Garden Update
Time for an update on the status of the vegetable garden! This is the vegetable patch behind the garage, where we put up a makeshift fence to keep out the dogs (and rabbits). It’s just some chicken wire, a few stakes, and some bamboo we cut from our own plant this spring. (The bamboo is mostly just to stabilize the wobbly lengths of fencing.)
Most of the tomatoes are here (in the rows farthest from the camera), as well as three Japanese eggplants, second row from the front, to the right. There are also several peppers (bell pepper, ‘Gypsy’ mini bell pepper, habanero, and jalapeno) and a row that’s a combo of crookneck summer squash and okra (the row in the front). The okra and squash started from seed, so they’re pretty far behind the rest, but they’re growing bigger by the day (especially the squash).
Most things are doing fine, but we have a couple of straggler tomato plants, and two of the jalapenos are looking pathetic. They were very small plants, so I guess we’ll just see what happens…
Donald came up with this graphic to help us remember which plants are planted where. Might be useful if/when we plant next year’s garden, since you’re supposed to rotate certain things to avoid health problems in your plants. (Plus it just looks neat! We may not like everything about it, but AI can do some cool things. It’s added a nonexistent gravel path, though, not to mention the fancy flowering shrubs and trees that definitely are not there in reality.)
Then we have some more tomatoes (cherry tomatoes), a few Japanese eggplants, a couple of peppers, and a couple pots of chives growing on the patio outside our kitchen. The plan is to help the tomatoes and eggplants with vertical supports attached to an existing structure there (the remains of our pergola, which needs work that probably won’t happen this summer).
A while back, we planted some flower seeds in starter pots, as well. Some (marigolds, zinnia) are sprouting, others not. Another game of waiting to see what happens…
Critters: Here, There—Everywhere!
Lots of animals (and bugs) are out and about now that spring is creeping towards summer. There are many squirrels in the woods around here. Some of them make themselves right at home in our yard—and Kimberly has seen flying squirrels nesting in a bluebird house in her backyard.
Going back a bit further, Donald and I heard geese again on one of our walks. We hurried down to the pond to see if we could find them there again—and sure enough, there they were, out on the water this time! They were a little suspicious of us, but we managed to walk around the pond in a way that wasn’t so threatening as to spook them into evacuating.
Speaking of birds, I’m slowly adding to the list of birdsongs I recognize (though most I’m still uncertain of). The other day, I heard one I definitely didn’t know, so I looked it up with the Merlin app. It was a summer tanager—a beautiful bright red bird. I never saw it, just heard it.
Then, the next day, I think, I saw a bright red bird that felt different from a cardinal. Donald took a photo, and it’s a scarlet tanager—another red-feathered beauty, but with black markings on its wings.
On another walk to the pond, I saw something out on the water—a cottonmouth! I don’t recall ever seeing one swimming before, except in other people’s videos or on TV. It’s creepy, the way they effortlessly glide over the water.
This one still has vibrant markings. It was an adult, but not a huge one. The big ones I’ve seen around here have all been much darker, almost black, with just a faint hint of pattern visible. The juveniles, on the other hand, are much brighter, with the tell-tale acid yellow-green tip of the tail. (Wow, worked “tell”, “tale”, and “tail” all into one sentence!)
Another day at the pond, several large(ish) frogs were hopping out of our way as we walked the perimeter. It was an afternoon after some rain, so I guess that had them out of their usual spots, because we rarely see large frogs down there on our walks.
Broken Dishes String Quilt Progress
I finished making all the blocks for my broken dishes string quilt. I had to pin each row over the last to get them all on the design wall, so it’s not much of a sneak peek, but here’s a photo, anyway:
This is where I left it several days ago, and this is where it still stands. I need to sit down and sew them all together, next. Maybe this week.
Frog Doodle
I no longer remember what prompted me to draw frogs, but I decided to try drawing while looking at a reference photo, without looking much at my paper. I’ve always thought that seems tricky, and after trying it myself, I still think so. Maybe it gets easier with practice, or maybe you’re supposed to look at the paper more than I was doing. Either way, I just don’t know if it’s for me.
Anyway, I doodled some frogs, then tried to unify them somewhat by giving them places to sit and some background interest (water texture, cattails, and flies). Perspective is out the window, but I’m never much for that, anyway.
This is the “Hyper Green” Forever Ink by Diamine—in a non-fude nib fountain pen.
Next, I tinted the frogs and other details with watercolor…
And finally I painted the water. I wasn’t sure what colors to go with… I wanted something “swampy”, but didn’t want green, because then almost everything would be green, except for the cattails, mushrooms, and stones/soil. The frogs needed something with contrast to stand out. Then I thought about using violets/purples, so I decided to go with that.
Suits Me to a Tea
I had a new color of paint to play with—Holbein’s Ultramarine Deep—and wanted to just do something simple to try it out.
I don’t think I’ve done much (or anything) with teapots and other tea paraphernalia before, so decided to give that a go. I wanted to paint the shapes first, then go back and add outlines with pen.
My first attempt at painting a teapot (top of the page) quickly brought to light the fact that I didn’t really have a clear mental image of what a teapot actually looks like. In my family, we always drank iced tea served in a pitcher. We didn’t use teapots. I still don’t own a teapot, though I do have a kettle that goes on the stove… and I suppose I have one or two miniature ceramic tea sets in curio cabinets. (I haven’t looked at those in years…)
Anyway! I needed to refresh my memory with an image search, then I was ready to try again.
After painting teapots… and cups with saucers… and mugs… and teaspoons… and teabags… and tea cannisters… and cream jugs… and sugar bowls… I finally let it all dry, then went back over it with a plain black rollerball pen.
I have to say, this type of page is probably my favorite. I think I could doodle/paint this type of thing every day and not get bored for a long, long time. There’s something so satisfying and just fun about it!
Pumpkins Are Never Far Away...
This next page started as something else entirely, but I don’t even remember what it was… I painted a bunch of random blobs of watercolor, then I was drawing something inside them. Some type of animal, but I honestly no longer remember specifics. Whatever it was, it wasn’t going well at all, so I gave up in disgust and covered the whole page with gouache.
Tangent Alert!
If you’re not familiar with gouache (and I wasn’t until a few years ago), it’s a water-soluble medium that is more opaque than watercolor. (Well, there’s also acrylic gouache, which behaves more like acrylic paint, but this is the traditional type.) You can use it straight out of the tube or you can let it dry and reconstitute it with water, like watercolor. The main thing that sets it apart from watercolor, as I understand it, is that it’s opaque, though you can water it down a lot and get more transparent effects, too.
End of Tangent!
So, I thought gouache would be good for covering up all the ugly doodles and giving myself a fresh start on this page. The issue was that I had no idea what I wanted to do next, so I ended up with a page that was half purple and half hot pink, with no idea where it was going…
In the end, I decided to make a very simple collage of pumpkins and leaves, using some scraps I have in a small plastic box that we probably got from a grocery store bakery at some point in the past. I like using this box for storing collage materials because it reduces the options available. If I can only use what’s in the box, I’ve already cut down on some of the “analysis paralysis” of choosing the “best” paper for each element of the collage. I do allow myself to alter the papers, of course, by adding paint, pencil, marker, etc.—but I try not to go hunting for more paper. It’s also a good way to use up smaller scraps without cutting unnecessarily into bigger gel prints or other papers I’ve saved.
(Okay, this page doesn’t deserve this much talk, but I’m in a chatty mood this morning, apparently!)
That’s what I ended up with. It’s extremely chaotic and incohesive… and I needed more elements layered over one another to look better, but… eh. It started as a disaster page I hated, and it ended as something I had fun making, so that’s okay. Better yet, I did learn something from it (that I think collage “needs” things to layer over one another to look its best).
Green & Grey
At this point, I was getting very close to finishing up the current sketchbook, and if you recall, I’ve been thinking that the sizing on this paper may be going bad, so I really just wanted to finish it up—and after the chaos of the collage page, I wanted something simple and calming.
I chose a few shades of green watercolor that felt cool and calm: Davy’s Gray, Terre Verte, and Cobalt Green Deep. I still had (and still have!) a little of the PBk11 (Mars Black) on my ceramic palette, so I chose to add that in, too.
For the subject, more of an old favorite—potted plants with butterflies or moths.
Additional details in Noodler’s Lexington Gray ink and white gel pen.
Mixed Media Figures
I watched something on YouTube (“Things That Inspire Me” YouTube video) and thought the exercise in the first part looked like fun to try.
(Basically, you cover your page with a random assortment of patterns in different colors and media. Then you sketch the outlines of figures over the top without paying too much attention to where they land in relation to the patterns. Paint the background and play around with your figures to make a finished picture.)
I was enjoying the process until I came to the point of painting the skin. I chose gouache again to cover the background and the faces/necks/arms, because you need something fairly opaque to avoid the background pattern from interfering too much with the skin and facial features. I just struggled to get it to cover as well as I wanted. After a certain point, adding more layers seemed to do more harm than good, pulling off the previous layer and making the background pattern more visible instead of less. Looking back at the inspiration video again, I see that Mary Ellis (the artist who made the video) didn’t seem to worry as much about getting total coverage for the faces or hair, and her results look better for it. If I try this again, I’ll see if I can manage that…
I ran into another problem when I tried to add in the facial features. The fountain pen I wanted to use was working ok at first, but then it stopped wanting to flow on top of the gouache, so I swapped pens a couple of times. I never found a pen I really loved. Some ink left a shine I don’t like. Others were a little too blunt-tipped. I don’t like the faces much, unfortunately, but the experience as a whole wasn’t a total failure. I’m not sure if it’s something I’ll try again, but I suppose it could be fun if you can just let go a little more and worry less about trying to achieve total opacity with the gouache. (I’m not even sure if she was using gouache… Maybe acrylic would work better, though I don’t know how well pen would draw over that.)
Bwock Bwock Bwock
Browsing YouTube over the weekend, I saw that Ellen Crimi-Trent celebrated her recent birthday by sharing a video about painting fun chickens wearing party hats. They looked cute, so I wanted to try my hand at them, too.
Mine are a bit different in style from hers, but I followed the main idea: Loosely sketch a chicken shape (with a party hat on the chicken’s head), paint the chicken loosely, add in some neon or other bright paint, and add some other details, as desired.
I decided that two chickens stacked on top of one another filled my page better, and I turned some of the paint blobs around the chickens into 60s-ish daisy-style doodles.
Oh, and I chose to add lines to my doodles with pen. I used “Smoky Mauve” Forever Ink by Diamine in a fude nib pen. …Also a little white gel pen to make the eyes.
I really liked this and would be happy to try this again with some variations—different animals, different “props” (other types of hats or other apparel and so on).
I tend not to use spatter so much because it’s messy, but I might just get a big piece of paper or something similar to keep nearby to shield everything from errant paint drops, because I do like the spatter effect, from time to time.
As for why my chickens are wearing party hats, they’re celebrating that I finished the sketchbook, because they were the very last page! Time to start a new one!
