Colours of the Month - April (and Eden Project biomes)

April! A blossoming month of Spring colours. Here are
some of my favourites.

Primroses because the banks are (still) covered with them
in Devon at the moment, Bluebells - the magical English
woodland variety, Cherry blossom from Victoria Park in
Bath and a Buzzard feather - just because...

...and if the weather today is making you feel gloomy,
some photos taken in the amazing tropical and temperate
biomes at the Eden Project last week - it was totally
uplifting and very very warm..!

Sugar Palm and Screw Pine...

Tropical Biome

Yucca whipplei

I can highly recommend it!

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Hydrangea leaf shoot red

I was arrested as I passed this Hydrangea by its intensely contrasting red and green new leaf shoots set against the gentler colour of its stem, incredible! The fresh colour and form of different leaves as they begin to emerge from their branches fascinates me - one of my favourite things to draw...

(I think it's a Hydrangea aspera Robusta.)

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Dahlia shoot green

It should be noted that I sat in the cold, wind and (partial) rain to record the fresh new growth of this Dahlia today, so... a very quick sketch of it! Its one of the few plants that I put slug pellets round because they love it as much as I do..x

see how it looks in flower from my Sept 2011 notebook page here...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - American Skunk Cabbage yellow

Out with Chip it was hard to miss these - not only because of their showy spathes - but also their permeating smell. They are the flowers of the American Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), (more info from an admirer of them here) and are the same family (Araceae), as our native wild Arum (see my April 2011 post Willy Lily). Only a very quick sketch, because getting up close to one was really not very nice...

Invasive.

Attractive to flies.

Even Chip turned her nose away...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

The big things...life and death

Recently I began sketching a sheep's skull that I found on Exmoor, starting two drawings on 22nd Feb and not finishing them, returning to them every so often with the intention of doing so but not being able to. Yesterday, driving back from South Devon, we came upon a beautiful place near the village of Lustleigh. It was a perfect Spring afternoon, lambs gambolling in the fields and so we went for a walk. When I got back I decided to finish off one of the sketches. So here, the two sketches, one finished, one still unfinished and a few photos of the sheep we passed along the way...

Sign for footpath to Lustleigh village indirect, or footpath to road near old Manor House -
wonder how indirect that is?!

Not a care in the world.

Very tame these South Devon sheep
(note how their branding colour co-ordinates with the grass).

Mehh...

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Colour from the season - Primrose yellow

An icy cold start to April. Primroses (Devon's county flower), are covering the banks of the lanes here ... quite a spectacular sight for sore winter eyes.

There is complete colour uniformity in a bank of yellow primroses, though occasionally there are pink variations the yellow's the same, either in bud or full flower and surprisingly they aren't a percentage of pure yellow as you might think (or I did) but slightly towards green. Here are some of their delicate colours sampled directly from the plant...

Short break from working to take a few quick pics -
a little bit of North Devon today...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.