Not a Has Bee - Remembered Forever

This little painting is a memorial to a lovely bumble bee I found dead in my garden this week. I looked as closely as I could at her little furry body but still may have made some mistakes. I am no entomologist. Please comment if I should make any changes to this amazing little creature.

The painting is only about 4x6 inches.



Huckleberry tried to eat my little bee.

My Studio

I'll have an open studio here on 29 August. Some friends will also be showing their work.

Monkey Dreams

This portrait of a stuffed toy is a commission for someone who is also fond of water bears. It took some thought to combine the two into one painting so I painted the monkey as though he is dreaming about his little microscopic friends. I gave him a hill of sempervivum to sit with. Doesn't sempervivum mean "always alive?" It seems appropriate for a well loved toy animal friend.



My son translated the slogan on the back of a package of men's boxer shorts for me once. "Semper ubi sub ubi" - "Always wear underwear"

Artist A Day

Speaking of poppies, which I was in the previous post, my flying weasel with poppies painting is featured on the website "Artist A Day" today. If you click on the painting it also shows my "Polar Ice Cap" painting. Fun! This is a great website which features a different artist, yes, every day.

Poppy Pride

Last year I saw a picture of this poppy somewhere and even corresponded with a fellow blogger about it. I found seeds on line and planted them this spring and here it the poppy. I am such a proud parent!





I don't remember where I bought the seed or the kind blogger who helped my to identify it. But it is called either (or both) Danish Flag or Victoria Cross. I love it and will save seed to do it all over again. (and if anybody in Seattle would like some I will gladly share, along with that beautiful pink one from my back alley) I will try to paint this one today before it drops its pretty petals.

Not Many Flowers

My garden seems empty of flowers now the peonies and roses are finished. The sunflowers, zinnias and cosmos are still too young to flower. What to do for a dinner party arrangement? Once I got outside with the scissors I was surprised how many small blooms there actually were. Geranium, Dianthus, Astrantia and Spiraea. All small but with a cheerful effect when bunched into a posie.

Opium Cheers Me Up

These poppies are growing wild near my studio in the middle of the very annoying construction site. I have to paint with my door closed because it is so noisy. Go away. Go away. Hurry up and finish your extraordinarily disruptive three car garage. My nerves are ragged. Opium tea is starting to look tempting.

White Fur in the Garden

It was fun painting the white fur in the Polar Ice Cap painting. I'm glad I have some white fur in my garden too. This strange creature is a Lamb's Ears.

Polar Ice Cap

When I am not worrying about my children, pets, and the various birds, mice and insects that live in my garden, I worry about the rest of the world. It seems that I feel guilty about everything I do. Every breath I take, every meal I eat, every thing I buy seems to be killing the planet. I feel responsible every time I see those pictures of polar bears swimming around looking for ice that isn't there. Am I the only one who feels the guilt of all this constantly pressing down on my head? I try to think of the absurd side of this and to paint my mental state as ridiculous. At least this painting makes me smile.

Sunday Morning Visitor

This baby Steller's Jay appeared on my patio this morning. It doesn't seem to be injured but is perhaps too young to fly. Its parents keep visiting it. Will they feed it? I threw some strawberries and some pine nuts in its direction but it seemed uninterested. Please fly away baby jay. My cats hate being locked in the house.

By the way, we have had NO bird/cat incidents yet this summer. Everything has been blissful in the garden - until now. Sigh. And the parent jays are eating the cherries off my tree. Please go away and take your heartbreakingly adorable baby with you.

Update-twelve hours later. Well the poor little bird sat patiently all day but I never saw it being fed. By the end of the day I was an emotional wreck and sure the baby was looking weaker. So I took it to the wildlife rehab center Paws. It is a fabulous place and deserves our support. They agreed that the poor bird was lethargic and needed some intervention. I hope the parent birds really had given up caring for baby. At least it is being well cared for now. I really can't handle mother nature. It is so tragic.

Also today - the cats who were grouchy from being locked in the house, cheered themselves up by cornering a mouse or small rat in the entrance hall. I spent a pretty funny few minutes chasing the terrified mouse (rat?) through every room on the ground floor waving a towel and a plastic bucket around. Amazingly I managed to catch it and took it outside to the back alley. It really was very sweet. (yes I know about the plague)

I hope tomorrow has fewer wild animals in it.

Stripes

I delivered the poppy painting to my client yesterday and found myself apologizing for putting stripes on the ferret she had requested. I don't think ferrets have stripes. Fortunately she liked the stripes. It got me thinking, though, about my inspiration. Does anyone else remember these Kliban cats from the '70s or '80s. Didn't everyone have a calendar or coffee mug with these guys on it? Having grown up with them as part of my life I think they are making themselves felt in my painting. My other striped influence is, of course, my cat Opal.

A New Poppy Painting

New Web Site

I'll email this announcement to my mailing list where it will appear larger and legible. Or click on this version to read the little words easier. It's the same url but updated work.

A Favorite Fabric

I love this piece of old linen so much I don't want to make anything with it. So I take it out once in a while to admire it and then store it away again.


It clearly takes its inspiration from ancient Egyptian wall paintings.


Opal thinks it is boring.

Pill Bug's Vacation

Still too busy to post anything sensible here but I keep rushing outside with the camera to enjoy this amazing time of year. I wish my camera had a manual focus but at least it has a decent macro setting allowing me to imagine living inside a peony or taking a vacation, as a pill bug might, in the shade of this palm tree. I could dip my tiny toes into these dew cups.

Thank you Zoe for sharing your grandmother's story that fairies live in peony flowers. Sounds like she would have been a friend for my grandmother. (How funny that my camera is an elph!)

I don't know what this is but it is growing in an old plant pot in my garden.

Busy, Happy Studio Days

I am finishing up a couple of paintings which I will post soon but I don't want to let peony season pass by without paying homage. I get lost in these petals like when I look out of an airplane window at the clouds and imagine living in amongst them. To have such luxury in my garden! I feel like a queen.

Update

It's poppy time! I want to be in the studio painting these amazing flowers.

The verdict is still out on the lilac I posted last week although Karen's suggestion of Chinese Lilac is likely correct. My Mum also suggested Preston Lilac, maybe Isabella. I didn't know there were so many different kinds of lilacs!

(update update Daniel has commented on the lilac issue. Thank you Daniel.)

I am playing with the look of this blog so please bear with me as I change the picture at the top. This one looks blurry so I will keep working on it.

Seeing the World as Textile Design

I have been looking at mid twentieth century textile design like these by British designer Robert Stewart. Last night's sunset looked like fabric too.



Lucienne Day is also a favorite British mid-century textile designer.



Here are some more from Lucienne Day.

Heavenly Scent

I went for a glorious evening walk along the shore of Lake Washington yesterday while I waited for Isobel's dance class to finish. The Rhododendron hedges in the Denny Blaine neighborhood are huge and spectacular. But it was this shrub that stopped me in my tracks. Or rather, it was the smell of this shrub. It hit me before I had turned the corner of the street and I followed my nose, sniffing like a puppy until I found the source of the beautiful scent. I must have looked quite funny or possibly drunk. Can anyone tell me what it is? It looks sort of like a lilac.

Agouti is Happy to Live by the Sea

It seems to take me a long time to finish things these days, including this painting started when I got back from Mexico in March. Henry and I visited the Yucatan and had a wonderful time in the warm sun hunting for coral stones and swimming. I felt so good, being away temporarily from the cold and clouds that I wanted to paint that feeling.


This is an agouti which is cute animal that looks like a cat-sized gerbil that we see every time we go down there.





We swam in a coral lagoon and searched the beach for amazing coral stones. I was fascinated as I had never seen coral before.




I don't know what these plants are called but they were growing wild on the beach and the sunshine turned them to red and gold. I made a regal bower for the agouti who is feeling very pleased to be living by the Caribbean sea.




This painting is oil on three panels and measures 9"x36".

A Visit to Mum and Dad's Garden

My parents have the energy of twenty-year olds and they achieve as much as twenty twenty-year olds. As well as working tirelessly to preserve the native environment in the parks near their home they tend their own garden with a passion that exhausts me just thinking about it. Yes, they are a hard act to follow. They are also a great gardening resource for me and I phone my mother whenever I have gardening questions - which is frequently.

I visited my mum and dad last weekend and took some pictures in their gorgeous woodland garden in West Vancouver. I was astonished to hear mum describe these peonies as her favorite flower as I assumed that her plants are like her children. She loves us all the same, right? Mum - you will have to remind me what this peony is and I will post it here. In fact, once you see this blog post you can tell me what all these plants are, one more time, and I will add their names.



Mum described the interior of this peony as a "jester's hat" which is great! She made sure I understood that she loves these plants as much for their perfect foliage as for their perfect flowers.


My mother loves ferns and told me this was something special, I think, right mum?


I remember this fern had a name something like "Fishtail" which is delightful.


This fern has an amazing greyish blue color that was so pretty with the fallen rhododendron blossoms.


A native columbine whose name will be posted here in a day or two.


My dad had just finished cutting back a huge laurel hedge and had turned the branches into firewood for our Christmas fireplace. We grew up with a couple of wood stoves in our New Brunswick house. Old habits die hard.


Dad's mason bee condos on the side of the house.


Dad's pots of tulips.


The house and garden from across the koi pond.


The patio and bbq area.


Happy gardeners.


My parents were environmentalists even before such a term existed. We were raised on home grown organic vegetables and I am so glad to see that the rest of the world is (slowly) catching up with this far sighted and conscientious way of thinking. Thanks Mum and Dad. You rock!


25 May update
Mum writes:

The fishtail fern is Dryopteris filix-mas 'Cristata'.
The other fern is nothing special but I love the way the fronds open in little knobs. It's Polystichum setiferum.
The peony is Paeonia obovata.
The blueish fern is Japanese painted lady-fern. Athyrium nipponicum I think there are a few new varieties.
The native columbine is Aquilegia formosa.