Getting Back out in the Garden

It's still pretty chilly but I get out most days to start general pick up and clean up.

Welcome to another season of ups's, down's and fun in my little corner of the world.

It's too early for a lot of the plants that I'll be wanting to add to the garden this year.

Believe it or not this bleak looking stretch of soil is actually my best flower bed. Those twigs are my rose bushes and there are lots of spirea, lilies, and perennial sunflowers just waiting to pop up again. You'll be surprised at all of the changes if you follow it this season.

Here's a long shot of my Tea Garden which is the end of the driveway that I use for a container garden and patio. It's where most of the entertaining happens here all Summer.

Here are a few of the planters before I cleaned them out and got them ready to plant again.

They look a lot better when they've been cleaned out, don't they?

I'm planting last years strawberries in the long planter and will be making a cover to protect them. The darn "critters" got all but 7 of them and I sure don't want that to happen again.

I spent a few days transplanting strawberries. It's probably early for that but they're already growing outside in these conditions so I didn't think it would hurt. 

Many plants had been damaged and dragged around by animals so I needed to round them up and put them somewhere safe. 

It looks like most of the plants will recover under these conditions and it may also be good that I no longer know which variety is which. I had intended to cross breed them anyway so it may work out for the best. 

This is the planter box that I'm putting the strawberries in. My Husband and I built it 15 years ago out of composite lumber so I can tell you from experience that it lasts well. We've even moved it several times since then and it only had one screw that needed to be tightened on one corner.

I can't wait for these daffodils to bloom! We also built the short planter box behind the daffodils from regular lumber and covered it with siding to match the house. It's pretty but I prefer the composite box to this one.

Inspiration and New Designs

As I've said many times. I just love the mail, it's my favorite part of the day. Aside from some letters to answer I had catalogs and this really caught my attention. 

I had been drawing and painting lots of branches and leaves and it hadn't occurred to me to use them on a doormat design.

Besides that, I had a bottle of tan paint that was drying out and needed to be used so this seemed like the perfect project for it.

At that point I decided to cover it with my favorite sort of vines an flowers instead if following the design in the catalog.

I couldn't quite decide which shades of green to use so I had fun and used them all trying out an assortment detail and liner brushes along the way. some worked better than others but I enjoyed them all.

When it dried shiny, I covered it with mat medium to cut down on the gloss and make it easier to photograph.

This is the finished piece. As you can see before I added the mat glaze that I had painted light veining on the dark leaves and dark veining on the light ones to pull the whole design together.

I plan to start this as a doormat like the catalog inspiration but there is no limit  to what sorts of other products I can put it on besides that.

Maybe a tote bag for the farmers market or the grocery store. Maybe even a bag to keep my garden supplies in (especially the catalogs and the seeds).

Maybe even a scarf or a hat to go with that...or socks...or just about anything. The sky is the limit!

Tying One On

Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it but there's no such luck here. The closest thing to a party here are the LED tape lights around my china cabinet and one of the windows. The colors change and we used to use them for parties or just movie night. Now we just run them now and then just to break up the monotony.

What's really going in is two long, narrow paintings that I'm using for necktie designs in my zazzle store. I thought it would be fun to alter them and see how many different colorways I can turn them into. Here are some of the first results.

To do the 2 long paintings I divided an 8 x 10 inch canvas panel down the center so I had 2 long 4 x 10 inch areas to work with.

The first image was the actual image and the 2nd and 3rd were computer altered to give me more colors and images to work with.

This saves on both art materials and time because you end up with 3 images from just one.

The purple here is the painting and the orange is the computer image. I will make more your variations of this when I have more time.

So far I'm quite impressed with the results. What do you think?

Some of these designs made nice neck ties and I used others for scarves and headbands.

Getting Ready For Spring

 The red tulip is blooming again. It's so nice to have a bit of the garden in the house.

I'm also starting some flowers and tomatoes for this years garden in the house.

That daisy has been an amazing source of hope and cheer through the winter. It's bloomed several times and has been fun to draw and paint so it's been a source of inspiration as well.

Some of the seedlings are getting a bit "leggy" stretching too hard to get some light so I'm planning on adding at least one more gro light to this area soon.

Another thing that's been useful was pulling my olds sprouting jar out and starting a mix of radish,broccoli and alfalfa sprouts for salad.

The first batch was quite and experience. I'd forgotten how much they expand and the small amount that covered the bottom of the jar ended up filling TWO whole quart jars by the time it was done!

Oh well, the bunnies were sure happy to get some of the extra sprouts.

Sometimes there's a bit of a learning curve on some of these thing. I hadn't used that sprouting jar since it was trendy to be doing last time around about 30 years around. I've got to say I'm glad I kept it all of this time. They cost about double what I paid for mine "back in the day".

Anything green is welcome over these long, dark winters. Spring will get here but all if this will keep me going until then. 

Shut In No More

We finally got a van that can handle my wheelchair! Thank You all of those who donated to my Go Fund Me campaign.

It felt so good to be out of the house again that I got a bit silly and held hands with this carved bear statue like a tourist when I  went out to a celebration lunch.

Can't Escape the Iris Garden

This painting continues to take me on a journey, to improve my painting and drawing skills. To enjoy the process and even the bumps in the road and the challenges along the way.

I pick up here from the white area blocked in for another iris.

I realized that the white area was to large so I took part of it and began to paint it a light purple to prepare for the new Iris.

I liked the way that this seemed to balance the composition a bit more. Also in an effort to balance things more, I turned a rock to the right front of the painting into another red daisy. At this point I was pretty happy with things.

The next big thing was to bring the free standing easel into the house which made things much easier on me for painting but complicates life because it takes up the entire center of the room.

I was told years ago that the painting was too pink so I began to paint over some of the tiny flowers and make those blue.

At this point I began to add details to that 3rd Iris.

I've done a lot more to it since then but was too busy painting to shoot photos of it.

I've added leaves, grasses and five stargazer lilies. I'll grab another photo when I've finished those.

More Changes to the Iris Garden Painting

I'll start with this photo which should give you an idea both of the size of the painting and the difficulty there is when trying to work on it without an easel.

I generally end up balancing it against something while hanging on to it with one hand (not easy to do from a wheelchair)

The first change I made this time was with the Iris on the far right side of the painting. It had been peeking out from behind a hosta leaf.

This time I added a petal to the Iris and let it fall across the top of the hosta leaf to give the feeling of a more active and layered garden.

Here I've marked a geranium leaf that I wast to change into the top of an Iris.

Here you see the new Iris blocked out in white paint.

 It will be interesting to see how it changes this area.