My Table Garden: Dark Red Ruffled African Violet and Not Lavender

I am in a hectic season at the moment and have only little snatches of time to work in my sketchbook. So having a table garden (a plant or two sitting on my art table) is my way to ensure that when I sit down and face the page and clock (which often says "5 minutes") - I spend no time debating what to draw. It also presents me with a chance to notice little changes in my plant. Create an interesting pattern made out of drawing the same object - like when you draw with a spirograph - the first line usually looks strange but when you make several they start to look like magic. The same is happening with me and drawing the same object several days in a row: I begin to see magic :)

Presenting my January Table Garden Heros: Dark Red Ruffled African Violet! (it needs a repotting so next time you will see it in a completely new light) and "I picked you from the garden trash can" stems of not lavender.

Pumpkin Gragen Continues to Thrive

Pumpkin Garden worked was my "go to" sketching model lately - intricate textures, tangled shapes and gentle collection of colors sitting on one's art table is a sure way to start my day - even if all I have is a three minutes and some dirty post-its (see pumpkinnio sketch below ;) 

A season for pumpkins and getting together with friends - grateful!

It's a season to draw, eat, and decorate pumpkins :) It is also a season to be with people and tell them how much they mean to you! I am very fortunate to have some amazing friends who feed me (both literally and figuratively) with inspiring and enlarging ideas and foods on a regular basis. My  friend invited me for a "turn your pumpkin into a mini garden" party and I enjoyed it so much that I got myself some pumpkins and started bringing this idea to other people too ;) And then a bunch of friends got together to chat and draw and I got to make and then draw another pumpkin garden.  

There are pumpkins sitting at my parents and on our Nonagenarian's table. I am yet to draw all the pumpkins but this is a start.

Rattlesnake Calathea Needs Repotting!

My Rattlesnake Calathea (also known as Spot) needs repotting, so it was moved to my work table. However, there was no time for the repotting work to happen. Nevertheless, close proximity to my sketchbook means that I got to sketch a few portraits :) The first one was supposed to be a direct watercolor that went so wrong that I was about to write a whole page listing what was wrong exactly. But then I had a phone call with friends and kept adding and subtracting things, and it ended up in a pile of examples of why continuing to work on things is a good practice.

The second one just happened to be a super quick value study.

And the third one I enjoyed making with my printmaking tools! 

Which one is your favorite?

Drawing Orchids - continuation.

After my initial attempt to draw orchids I tried to understand them several more times. Some of these are stages of the same page in my sketchbook - I rarely go back to "fix" things but these flowers were asking for it! 

I never know if orchid is real or fake.

I always avoided orchids - both as plants and subjects for my drawings. To thrive for a long time they require greener thumbs than I have. And to draw them I had to believe that they were real and not plastic - they always look artificial to me :) 

But recently I was exposed to a different approach: think about orchards as a long-lasting bouquet / composition - not as a living plant. And with this thought in mind, my parents got two lovely orchards as presents. Personal exposure to the roots and leaves allowed me to believe that these are real plants and not fake ones and I ended up drawing them :) With real pleasure - not a fake one :) 

 

Plant Eviction

I bought this little garden-in-a-pot (a concept I enjoy) and sketched it a couple of days into its stay on our kitchen table. But very quickly my allergies informed me that the hyacinth is not my friend and in fact is a serious enemy. It filled the whole house with fragrance and despite some effort put into denial, I had to evict the whole little garden outside. Where there was a lot of wind and rain and... well, I did not draw it after eviction. But it is getting a lot of watering!

January Amaryllis Update

Some time in December I reported that my Mom and I are growing amaryllises together. Hers advanced much faster and I kept mine in a dark and cool place while I was away on a trip - but moved it to a sunny spot when I returned. It took some time but Amaryllis made a spectacular entrance in January (and it still goes on - but that I will show later!) Here are some of my January observations of how the flowers opened up one by one:

Growing an Amaryllis with Mom

This year I remembered to get a bulb with an Amaryllis plant and I got two - one for myself and one for my Mom. Sharing these experiences short-distance is one of the exciting things in my life after my parent's arrival to California. 

Here are some of my first recordings about my bulb:

And some of the photos of Mom's Amaryllis. I am hoping that she will start drawing soon too - but for now - she takes lots of photos :)

Portraits of My New African Violet

My new african violet is tiny and has flowers of a marvelous astringent burgundy color. It lives on my art table and is often a subject for my experiments. Here is a couple:

 (as always click on the image to see it large :)