Flowers of the dune- Concetta Flore

I was spending a few days of deserved sea-side relax on the Tyrrenean coast of Tuscany, but sun-bathing is ok just for a while. When flowers shine in the sun like this, they are irresistible subjects.
I had to leave it half-way but finished it from a picture and memory.
Happy summer everyone!

Centaurea sphaenocephala, camomilla tomentosa, juniperus oxycedrus, leaves of Medicago sp

Calendula Pot Marigold (Calendula Officinalis) - Maree

This plant sprang up between my Marigolds, I've never had them in my garden, and at first I wasn't sure what it was, but upon investigation found that it is also a Marigold and a bit different to my 'normal' Marigolds, which are French Marigold (Tagetes), an American native in the same family as the daisy. This Calendula officinalis or Pot Marigold  is edible and often appears on lists of attractive edible flowers. Most French marigold varieties are not edible, although I have mixed some of the petals in with my salads. Maybe it will seed and I'll have more this season.

Arums - Cloak of Silver-White - Maree

Unfurl your cloak of silken white 

Reveal your secret wand upraised at length 

And not unlike a star you shine serene 

To exalt the autumn-tide with silver cups 

- Unknown 

W&N watercolour on DalerRowney 300gsm 

 My Arums (Zantedeschia aethiopica) are in full flower in my garden after all the gorgeous rain we've had. It's also cooled down the heat wave we've been seeming to have so early in the summer and it's actually been a pleasure to spend some time in the garden this week.

These are the White or common Arum Lily (English); Wit varkoor (Afrikaans). The striking arum lily “flower” is actually many tiny flowers arranged in a complex spiral pattern on the central column (spadix). The tiny flowers are arranged in male and female zones on the spadix. The top 7 cm are male flowers and the lower 1.8cm are female. If you look through a hand-lens you may see the stringy pollen emerging from the male flowers which consist largely of anthers. The female flowers have an ovary with a short stalk above it, which is the style (where the pollen is received). 

These plants are native to Southern Africa from South Africa north to Malawi.

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Radish Flowers

These are Radish blossoms out of my vegetable garden.  I never realized what lovely little flowers the plant produces.  I think in the future I would like to do a composition of all sorts of vegetable flowers.

French Marigolds - Maree

My Marigolds (I have the French Marigold (Tagetes patula) have grown in utter profusion this season. Some I planted in one corner, the rest sprung up from last year's seeds.

Annual Marigolds can be used anywhere to deter beetles and many harmful insects. They are also known to repel harmful root knot nematodes (soil dwelling microscopic white worms) that attack tomatoes, potatoes, roses, and strawberries. The root of the Marigold produces a chemical that kills nematodes as they enter the soil. If a whole area is infested, at the end of the season, turn the Marigolds under so the roots will decay in the soil. You can safely plant there again the following spring. The flowers are hermaphrodite (having both male and female organs) and are pollinated by insects. They are noted for attracting wildlife and the wild hares visiting my garden often eat them. And for some reason, the rats like biting off the flower heads and spreading the petals and seeds all over the ground! The leaves of the marigold are coated with oily glands that produce a pungent scent.

Did You Know? Marigolds, which are from the Aster family and the Calendula genus, were first discovered by the Portuguese in Central America in the 16th century.

Some interesting info :
In addition to colouring foods, yellow dye from the flowers is also used to colour textiles. The whole plant is harvested when in flower and distilled for its essential oil. The oil is used in perfumery; it is blended with sandalwood oil to produce 'attar genda' perfume. About 35 kilograms of oil can be extracted from 1 hectare of the plant (yielding 2,500 kg of flowers and 25,000 kg of herbage). The oil is also being investigated for antifungal activity, including treatment of candidiasis and treating fungal infections in plants
This info from "Wikipedia":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_marigold

Flowers, always! - Maree

More than anything, I must have flowers, always, always!
(Claude Monet)

My Hydrangeas are just coming into flower in my garden and this one sported two lovely heads of pink and lilac on one plant - I'm just wondering, was half the soil acidic and the other half alkaline...?

Mixed media - Black pen, W&N watercolours and Acrylic on a back-ground painted with Nescafé Instant, very strong! black coffee. I always have a few sheets of these with pre-prepared coffee back-grounds lying around, ready for a sketch.

A Rose amongst the Cosmos - Maree

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying,
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
- Robert Herrick

Usually, by mid-November, the countryside is covered in Cosmos. As to-date, zulch, nil, nada! Maybe it’s the fact that we have had no rain whatsoever yet here in Tarlton (Gauteng, South Africa). These three little Cosmos flowers in my garden are all that is left over from last year’s flowers.

Stray Sunflowers - Maree

“The gaudy leonine sunflower
Hangs black and barren on its stalk,
And down the windy garden walk
The dead leaves scatter - hour by hour.”
- Oscar Wilde

(Helianthus annuus) Native to the Americas - done in my Moleskine Nature Journal - 8" x 5"

Driving past Happy Acres, which was a field study centre and is now known as "Woodland School", on my way to Magaliesburg (Gauteng, South Africa), I passed these Sunflowers on the verge of the road. There are often stray Sunflowers showing up in front of the Cosmos, due to stray seeds falling from trucks passing by. If the sunflower is almost ripe, I often stop and cut one down, taking it home to my Cockatoo, Danny, who just loves to pick the seeds from the head.

More Australian Native Flowers

Following on from Alissa's great sketches... here are my ultra quick sketches form Saturdays Spring Sketchabout.(I am afraid that I spend too much time socialising at these events to do a serious sketch!)
I choose two flowers contrasting in size... the gymea lily(as drawn by Alissa) which is approx 30cm/1 foot wide (not 70cm as incorrectly noted in my sketchbook from a field guide that I have) and the other tiny tiny yellow button (only a few millimetres in size)
I also, like Alissa, drew a grass tree...but mine was a 'dead' stump.
I look at my wildflower guide book all the time and what often strikes me when I find them in real life, is how small many of the native flowers in Australia are.

Rainbow Lorikeets

It is no wonder that when the 1500s Portuguese explorers, mapping the coasts of Australia, named it Psittacorum regio, the Latin for 'Reign of parrots'. When I first come to Australia I was astonished to see how easily parrots can be seen in any environment, city included in great numbers. In this period of the year, southern hemisphere spring, trees are blooming very generously and lorikeets are very busy taking the best advantage out of this great food opportunity. The Rainbow Lorikeet is probably the most common Lorikeet in Australia, an icon from Darwin to Adelaide. They are also frequent visitors of bird feeders, but they are bold and aggressive to other species chasing every other bird away, this is in fact one of the reasons for the decline of some other bird species where Rainbow Lorikeets are numerous.  Their screeching calls are filling the air, sometimes harsh, sometimes full of joy, to see them darting in the sky is always a pleasure.

 

For the Italian readers, or anybody who reads Italian, I started writing for a website called 'I love Australia', written and managed by Italians in Australia, a website whose goal is to give information about anything related to this country, from immigration to nature, travel and holiday and more: http://www.iloveaustralia.it/

Coneflowers--Vickie Henderson

Seems like a strange time of year to be planting flowers, in the waning days of summer, but I did just that last week.  Drove by a flower center that had some of my favorite perennials on display and couldn't resist. I'm hoping they have enough time to root deeply enough for their reappearance next season. The surprising news, the first year's reappearance is guaranteed by the store!

Sometimes digging in the dirt is just what we need to feel grounded and productive.  And for another kind of deep enjoyment, just pick up a paint brush and try capturing that flower you love on paper.  I particularly enjoyed painting these flowers because I have missed them for so long.  An added plus, the hummingbirds chirping around the nectar feeders as I worked on these sketches.

This was only the second time I've tried painting on the spot without drawing and this time it felt delightful. There is something magical and loose about these flowers, inspiring me to create the petals by using clean water and allowing the pigment from the flower head (painted on dry paper) to flow into the petals. A relaxing and fun approach.

Coneflowers are part of the aster (asteraceae) family, along with sunflowers and, like sunflowers, have a flower head with many tiny blossoms.  This is clearly one of my favorite flower families!

To see more about how I painted these coneflowers visit:  Coneflowers--Wet-in-Wet and the Colors of White at my blog, Vickie's Sketchbook.

July 2011: Nigella Damascena Seed Pods

July 2011: Morning Walk, a photo by apple-pine on Flickr.

Well, beautiful blue flowers I enjoyed in May are gone - but look at these seed pods!

Lavendula augustifolia - Maree

Lavender, sweet lavender;
come and buy my lavender,
hide it in your trousseau, lady fair.
Let its lovely fragrance flow
Over you from head to toe,
lighting on your eyes, your cheek, your hair."
- Cumberkand Clark Flower Song Book 1929

I used to have huge bushes of lavender in my garden, my favourite being the
English lavender, Lavandula angustifolia (formerly L. officinalis), as it is a strongly aromatic shrub growing to 1–2m tall, the leaves are evergreen, and the flowers are a pinkish-purple (lavender-coloured), produced on spikes 2–8 cm long at the top of slender, leafless stems 10–30 cm long, and they make wonderful little displays in narrow vases or as dried bunches. The name is misleading, as it is not native to England at all, but native to the western Mediterranean region.

Plant Identification

I’ve got a bee in my bonnet to learn to identify more of the local wildflowers. Each year I learn a few more, but I also seem to forget as many or more. So…. I’ve decided to keep a separate journal full of simple sketches of the flowers I’ve found. Somehow a dragonfly slipped in – an immature male Common Whitetail (a skimmer).

So far I’ve had good luck finding my little sketches in a book, but the one with the red line around it has me stumped. I’m hoping someone can help me identify it.

* I found it at about 1000 feet elevation, Umpqua National forest, Oregon, USA. June 24, 2011.
* I found it growing in a damp, fairly moist, fairly shady location along the roadside.
* The blossom is tiny! About 1/8th inch across, five petals.
* The seed pods are round balls.
* Several stems grow from one root area, the stems tend to lie close to the ground.
* The leaves are very delicate and covered with little hairs (I’ve taped a stem with leaves and a flower onto my page).
* The stems of the leaves are flat, not round.
* The leaves near the blossoms are not symmetrical, but closer to the base of the plant they are symmetrical – the photo and my sketch show both types of leaves.

….and here is a photo of it.

Sandy Williams

The weather has been hot and humid, uncomfortable for humans but a definite plus if you're a mushroom! Here is a selection of flowers and mushrooms that have been blooming or popping up in the gardens and fields in our area, southwest lower Michigan, during the last week or so.

Mystery Flowers

Too lovely not to draw. This bed of flowers was huge and bright and delightful. There were several stakes holding these tall blossoms up but I chose not to include them, many were at least three feet tall. What a dramatic bouquet they would make!
Sandy
Myfiddlestix

Garden Companions - Pam Johnson Brickell

Enjoying a day on Conesus Lake in western NY. Hostas abound in a shade garden. Mother Nature sprinkled in the perfect aster to compliment the purple of the hosta.

Each Flower is a Soul - Maree

Each flower is a soul opening out to nature.
- Gerard De Nerval

All the Aloes are in full flower and although the winter got 3 of my Aloe ferox, burnt the flowers brown, this one has managed to come up with one beautiful flower stalk. I haven't got them planted in a rockery, the rocks here are just wishful thinking for me!

This hardy plant, indigenous to South Africa, with its succulent leaves, can survive the harshest conditions. When damaged by man or animal, the plant seals off any wound with a sticky, dark liquid that prevents infestation by virus, fungus or insect. This dark liquid has been successfully used by ancient inhabitants as a traditional remedy for many ailments.

Aloe ferox is listed on the plant list of endangered plants, along with other wild species of this genus, so my three are very precious to me. Also known as Cape Aloe, Bitter Aloe, Red Aloe and Tap Aloe.

Sandy Williams - End of June flowers

Since I've been doing this series of flower sketches in my moleskine I've found that I really "look" at the garden and all the things that have been right under my nose that I just didn't notice before. Case in point -- how beautiful are the potato blossoms and leaves! These sketches were done in pen and ink with watercolor pencils and white gouache.

Red Day Lily Challenge--Vickie Henderson

I spotted this day lily growing in a little garden plot near the carport and grabbed an afternoon free of thunderstorms to make this sketch.   A comical, yet enlightening experience.

 

Breezes are beyond wonderful when it comes to comfort and keeping insects away, but they do play havoc with the moisture in your palette, as well as, on the page. And of course, I always forget something. This time it was my spray bottle, making it doubly difficult for me to have anything go right in the water-pigment balance department.

Without realizing I was complicating things even more, I decided to sketch this day lily with watercolor without penciling it in first. The result was the sketch you see below, and my reaction to it was one of disappointment. Then I remembered my long-time watercolor instructor's words as we began to show our work in class. She would say something like:  Tell us what you enjoyed while you were painting and what you like about the result. And if there is something you don't like or would like to do differently next time, you can tell us about that, too.

I looked at the sketch again, not as a whole, but its parts, and my attitude began to soften.  I liked the bud and its leaves.  It looked pretty good for raw brush work and had a spontaneous feel to it.  I did not like the flower petals; they had totally lost their shapes.  With the lily still in front of me, I pulled out my pencil and began to sketch in the petal shapes.  I was back in my comfort zone.  This instantly made the whole sketch feel better to me.  I added more details after going inside.

A wise exercise.  When you're feeling frustrated, ask yourself to be specific:  What do you like; what do you not like?   All of it is valuable information.

To read more about my experience with this sketch visit:  Don't Throw out the Kindergarten Efforts.