Exciting news . . . .

Apologies, I have got behind with the blogging as I have had an extremely busy week or so. We had a new grandson, born to my son and his wife, a week ago today. After a few worries, he came a day early – a real bundle of joy! Now he is home from hospital very much making his presence felt. We dashed down to Gloucestershire to see him at less than a day old, and are going back for longer, to stay over a few days, next week. Oooo . . . . more cuddles.

I was out “spotting” with the County Botany Group when my daughter in law was admitted to hospital. It was quite hard to concentrate and not keep checking my phone! Anyway, as it was, the baby was born in the afternoon, just before I got home. The idea of the planned “botany morning ” was that for three hours people record all over the country wild flowers, shrubs, trees etc blooming in the first week of January. Annual statistics. We did find some “Fragrant Agrimony ” ( not flowering), which got the official recorder pretty excited. Not that it is particularly rare, but is unusual for the chosen site. We were searching fairly high above sea level so we didn’t find too much in bloom. Unlike one of our group who had been “downcountry” the day before where the local recorders had noted, in the allotted three hours, 56 species in flower.

Another thing taking up time last week – I started a course of acupuncture in an endeavour to address my awful back pain following last years accident. I am very hopeful this will give some relief.

Art group as recommenced now after the Christmas break and I am continuing to paint on my vellum sheets. The only flowers with any colour I could find in the garden were some rather battered, tiny, purple pansies. Having treated this small sheet of vellum I taped it to a white backing sheet and made a start.

I lightly pencilled in a sketch and started with a yellow green wash on the foliage to place the blooms. I then concentrated on the largest flower using a wash of a pinky violet, cerulean blue and deep purple, getting darker on the patterning, veining and edges. Shadowing with phaelo blue and natural tint. Finishing by highlighting the yellow and white centre bit.

Next was to tackle the complex arrangement of leaves and stems, followed by the bud and dying flower head.

Finishing it all off with the most minute highlights of white gouache…….

Pray, love, remember: and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.William Shakespeare