The paints are out again!

It seems to have rained and rained for days now. It was sunny yesterday so I grabbed the chance to go for a walk down on the shore. It was wonderful to see blue sky and the sunshine twinkling on the water. I collected some beautiful feathers and this twin sycamore seed in the tide line. I came home with a real urge to draw. I intended to draw some of the feathers but the berries in the jar with the slowly rotting stalk had to be first in the queue.
I picked it on Monday from my sisters garden. It had green berries then, which changed to orange during the week. Since yesterday, as you can see in the photograph, the stalk has turned to a soft slime!
It has been a while since I have had my paints out so it was lovely to sit and paint again. It took me five hours to complete this page in my square book. I chose a piece of china with orangey markings and added the new sycamore too. I used acrylic paints, two different yellows, green and red to mix the colours for the berries. Then I added blue and white with the other colours to paint the china and seed. Also a little touch of gold paint on the china, it must have been something beautiful in its day. Hope you like it. Press picture to see it larger.
My husband has just arrived home with a tiny Magpie moth he found on the road.....a gift for me ....so I am about to draw it now. I will be back soon with the results.
Once again thank you all for your lovely comments which I do appreciate and love reading.
Millyx

From this to this

Each year I pick one of the amazing shaped "Lords and Ladies ", the green specimen on the left. I want to record it but more often than not it just gets left and wilts and another year slips by. Well not this year, I picked it in May at the bluebell wood and managed to do this drawing. It was so large, I wanted to record it life size, so I placed it diagonal to fit my page in the square book. I then left it in a jar outside and to my surprise it kept alive and changed into the next stage of the plant.

It is always hard to imagine that it eventually ends up with bright red berries at the end of a green stalk. This I have recorded many times, so it was easy to show you that. What really amazed me is that the minute yellow seeds grew and formed the berries ....whilst outside in a jam jar.

When I returned home in June I discovered it still alive and was able to draw the green berries. Now in July it still lives and bears green and orange berries. The stem has rotted away to nothing but the berries are still changing from green to red. In the hedgerows the red berries usually appear late summer, August to September. I will be interested to see if they change to full red and see how long it lives. Hope this makes sense to you. I am fascinated by such things.

Thank you for lovely comments. I am stitching like crazy to finish my quilt for the dead line and the days are flying by, will soon have more time for reading and visiting blogs.