In my own yard

sketchercise from last week, a photo by vickylw on Flickr.

These are painted these grape hyacinths with gouache w/o pencil or ink first. The background wash was done before leaving the house, using thin watercolor.

This and the sketches below were done after taking Ceilidh, my new puppy, on one of our small daily "walkabouts" --- she is slowly getting the hang of walking on a lead. I'm looking forward to longer walks with her, but until her third shot we are avoiding other dog's areas.

And this is what happens to the 7 wild tulips in our yard every year. We may dig them up this time and place them closer to the building. ("wild" in that we didn't plant them -- they are placed very irregularly in the side yard --- they have unusually short stems of only a couple of inches.)