Nature does it better

I picked this green ivy leaf one day and added the drawing to my square book. It was the curling stem and the patterns of the veins that I wanted to capture. We have ivy growing on the walls in our garden and it attracts birds and insects alike. I like to cut long strands to decorate the house at Christmas, we have done this all my life.

When it has rained we get soaked as we brush past it on the path to our house but it has so many advantages. We had a Blackbirds nest amongst it and the birds love it. It seems to attract Moths and bees, spiders build their webs in it and the snails hide amongst it.

The other thing I love is the way the leaves age into these beautiful skeletons. They look like the most delicate pieces of lace, nature does it better than us.

My brown leaf is in pencil and Derwent artist coloured pencils, the green one is in acrylic inks. Hope you like them.

My Favourite Flower

This is my favourite flower. Today as the sun shone the beautiful chequered flowers started to open and really show their colours and patterns. It is the Snakehead Fritillary.

Each Autumn I plant some more of the tiny white bulbs in my garden. I always feel excited as I wait each April to see them flower.
I think it is such a lovely shaped flower, so delicate, elegant and beautifully patterned. The tall slim stems with thin leaves which create elegant shapes too. I watch them as they grow and try to capture their beauty as I draw them. There is a black and white ink drawing in my side bar. This one is drawn using pencil. It is a life size drawing as the real specimen shows.
Watch this space as I expect there will be many more drawings of my favourite flower. I have planted hundreds and this is just one of the first to flower.
Hope you like it. You can press picture for close up, and then press anywhere on the image for a zoom up of image.

Beware, this can happen

Today I went to a blog to say thank you for visiting and leaving me a comment. This is what I saw, the picture below. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind, this was my dragonfly. I know my own work. I knew this was my dragonfly even though it has glittery bits sprinkled over it and with this background. I think it has probably been cut out, then stuck onto the background.
So I left a comment. I said did she think I would not recognise my own work. Then I said how I shared my work and was happy it inspired others but I trusted other people not to steal it.

I told her it made me sad to have to write this.

Yes I do post my work here for the whole world to see.

I will continue to post my work here.

It is a beautiful dragonfly BUT it isn't so beautiful when it is just taken.

So what more is there to say, she knows she did it, passed it off as her own.

At least she has me in her side bar, under inspirational blogs !

There I got that off my chest, thanks for listening.

Honesty

I couldn't resist collecting some oak leaves from under the old oak tree in the village. It is probably the last, as they are now very thin and brittle, most of them were broken and crumbling. Soon the new buds will burst and new green oak leaves will appear. When I reached home I was too busy to even look at this leaf until late evening, it had then started to curl up in the heat. I sketched it and painted over two days. I have been wanting to draw the honesty seed heads for weeks so I decided to add them to the oak leaf. I found this lovely brown and cream piece of china in the stream and thought it would go well with the leaf too.

I have been busy as we are decorating, and it will be worth it as I am changing my daughters old bedroom into a room for me. A room to be creative in, sew and draw and paint. I usually just sit in the living room by the window. I draw with my book on a board resting on my knee. My clutter close to hand, pencils, paints, sketch books and of course specimens. It will be good to have the new room and my things all together and tidy. And a table by the window.

I am always busy, but lately I really haven't had much time for blogging, reading and visiting others. I am always thrilled to find your comments, so I do want to thank you for giving your time to visit and leave me comments.

Hope you like today's new page in the square book, I have left the honesty and china for you to see. Painted in acrylic paint, press for close up.