Sunday, January 20, 2013

Northern Wild Flowers

This is a small study of northern wild flowers in pen & ink and watercolour. Of course there is still about 4 feet of snow here.  It usually starts to melt in April.  So it will be a while until I can go out gathering flowers to bring home to paint.  I used some photographs to paint this little group, even though I was not able  to go into nature to gather these ones I still like to paint a group of flowers that are from a similar habitat.  Starting on the left the yellow flower is Arnica, which is a very widely used medicinal plant.  In the middle is Pink Wintergreen, called "winter-green" because it is one of the only brave little souls that keeps it's green leaves all year round even when it is buried deep beneath the snow. And the flower on the right is a purple Marsh Violet.  I always get so excited when the violets come out in May here.  They are one of the first wild flowers to bloom.  Other common violets around here are the yellow Stream Violet and the Early Northern Violet.

What are the first types of wild flowers to bloom in your area?


www.lauraashtonartist.blogspot.com


12 comments:

  1. Just beautiful. A happy painting as we look forward to spring.

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  2. Your painting is lovely! We are under snow here until April too. I've been out snowshoeing and each time bring back a small twig or perhaps some seed pods. I've been painting and sketching them.. Of course most of them are brown but I find them relaxing to draw.
    Some twigs have lots of detail and some have colored lichens growing on them.

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    1. Oh how I understand. Yes right now all I can get from outside it lichen and twigs, though as you say they can have lovely detail.

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  3. So beautiful and delicate! We have wild plum trees, first, I think, and some low-growing tiny purple flowers...

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    1. Oh wild plum trees sounds marvellous!!! Reminds me of my home town in southern BC

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  4. Your flowers are so delicate. Beautiful. Already we have some low growing 'English daisies' (non native) and soon we'll have a little purple flower whos name skips me. I look forward to all the daffodils. They have naturalized here and are found in a lot of pastures and on the roadsides. So Pretty!

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    1. Thank you for commenting, wow flowers already!!? I cannot imagine it.

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  5. Lovely botanical sketches. So fresh.

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  6. Lovely sketch Laura! We've had unseasonably warm weather here in early Jan and I've got daffodils up about 4" already. The forsythia was starting to bud, but now it's below freezing all week so we still have a way to go till Spring. Sigh...

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    1. Oh isn't that tricky when the flowers get tricked into thinking it's spring only to get a hit of nasty frost. Well enjoy once they are in bloom. Thank you for your lovely comment.

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