to be pink on the daisies

This May is chilly and has been quite dry, but still the soft clothing of the landscape in fresh greens

and the soft blues of the bluebells

is such a pleasure. I found one wood anemone alone in Kemback. It’s not an ancient wood, it’s been a working quarried landscape in the fairly recent past.

that was a warm enough day for B to want to cool her toes in one of the little trickles of water that come down from springs at the top of the hill.

Signs of life in the garden –

it’s a shame that alliums make tons of sad floppy green leaves for a couple of months before the heads start to open. I have cosmos looking very happy from seeds I scattered last autumn., and the echinaceas are coming up, slow but sure, with a lot of self-seeded babies. At least these lovely tulips provide some allure early in the season

as we are in the garden – some more garden painting – the pergola against the studio here, with the tall garden gate/door …  so my idea was to insert a roe deer

I have a very good book on them, so this little guy is from that.

He is possibly a little big in my painting ..

but I am pleased with how he came out, just slightly not there …

“Open the door to his domain” is the title, it’s 91 x 91 cm, so about 3 feet by 3 feet. Before this estate was built so that’s about 30 years now, he, his family and the rabbits and the hares would have been around, maybe the odd badger too.

the nasturtiums. Maybe a deer would find them tasty.

For the garden, I have lots of seedlings coming along, rudbeckias and other cone flowers. A big disappointment with Cheyenne Spirit, one of the echinaceas, nothing germinated at all. Some seedlings are in the greenhouse now, potted up, plus some more seeds which I have in the propagator hoping they will germinate. I don’t actually have that much space in the garden as is, might have to do some more sheet mulching –

Starting another painting with a watercolour – and then I realised I had another unresolved canvas that would be the right shape for this, which is the reflection of a magnifying mirror which sits on a chest of drawers between my bed and the window, and reflects the sun in the mornings. It was shining onto my Swan book painting.

Some of the previous painting still showing at this point. I used some of my new oil sticks for the intense yellow greens.

Finished – My Floating World, 61 x 91 x 4 cm …

then I spent a few days cleaning my palette metaphorically and actually …

which is easy to do in Scotland.

An amazing supper

cooked by this top chef

more spring walks

and a prepared canvas in the studio waiting …

while I went on more walks – this one just north west of Dundee, with views of the Firth of Tay

through magical beechwoods

with Lucy and Scott

and with these in mind

although painting them in oils makes for a different result

plus I got some sewing fixated in my head

all done so I can get back to the canvas

Making a start … the greenhouse is a good colour to balance pink yellow and green ..

and painting the stalks and central “eyes” of the cone flowers –

getting all those echinacea cone heads painted in ..

and scratching into them with the point of the palette knife. A very pottery thing to do – sgraffito.

I felt very liberated with the colour. Possibly as I had just received Radiance, the catalogue of Elisabeth Cummings’ big retrospective exhibition last year  at Australia’s National Art School – link here

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To be pink on the daisies, oil on collaged canvas, 120 x 100 cm. It’s a box canvas and I have wrapped the painting around the sides.