Flowers to die for

In another year of tough times and tight finances I found myself going to a dollar store for the silk flowers to do the cemetery arrangements this year. I hate to skimp on flowers and mean no disrespect to the deceased but this is the best I can manage this year. It will be interesting to see how this project works out.

 I wasn't sure how many flowers it would take to fill those big planters so we took them along so that we could start them in the parking lot and keep running into the store until it looked like we'd have enough to fill BOTH planters.

 Believe it or not it took over 3 dozen bunches of flowers. Even using the cheapest flowers I could find they still ran 40.00 dollars.

When I actually get everything arranged and have finished with them I'll have more pictures to share with you.

Plants and Flowers, keeping it fresh

 I like the way the light hit in this photo as I was washing, watering and re potting plants this morning.

 Yes, I just rounded up all of the plants and put them in the kitchen sink.

 Having done the regular work I became interested in the light and the composition as I considered more drawings and paintings of the poinsettia before it's finished flowering for the season. It's so nice to have a little fresh color around here to work with.

Now all I need to do is decide whether I'd rather work directly from the plant or benefit by the composition and lighting of the photo. I suspect I'll do both.

Ta da dump,dump,dump

An odd title for this post but a bit more fun because it sounded to me like old time theme music for movie serial or television show and a lot less like the boring reality of hauling a trailer load of trash and recycling from all our building & clean up projects around here to the processing center.
The great thing about having done that is that we can get back to work on the old garage that we're converting into an art studio and workshop.
Which of course goes back to the garden because my inspiration for everything comes from all the plants and flowers here...and of course you have to create a great garden to work with when your favorite things to paint & draw are florals.
We're also planning to use some of the scrap lumber we've set aside to build garden arbors that I will also paint...probably with vines & flowers which of course brings us back to the garden again...which brings us back to the art, which brings us back to gardening etc.,etc.,etc.