Peonies & Roses Bloom

We're having warm weather and the sunshine brought out the peonies and roses this week. The Peony Place is a a farm sitting on a hill over looking Mt St Helens southeast of Portland.

The varieties and colors of these peonies never cease to amaze me.

If it stays hot this weekend, they won't last too many more weeks.

In my garden, I love to grow roses and here are two of the first blossoms. "Double Delight" boasts beautiful variegated colors and a lovely fragrance.

"Dainty Bess" always remains so delicate.

For NW gardeners, the end of May and June is time to reap the bounty and beauty of the earth in these flowers.

Berry Botanical Garden Discovery

It took a morning of sketching at the Berry Botanical Garden to discover the name of a plant growing in my home garden- Tellima grandifora fringe cap.

Below is a photo of my garden and the fringe cap. This year it reseeded and made a wonderful ground cover.

The wisteria also caught my eye. I experimented with painting the wisteria's hanging flower clusters, then added the branches and leaves to get the feel for the wispy, flower softness.
The columbine wanted my attention, too. I love the woodland, native plants that grow so well in Oregon gardens and forests for all of us gardeners and hikers to admire.
Here's my sketch.

Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden Sketch

Rhododendrons and other flowers bloom in Crystal Springs Garden where our sketch group visited this week. It is one of my favorite Portland gardens.

Crystal Springs started as a test garden for rhododendrons, azaleas and other plants in 1950. The garden contains more than 2700 different species of plants.

The candelabra primroses form a flowering cover under the trees.
Children love to feed the ducks.

Photo Art Journal Architecture Book

I belong to a wonderful group of artist/photographers who take photographs related to a specific theme and send them to Catherine Anderson. She creates the most amazing books with our photos. We each receive one book with each other's photos in it. The Architecture Book is one of my favorites with photos from all over the world, both ancient and new. Our group is featured in LK Ludwig's new book Collaborative Art Journals & Shared Visions in Mixed Media.

Catherine makes the book covers, assembles the books and mails each of us a copy. The cover photo above and the two photos below are hers.

She took this photo while in South Africa of a traditional Zulu Hut where she spent three nights.

Gwen Delmore took the following photo in San Antonio, TX at the Mission San José y San Miguel.

Here is a photo I took in Oaxaca, Mexico last October and included in the book.

Members write a quotation on the back of the photo. Here are a couple of my favorites-

"Architecture is frozen music." Goethe

"Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but the most surely, on the soul." Ernest Dimnet

Cornell Farms Inspiration

This week, our sketch group visited Cornell Farms. The wind blew, it was cold to the bone and my motivation to draw didn't materialize. Out came the camera. The bicycle inspired me to get my bike out, clean it, put air in the tires. Now it's ready to ride this fore casted, warm weather weekend.

A time to plant pots and sinks

Spruce up the flamingos and enjoy the bright colors blooming...

Inside, I finished another felted bag with a kumihimo cord. The wool fibers warm cold hands and make me feel good.

Stencils with Adirondack Color Wash Sprays

This week, I assembled a new sketchbook using decorative paste paper that I'd made last year with stamps and texture tools. The paper needed some pizazz- stencils to the rescue. I sprayed the stencils with Adirondack Color Wash. It's an acid free, non-toxic, water-based dye that comes in a variety of colors. I like to use it because it's indoor safe. The green gold acrylic was stippled through a stencil and the reverse side printed.I treated the back cover with a different stencil and "raisin" Color Wash spray.
I drew these little clay animals this week for our Tuesday sketch date.

"Euphorbia Seasons " for Nature Gathered

Our Nature Gathered group selected seasons for the April challenge. Mine represents a variety of seasonal euphorbia. I discovered this plant last year and began taking photos. I didn't realize that poinsettia also belong in the euphorbia family. The outer edges are stenciled- an inspiration from Mary Ann's online class. I used Photo Shop to arrange and alter my photos.