Friday, January 3, 2014

Hip-happy New Year!



Sometimes it pays off to be lazy. Because I didn't keep up with the chore of dead-heading my rose bushes, I now have an abundance of beautiful rose hips. It seems that many people today are obsessed with having gardens that are neatly manicured; leaves raked up as soon as they fall (or worse yet, blown away with a loud gas-powered blower). As for me, I like my garden a bit on the wild side. (Too many readings of The Secret Garden can lead to this particular form of botanical laziness.) I suppose that in bygone days, people had more important things to do than to trim the dead roses, or perhaps they simply knew what treasures rose hips could be! I'd heard of rosehip tea and jam, but found all sorts of interesting facts when I googled "rose hips". My favorite is that chickens seem to love them and, as they're laden with Vitamin C, they're a healthy snack for them—and guinea pigs, too! I'm going to try some out on my hen Charlotte this afternoon.

I am behind in my postings from my weekly figure drawing meet-up; most of the drawings are too big for my scanner, so it takes me a bit longer to take pics. I'll try and post some this weekend, and then I'll aim to post some each Friday after the meet-up on Thursday. I noticed that one figure drawing blog that I was viewing had a warning of explicit material. I didn't even think about that—would you think that it's necessary? Sheesh, in a world where we have to be bombarded with images of a twerking Miley Cyrus, I think we can deal with a charcoal nude drawing or two.

For the new year, I'm trying out a new banner on my blog; the old one has been up there since I started blogging. In case you've forgotten, it used to look like this:

I'm still working on some other ideas; I'm thinking I might try to create four different seasonal ones or something. I'd love to have your feedback. And, since one of my resolutions is to get back to making regular blog visits, I hope to see what you're up to soon!

Happy New Year!

4 comments:

  1. Your new banner is bright and beautiful-just the thing to brighten up a freezing January day. And I never looked at rose hips in quite that way, but I will from now on.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love it - the new banner, the rosehip, and the lackadaisical approach to gardening (which should result in no lack of daisies, assuming that they are as prevalent in your part of the world as they are in mine).

    You have a wonderful way of highlighting the apparently insignificant, and making us look again. Isn't that what art shoud be about?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love the new banner that is the first thing that cought my eye. Great idea of one for each season. I guess I am one of those that did not let the rose hip develop and grow on my 1 rose bush. I kept on clipping the old ones to get new roses. I guess becuase I have very limited space and want to see color.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I agree with everyone else, love the banner and the drawing reminds me to actually look at the simple things in a different way. Truly beautiful, but then you always provide beauty. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete