Colour from the Season - Dandelion yellow

Dandelions and Bees have been on my mind this week and as one happened to be flowering in my front garden with a solitary bee on it today, I thought I'd sample the sunshine yellow of its petals. Who knows, perhaps I'll make some dandelion wine this year...

For a special Lion x

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour overview of memories...

Its good to piece time back together. Here I've brought together some memories of mornings spent with my dad, when I wasn't helping fix a grandfather or fusee clock under his very strict instruction, I would sketch and record some of my seasonal colour drawings.

Colours of a bramble, drawing while we reminisced over his blackberry wine. I'd forgotten my black ink for a snapdragon drawing and he thought it was a poor excuse not to draw that day. Acorns, him in bed too unwell to get up - so I sat and drew these in pencil on my lap.  Upset him that I didn't like begonias (but not when I spilled the ink) and changed my perception of them forever by showing me how remarkable they actually are. Felt intensely irritated with him the day I drew a hydrangea - "I do wish you'd stop drawing dead things".  He strongly disagreed with my comment that hawthorn was the new holly! and in January, when I drew some alder catkins - a drawing so dull I never used it, he reminded me "Sam - colour is everything..."

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Heart Urchin white

The exquisite skeletal remains of Heart Urchins regularly get washed up on one of the beaches here in North Devon. Like fine porcelain sculptures, each as fragile as an egg shell, yet resilient enough to be unbroken by the fierce Atlantic surf...

find out more about the mass mortality of the heart urchin here.
Listening to People by Awolnation - Happy Valentines Day !x

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - old tea rose pink

Roses have been unseasonably flowering right up until this recent freezing cold spell. An old tea rose which has been optimistically in flower in my garden was caught by the frost and freeze-dried onto its stem.
To many people this rose might simply look dead, not worth a passing glance, but in it I found petals which had the starched form of aged silk taffeta and these wonderfully subdued colours of antique gold and dusky pinks...

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...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

The little things...Inspirational old puzzles

The little things in life that make the difference...


...Finding these the"Victory" wooden jigsaw puzzles in the market, became the perfect excuse to have a break from everything digital on a frosty February weekend.


Probably produced sometime between the 1930's - 1940's

Part way through - The little animals and other objects
are called whimseys.

...there was a rabbit and a squirrel, a mouse, cat, swallow 

an axe and two swords.

Ta da!  'Welcome Home' - Sea, Boats and People. 

Sadly 3 pieces missing, but hoping I might find these 

in the other puzzle!

(p.s. they were in the other puzzle!!! - good job we got them both.)

Colour from the season - Mahonia yellow

Banish the winter blues with the vibrant yellows of the Mahonia. Much of the year this spiky shrub looks
unattractive, but from November until February it has
lovely pure yellow flowers which are highly fragrant,
followed by dusty red and purple blue berries...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.