New watercolours from Rosa Gallery

 I have wanted to upgrade my watercolour paints to better quality for a little while.   Winsor and Newton professional or Daniel Smith are just a bit too much for my budget so I was looking at some reviews and Rosa Gallery paints, made in Ukraine seemed to be a good option.  They are mid range and can also be bought in single pans.  So I bought a 28 set and waited for them to arrive.

I have only swatched them so far, on the card that came with them and in my swatch book.  I can report that they are lovely and creamy, and don't need a lot of water or brush work to activate. My current student grade paints need a fair bit of brush work to get them going.

In my enthusiasm to swatch them, I managed to have two of the same green on the card that came with the paints.  I added the black at the top instead.

Lots of little blocks of colour in my swatch book - it makes me happy!

I particularly like the blues and greens.  I have ordered a few more colours which I think I will need, such as Opera Rose, Cobalt Turquoise and a white, which is useful to have.

I'll let you know how I get on.

In and Out

My vibrantly coloured Christmas Cactus (Schlumbergera - originally from Brazil) is starting to show its fuchsia flowers. Last year it tried to flower but I didn't give it enough water so the buds fell off.  I am not making that same mistake this year.  I repotted it in the summer and have been much more diligent with watering and look at it now!  It is on the bathroom windowsill and seems to be enjoying it there.

The flowers are so bright they are almost neon.  When things are turning shades of yellow, brown and grey outside, it is so nice to have colour inside.

Having said that about outside, Camellia Yoimachi is starting to flower.  We had our first frost last night and it is due to continue to be frosty for the next few nights.   This camellia will continue to flower on and off through the winter into the Spring.  There is only the faintest touch of pink around the petals at the moment.

I do like the contrast of the white and yellow.  The garden is still providing things to enjoy.

Jobs in the garden

 I have been busy doing some gardening tasks as and when I can.  I have finally got my tulips planted, delayed by hurting my back a few weeks ago (the spinal facet joint).  After a couple of visits to an osteopath and being very careful, making sure I bend my knees, it is better, so I have been able to do a few jobs. However, they have taken me longer than usual, as I have just done a little at a time. I have planted my tulips for next year - just three pots.

At the front of the house is Orange Emperor (picture above from Avon Bulbs).  In the two pots in the back garden are: 

Brown Sugar... (my photo from the garden in Spring 2023)

...and Ronaldo (also my photo from the garden in Spring 2023).  Ronaldo seems to last particularly well.

I have also insulated the pots which really needed it - again this took a while.  There may be others to do as the weather gets colder but I can do those as and when.  

I may have ordered a new grass, Calamagrostis acutiflora Karl Foerster, so I am looking forward to receiving that - probably not until the beginning of December. I have a Calamagrostis Overdam which is a lovely plant, so am hoping Karl Foerster will be too.  He will go into the sunny border.

In Spring, I need to do a lot of re-potting. All my roses, my ornamental standard cherry and patio apple need to go into larger tubs.

There are always plans to make and autumn/winter is a good time to make them!

Things to enjoy in the garden - after Storm Babet

We survived Storm Babet but have had Storm Ciaran creating havoc in the South of the UK, with high winds and more rain as it moves away.  So far, the garden seems to be coping.  I  have all the normal Autumn jobs to do - collecting leaves, planting tulips and insulating my pots.  These will get done as soon as possible.   You can tell Autumn proper is here by the change of leaves - above is a blueberry.

However, there is still some colour to enjoy.  This is Salvia Cerro Potosi.

Rose Blush Noisette is also still in bloom.

Japanese Anemone Bressingham Glow has been flowering since July but the flowers are now more muted in colour than the bright pink they were in the summer.  This lilac-pink shade is still rather lovely.

Hydrangea Merveille Sanguine is putting on some fiery autumnal shades too.

Rose Gertrude Jekyll has put out one final rose which is beautifully scented.  I am enjoying it while I can.

Things to enjoy in the garden - before Storm Babet...

I took these photos a week or so ago, before Storm Babet decided to make her presence felt and flood a lot of the UK.  The watercourse levels were higher than I have ever seen them in thirty years and we lived in a state of worry for a few days.  We have been so much luckier than so many others and our house hasn't flooded this time. We did get between one and two months' worth of rain in one day.  Here's what caught my eye in the garden before all that happened.  Above and below is my cosmos plant which is at the front door.  It was grown by my sister-in-law and has given me so much pleasure.

The faintest pink colouring can just be seen on the edges of the petals.

Salvia Amistad, which has been great value. I bought six of these earlier in the year and grew them on inside initially. They were planted out in pots and have flowered all through the summer. They are showing no signs of stopping yet, but I expect the frost will kill them in time.

Hydrangea Bobo is putting out two more flowers and its leaves are starting to turn yellow.

Ever reliable Liriope Muscari doing its thing and really needing to be divided (I have been saying that for about four years).

Rose Roald Dahl - there are still buds to come.

A few raspberries from my Joan J plants in a tub.  They have been fruiting since mid August.  If Ii had more space, I would have a lot of these!

Clematis Arabella which has just decided to flower in the last few weeks.  This is a non-clinging variety and I have another of these in the North facing border, but this one has always struggled a bit, so it was lovely to see it flowering.

Patricia Janečková 1998-2023

 I was so saddened to hear of the death of a lovely soprano singer, Patricia Janeckova, who I had been following on Youtube.  Her voice had been trained extremely well and she had a lovely singing technique.  Sadly, she passed away due to breast cancer, at the age of 25.  I think she would have had a wonderful career but at least we can still enjoy her voice and her performances.  I had some singing lessons when I was at school, so have a little understanding of the technique and hers is the kind of voice I would have loved to have had.  

Photo from here 

If you enjoy classical music, please find her Youtube videos.  

I particularly like this one - Song to the Moon from Rusalka by Dvorak. and this one - Laudate Dominum by Mozart.  (I have sung this before, but not as well as Patricia does!)

RIP Patricia and thank you for sharing your gift.

Wanderlust 2023 - weeks thirty-three to forty - Pigments and Powders

 It has been a rather messy seven/eight weeks, exploring pigments and powders.  For me, these included embossing powder (where you use a sticky ink to adhere the powder, heat it and it leaves a raised glossy surface.  It comes in a multitude of types now, metallic, clear, coloured, with glitter, with large or small particles.)  There is also embossing glaze which is a translucent powder, leaving just a hint of colour.  Pigments and powders also included Infusions (dyes with walnut ink added).  I have Brushos (watersoluble pigments which came as a powder) and Pixie Powders (Dye based powders with added mica for a lovely pearly finish).  Most of these will stain if you don't wear gloves, hence the messiness. They are fun to use though!

The first week was thinking of somewhere special to you (I chose my garden) and then enhancing the photos with gold embossing powder, having created a background using the powders.

I enjoyed all the making we had to do for this page - all about lichens.  We added powders to material and to threads and created background papers as well.  I added some embossing powder in white.

This was a bit of a tribute to my parents - Dad died in 2013 and we lost Mum earlier this year. The photo of Mum and Dad is from 1960, when they were guests at a wedding.  I wore the dress she is wearing (which she made) in the photo at her celebration of life service. Her favourite colours were turquoise blue and orange, so that's what I used.  We were using the powders to colour the texture paste.  

Week thirty-six was really enjoyable to make, using embossing powders and glazes and making bold marks with the sticky ink. On the right, the purple and blue glazes allow you to see the images underneath.

This wasn't one of my favourite pages. The teacher used lots of ephemera and her piece was created on a piece of wood. I used die cut shapes to add texture on my page.

I struggled with this page. The teacher showed us lots of techniques, which I enjoyed, but left the page design to us and I took ages to decide what to do.  

This page was by a teacher called Rachel Greig, a photographer and owner of a stamp company in Australia called Darkroom Door (really good quality rubber stamps). She was going to be leading this lesson, but so sadly, she died earlier in the summer, due to cancer.  After consulting with her family, there were two lessons put in place, from 2016 and this one from 2020, where we were stamping and I used powders which were made into paints to stamp with.  Underneath the tags is some journaling about doing something you enjoy every day and making the most of your time.  Two lessons I have certainly taken to heart.  

The Artful Musings lesson was about expressive writing.  The teacher discussed journaling (where you write about something that happened) and then expressive writing (where you write about how you were feeling).  I wrote about being resilient.

The final seven/eight weeks of the course are on Monoprinting and Carving, which I am hoping will be completely up my street!

Collagraphs - a simple version

I enjoyed the Wanderlust Live weekend at the beginning of September where teachers from next year's course gave us some tasters of techniques and journal pages we may be doing.  I decided to make a little journal with an example from each teacher.  I was particularly taken with the simple collagraph with Claudette Hasenjager.    

I had made collagraphs (colla meaning glue and graph meaning draw) before, when I did my Foundation in Art and Design course.  These are plates made using collage with different textures, varnished (with shellac in my case, I remember) and then inked up and printed using a press.  As the press squashed a little more detail out of the materials with each printing, they were a limited use plate, which I liked, as it made each version more special.  I really enjoyed the process  although it was quite a time consuming one to create the plate, then varnish it, wait for the first layer to dry then varnish it again.  However, I was really impressed with the end result and the detail that was captured using simple materials, such as tin foil. (I enjoy all of the printing processes I have tried so far - lino printing, collagraph, simplified screen printing, block printing, hand carving my own stamps and printing with them, and monoprinting, using the gel plate).

Here are some photos of my collagraph from the Foundation in Art and Design course. This was the original photo I used to create my collagraph.

I then traced the image and reversed it for the plate.

This is the plate - I cut into the surface to create the dark areas, then used foil, string, paper and card to add the texture.

This was the first print, which worked really well.

This was the last print where you can see how much detail has been lost.  It was really interesting looking at these again after fourteen years since I finished the course!

However, during Wanderlust Live, we were shown a simplified version which was created on cardboard, using self adhesive foam, string and lace.  I don't have any self adhesive foam, but I did have ordinary foam, which I used instead, sticking it to the cardboard base with pva glue.

Here is the plate ready to be inked up with acrylic paint.  It is much bolder and with less detail than the collagraphs I made on my art course.

Here is the print on the left and the right hand one was coloured with watercolour.  I was really pleased with how these turned out and with  the detail from the different materials. I would like to try other designs using this technique as I think more detailed images could be created with finer cutting of the foam.

Some cards through the year - part 2

Here are some more cards which were made over the year.  More birthday cards...

...some using dies as well as stamps.

Anniversary cards made using stencils...

...a thank you card using a stamp which I watercoloured.  I really like this Kandinsky-esque pattern.

A special birthday card for my best friend who lives in Canada but who visited this summer.  The little rhyme reads: "Cherish friendship in your breast, New is good but old is best; Make new friends but keep the old; Those are silver, these are gold".  I included a Canada stamp, relevant numbers, a picture of a forget-me-not and a photo of her when she was little.  I really enjoy creating these collage backgrounds.

This was her pearl anniversary card - both of us were married in 1993 and I was at her wedding in Canada as a Matron of Honour.

More birthday cards...

...anniversary cards...

...and these are the most recent, for my brother-in-law

...and my nephew.

The next cards to make are for my sister, sister-in-law and then Chris, not forgetting that Christmas (whisper it!) is not all that far away!  I had better get making!