Monday, July 11, 2011

Summer Gardening

During this past long dreary winter, I discovered that there was a community garden a few blocks from my house.  I emailed them and asked for a a bed there, expecting to be on the waiting list for a year or more.  Community gardens are very popular in my city.  Early in June, they contacted me and said I was the proud renter of bed B8.
I grew this radish in that garden and I'm proud of it.  Every year, we plant radish seeds in a container on the deck, and every year we yield nothing.  This year, as I planted nasturtiums in the radish container  my beloved said "No radishes?"  "No" I said, "the seeds are old and we never get any radishes".  So when we planted the community garden, we decided to just throw all the (probably dead) radish seeds in and see what happened.  An explosion of radishes is what happened.  Hundreds of radishes!  We've been eating spicy, peppery radishes every day for two weeks. They were simply waiting for the right place and time.
This is also one of the first sketches I've been happy with for a long time.

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Daisies

I bought these Gerbera daisies to plant in a large container on the patio.  They are quite flamboyant and spectacular.  The stems have a tinge of purple, and the new blossoms are green and ripen into a deep yellow.  The leaves look quite a bit like dandelion leaves (on steroids!) and also have a touch of purple.  They are actually from the sunflower family. They bloom nonstop, too.
Prince William and Kate are coming to town to attend the Calgary Stampede.  People are lining up overnight to get a wristband that entitles them to stand on the street in the hopes of getting a glimpse or a handshake.  They seem like a very nice young couple, but I can't see sleeping on the street just to see them.  The media frenzy is insane.  I want to go downtown to the river park to draw the ducks, but I think I'll wait till the insanity is over.  For now, I'll stay home and draw what's blooming in my back yard.
Ink and watercolor pencils