Colours of the Month - May

The extravagance of colour in May is always glorious! - here's my monthly selection of some of the best:

Rosa Rugosa - vivid pink in opposition to the intense green of the Stauntonia; had to include one of my favourite wild flowers Ribwort Plantain (and fire a few of its heads this month in passing); climbing around everything and smelling of vanilla is Clematis Montana (Elizabeth) and lastly the Rosa Maigold which is a sight for sore eyes outside my front door right now...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Blue Tit blue

Running out of time this month, but decided that as we've had a beautiful pair of Blue Tits nesting in the wall in our garden again this year, who've been there all of this past month, these feathers (that I was given) should really be included in May's colours.
Very shy, and especially when nesting, just flashes of blue and yellow as they flit in and out of the rambling rose (just starting to flower).

Captured here in pencil and acrylic...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Geum pink

The pink of this Geum is set against the yellow of its anthers and red brown of the bud and stem, small but perfectly coloured. A friend gave me a clump of it last year - but I think I might have planted it in too shady a spot as so far its produced only two flower stems and now there's only one..!

Screen Printing in the studio at the moment - Today I'm printing my new cushion collection

this one's called Budgie Love !

Next weekend (1st - 5th June - 10am - 4pm) I'm taking part in a group exhibition at the studio of the talented ceramicist Jacqueline Leighton Boyce in Dulverton. Three of us are invading her studio for 5 days during the Dulverton Folk Festival and of course the Queen's Diamond Jubilee weekend!

More information visit www.jacquelineleightonboyce.co.uk. or email me for directions.

Just printed these cushions for the Devon Guild who will be exhibiting my new Recipe cushions, table runners and napkins at the Dartington Food Festival.
Designing them was enlightening as it involved reading lots of recipes and bills of fare from 1685, around the time that Samuel Pepys was writing his diaries and just after the Great Fire of London. They ate pretty much everything in those days!

To make Umble Pies?  I didn't know it was a real recipe...

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...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Stauntonia pink

I missed these flowers last year, the cold winter nearly killed the one in our garden and it didn't flower, but this year it's making up for it. Stauntonia Hexaphylla - the plant that inspired my fabric design Twine in 2007. Dark glossy evergreen leaves and clusters of small flowers which have the most powerful scent. Somewhere I saw the pink described as dull, but I disagree - while the pink is subdued, as you see here the plant has subtle dusky colours, which aren't at all dull...

Twine design for fabric - Snail detail (black, white and raw colourway) 

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colours of the month - February

Late edition! - In February I had other things on my mind, so belatedly I'm adding my monthly colour selection from my favourite February notebook pages.

Old and new get together with the strong red sampled from Rosa Rugosa shoots and the faded shades from a Tea Rose, marking the edges of winter and hope of spring; The fragile off white from the shell of a Heart Urchin lit up by the spirited yellow of a Spiketail; Lastly to reflect some of that February chill, the blue of the little Muscari (Grape Hyacinth).

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Goldcrest gold

My dad encouraged me to draw birds, but not dead things - so I did wonder as I drew this dead Goldcrest what he would have thought of this post.

Tragically this one was killed by a friend's cat and so he gave it to me. While I would far rather it hadn't died, it was a rare opportunity to draw one from life [sic] and to document the colours in its crest and feathers.

It's the UK's smallest bird, this one's a male and so has a brilliant yellow crest with an orange centre, (the females have just pure yellow). I documented the hue of the feathers as accurately as possible but it's impossible to translate the almost iridescent brilliance of the real thing into flat colour.













































outline pencil sketch,

























drawing at least twice lifesize -
used a magnifying glass to see detail...

ink wash and acrylic...

More info about the Goldcrest on the RSPB website here

(I realise that birds and feathers aren't necessarily seasonal but I include them here - just because...)

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Chrysanthemums

Starting a little off shoot on the planet about Chrysanthemums.

I've wanted to grow them for years, always had a thing about them, but its easy to forget when you rarely see them as plug plants anymore.

So.. when I was in my favourite local garden centre (St Johns) a few weeks ago I was happy to come across some in their green house. I was closely examining them when a bloke came up and started chatting to me, he was very funny, an expert on Chrysanths and rather surprisingly! (he won't mind me saying that), he turned out to be the owner of the garden centre. Within 45 minutes I'd learnt a hell of a lot about growing and propagating Chrysanths, as well as a lot of other stuff (sailing, his 3 sons, the garden centre and a joke about a zebra). I left with 6 little plants and so totally fired up with enthusiasm that I've since ordered more plants from a specialist nursery!

Some a bit like these (I hope).

Fantastic name isn't it Chrysanthemum, in the language of flowers it means truth.
All I need now is a couple of sacks of fertiliser...

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.

Colours of the Month - March

March colours - or a few of my favourites and which seemed to convey the fresh sunshiny month that was March.

The fragile blue and brown of Blackbird eggshell; fuzzy grey and yellow of Pussy Willow; the uplifting yellow and white of Magnolia Blossom contrasting with a black inner husk; fresh and zingy greens of Vibernum leaves and Euphorbia bracts, set against the deep bud red of the Alder...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the Season - Blackbird eggshell blue

Blackbird eggshell blue may vary from bird to bird and egg to egg, I don't know about that but I'm sure about the colour of this particular shell that I found while walking with friends on Torrington Common. Though it has equal percentages of Cyan and Yellow, an extra 2% of Black tipped it back slightly (I reckoned) from green towards blue - so that's what I named it.

I'm afraid that little bird didn't make it - listening to Gotye on a springy Spring day...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season - Sparrow feather black

Last week I found a small circle of feathers in the garden, virtually nothing else left. On close inspection I decided that they could only be the remains of a Sparrow, we have a lot of them living in our garden, they are really noisy and I love them! A few years ago we were sitting in the garden on a summer evening and a Sparrowhawk snatched a Sparrow straight out of the sky just above us. Startling to see, and pretty brutal too.

The measurements of the (tiny) feathers...

large  - 6 cm
medium - 4 cm
small - 2.5 cm

According to Pete (who knows about these things), it almost certainly was a Sparrowhawk capture not a cat (not seasonal and not that colourful, but I felt bound to record it).

..from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season Pussy Willow grey

A focus on Pussy willow (Salix Caprea) which are in flower right now showing off their beautiful furry grey catkins. These, after being in the house for a short time became covered in pollen, outside it may be a week or two before they look like this, expressing this understated but very stylish colour combination of yellow and grey...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour from the season Horse Chestnut bud red

This image might look a bit on the stark side, but it's exactly how the Horse Chestnut tree looks at the moment. It won't be long before the tree bursts back into leaf and candles of flowers again. 

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

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.