raised planter boxes. We dumped the extra soil from the transplanting. When we finish building the box it will be spread on the bottom and topped with good garden soil.

Utility Work in the Flower Bed

  There have always been challenges to putting in a flower bed at the front of our yard. As you can see the shade has forced us to move things closer to the street and after all the struggle to put in that front row, out it comes as the gas line is replaced.

We put the gravel in here to keep the water main shut off free of weeds and easy to find if need be.

The sewer workers were kind enough to let us save the flowers before they dug this hole. We're grateful for that and using it as an opportunity to relocate them
to the side of the garden that we do all of our entertaining in.

 We're looking at this more as an opportunity than a problem...at least we're trying to. I hate to put anyone to the work of replanting things as I continue to find a way to make the flower beds accessible to the wheelchair so that I can work on them myself.

The interesting thing about this hole it that it's in the exact spot that I was thinking about putting in a path so I could get in to the other side of the yard so that I can trim the rose, lilac and spirea bushes.

There's a possibility that this will actually improve things in the garden.

my garden , photo and watercolor pencils

I rely on outlines too much and need to focus more on actually drawing what I see.

                                                                                     

I used a mixed media card and put the photo and some colored paper borders on what will be the back of the card so that it's handy to inspire the drawing on the front.

I couldn't quite decide on the shapes of the leaves, it was hard to tell from the photo so i just went with a suggestion of them.

This is the corner of another envelope that I'm working on.

Goldfinches on the Sunflowers

Bees

Goldfinch Close Up

Still Obsessed with Sunflowers

We still haven't been able to get good photos of the goldfinches landing on the sunflowers and working so hard to pull the seeds out but we've really enjoyed watching them.

I was hoping that this picture would capture the feeling of being surrounded by Sunflowers and that you might enjoy it as much as I do.

Sunflowers Outside My Window

In an urban garden you take or make your inspiration where you find it. We never planted these sunflowers,they were just the result of mishaps with the bird feeders and a hole in the seed bag.
They bloom where they landed without plan or effort.

They're just outside my living room window. The first thing I see each morning and the last thing I see each night.

I had invested quite a lot of money in seed for 3 or 4 different varieties of sunflowers in different locations around the yard and garden but these simple surprises put them all to shame.

Yes, they inspire me and will continue to appear in drawings and paintings throughout the season.

 It especially amuses me the way the horse that's a school logo on the playground across the street appears to be running through my magic garden.

 I shot this photo just outside my front door to give you a closer view.

Indoor pants

 It rained off and on today so I thought it would be a good time to give some of my houseplants and fairy gardens some attention.

The other nice thing about spending the day indoors is that it gave me a chance to make some pretty cards, do some watercolors and write a few letters.