Campfire Tomatoes

I'm really enjoying the garden these days. It's fun that the tomatoes are on each side of that arched bench along with the lettuce so you don't need to go far to have a salad.

For me, good garden design is all about ease, comfort and accessibility.

I like to make it a seamless experience by keeping everything handy and fun.

This will be even better when the grapes start going good on the trellis.

 My whole philosophy is that things should be both useful and ornamental. A campfire isn't exactly beautiful but it's useful for helping with garden clean up and we really enjoy relaxing and watching it at the end of a long day.

Current Projects

My sister and I continue to work on this little mural each time she comes to visit.

I also continue to draw the flowers from my garden.

Other things I'm working on are carving horses to paint for my dala horse store and embroidering a handkerchief for a gift.

Covered Bench

Before

In Progress

Finished and ready to plant grapevines and climbing roses on it. Once they cover it we'll have a lot more privacy here.

Waiting on the Garden :Pencil drawings to make your letters more fun

There isn't a lot to do in the garden these days except wait for the tomatoes to ripen, pick a little lettuce and wait to see how the broccoli and carrots will turn out so I took this old photo of last years lettuce and peas and filled the bottom of the card with a drawing based on the design of the teacup holding the veggies.

For a bit of a change I put a rose on this envelope for one on my husbands aunts who used to grow amazing roses.

Adding Light and Bright Touches to an Old Painting

Before

In Progress

Painting Signs and Planters for the Garden

I love it when the weather is nice and I can paint in the garden while painting things for the garden. It inspires me to see the butterflies and the birds fly around while the birds sing and the butterflies bounce back and forth landing on various plants and flowers.The suet seems to be the favorite of the woodpeckers while the chickadees go for the thistle seed. 

As I did this little sign to explain all of the milkweed to the neighbors. I attempted to paint the variety of butterflies that we've been raising and releasing all summer. They're called "Painted Ladies" and I thought that was really appropriate to express what we're trying to do here.

It's hard to see in these photos but the reverse of the sign says "Milkweed for the butterflies"

This little planter stand is seen laying on it's side as I paint it. I'm laying in the basic shapes for the leaves and stems now and will add rosebuds when I go back out to work on it.

While I worked on my projects my husband installed the lattice panels on this garden bench for a bit more privacy in this corner of the garden. 

Picking Flowers from the Garden

This of course is my favorite place to sit in the garden in spite of the buildings in the background or the traffic noise. Most of the time listening to the birds makes you forget all of that.

I came indoors to do some drawings so that my paper wouldn't blow away in the lovely breeze we're having today. The temperature is around 80 degrees f, but the breeze keeps it from feeling that warm and makes it really comfortable.

I'm not sure why my photos turn out so dark. I can assure you that it's all much brighter in person. As always I'm working into the drawing easy and starting out with a few scribbles on my outgoing mail as I begin to relax and think about doing some serious drawing.

In the meantime, the weather is beautiful and the garden is calling...

Birds and Butterflies Outside My Window

  As you can see the bird feeders were pretty full and busy yesterday. We also had lots of chickadees and some cardinals along with other birds but they seem to come at different times of the day and I only managed to get pictures of these.

I often edit the photos as closely as I can to get you the best pictures of the birds but I'll include some longer shots so that you can get the idea of the setting that all of this takes place in just outside my living room window.

  It's a pretty wild mess right now but they seem to love it and a couple of days this week there were Monarch butterflies hanging around by the window and I really enjoyed watching those.

Climbing The Walls, Painting Sunflowers

I was looking for a good solution to that section of wall that I couldn't repaint right now so I decided to paint a few sunflowers to keep my mind off it and brighten things up a bit in here.

It's going slowly but I'm really enjoying it and I love the way it will draw attention to the sunflower painting that's hanging on the wall next to it.

I basing these on a photo of some sunflowers that I grew last year.

There's still a lot more work to do on these but I can relax and take my time with them. I was having such a good time that I even painted some on my outgoing mail! It was a great way to pass a rainy day here's still a lot more work to do on these but I can relax and take my time with them. I was having such a good time that I even painted some on my outgoing mail! It was a great way to pass a rainy day. It was was bright and sunny in my little world.

Butterfly Release

This time three of the butterflies sat on my hand before they flew away. That was AMAZING!!! It's kind of like they're saying "thanks for raising us" or that they're just used to me feeding them. What ever the reason it really made me happy.

Here are a few still in the habitat waiting until they were ready to go too.

After the release, we came in for tea and to enjoy the photos and videos of the event. We can't wait to do it again!

Butterflies

All 5 butterflies are out today. We'll be releasing them with friends on Thursday.

It's hard to get pictures but I'll keep trying.

This will be our third butterfly release this summer and the really fun thing about it is that each time we do that they lay eggs in the yard and garden so we've had more and more butterflies out there and they just keep coming.

Sunflower Birdhouse

Here is the birdhouse finished and installed on the side of my wheelchair ramp.

 Before

After

In this photo you can see the contrast between the base coated  flowers and the shaded ones. After this I went through and added black outlines and accent stroked before installing it in place.

I enjoy painting outdoors the best. Minnesota weather is quite changeable so I don't get as much time out there as I would like.