The Winter Garden

We've had 32.5 inches of snow this month and very little sun so none of the plants I'd been trying to grow in front of the windows has done well.

It feels like the snow is never going to stop.

There are lots of garden catalogs in the mail to remind us that summer will get here and to help me plan next season.

In the meantime I've got a small aquaponic grower with 3 types of lettuces that should do much better in here. It's got LED lights and just takes water and plant food in the tank.

You may notice that the plants have moved since yesterday. 1 of the pods hadn't sprouted so I added
more seed and re-arranged where that pod was to give it a better chance at the most water and light.

I tried to force some flower bulbs in vases and had no luck with them so it's going to be a loooong winter.

All that is left in the regular pots is Holly, a miniature rose and some daffodils.

I've begun clipping bits of the larger lettuce to garnish things with and keep it from crowding the other plants. I'm very happy with the progress so far and looking forward to it doing even better.

What a difference a day makes. I just love how fast this is growing in spite of having clipped it shorter twice already to add to salads.

Making Cards with Pencil, Marker and Scrap Papers

I had some textured card stock and garden catalogs to get rid of so I decided to make note cards out of them.

Writing letters is still one of my favorite hobbies so I got my colored pencils and markers out to see how I could decorate them up.

As you can see by the brown areas, pencil just didn't cover well enough. Markers worked really well so I'll continue to work with them.

This card started with a picture from a garden catalog and then I drew over pats of it and added petals and leaves with marker.

This is my favorite of this last bunch of cards. Some simple drawing around the edges and marker around that gave it a really nice look.

I'm also truing some things that i haven't really done before. I'd been saving that old Swedish painting pattern since the early 1990's and may try it with the right colors of paints next instead of just the markers that I had on hand.

There's no real explanation for this one except that I was trying something different with flowers.

It's always good to stretch yourself and shake up your regular routine. Give it a try!

Inspiration can come from anywhere. Your house plants and even your junk mail. 

Flower and garden catalogs can be used in many ways. Sometimes when I'm too tired to draw pictures from it. I just cut out the pictures and arrange them in ways that create new pictures from them.

On this day I started with a simple watercolor that I outlined with markers.

The Last Canvas: Stained Glass Window with Flower

Finally after 5 attempts painting over that canvas, I had another idea.

Here's what happened after that:

At this point I was down to the ends of tubes of blue, red and green paints which can really limit a person.

I decided to take it as a challenge and began working out the idea of a flower sitting in front of a stained glass window.

This is a point in my life when far too many people that I love are facing chronic illnesses and death so the thought occurred to me that it would make a nice sympathy card for my Zazzle store.

Continuing to paint helped me work through a series of emotions as well as using up my paint. And continuing to work began to calm me down again.

Here's what I ended up with. I won't know how well it worked out until I actually go through the design process and see it on the actual greeting card and matching sticker.

Between The Horse and the Stilllife

You can still see a bit of the horse painting in the corner of this one.

I finished that corner and tried to add a bit more texture and interest but hated that too.

The dark blue was clearly a mistake so I went a bit wild on the canvas after that.

I was really lost when I got to this point so I started going over bits of it in solid colors so I could see what sort of texture I'd built up underneath.

This lead in a surprising new direction as you will see in my next post.

Failed Horse Painting

My sister Becca sketched this horse for me so I thought it would be a great chance to do something new while also reviving my landscape painting skills.

 It started out OK but as I reached for my painting knives to give a bit more body to the grasses and things my old instincts took over and before you knew it this painting disappeared under a series of frustrating attempts at abstract paintings.
  

5 paintings later I ended up with this:

This is really different for me but I was thinking of flowers against a stained glass window as an image I could use on sympathy cards in my Zazzle store.

Cardinal Photos

Putting it all Together, Bird and Abstract Painting

I painted this over that yellow painting with the green leaves and couldn't decide what to do with it next.

As I was thinking about it I was watching the birds at the feeders outside my window and decided to try to paint one of those.

As you can see, it's not coming easy for me so I kept trying for about a week.

I'm still not happy with my progress so I've decided to walk away from it for a while.