Paperwhites and advent calendars: a fresh start ahead

My October "sabbatical" has carried over into November. It's been a weird month so far: my husband is away on a long business trip, and the election sparked a fair amount of distress and introspection. But things are looking up: My husband will be home in a few days—and my paperwhites are growing! I ask you, is there anything more hopeful-looking than sprouting paperwhites?

Actually, I'm all set for a new year of regular posting starting December 1, the six-year anniversary of my blog. I love December 1, because it's the day I break out my advent calendar(s) for the season, and you know how much I love advent calendars! I think that the ones I have for this year may be some of my all-time favorites, so be sure to check back.

In the meantime, you can follow my paperwhites' progress (and lots of other stuff) on my instagram page:  @sarahmellingart 

and you can read more about my love of advent calendars here.

Sunflower Seeds in Snazzy Striped Shells...And Ai WeiWei

14" x 14", Prismacolor colored pencil on Strathmore Vellum Bristol

I was preparing to plant some Mammoth sunflower seeds, but became distracted admiring their snazzy striped shells. Next thing I knew, I was drawing, not planting. 

While researching sunflower seeds for some fun facts to include here–lest anyone think me odd for drawing a few sunflower seeds–I ran across the phenomenal installation at the Tate in London by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in 2010. He and his artisans made and hand-painted millions of ceramic sunflower seeds. I can't even begin to explain it well; you must check it out here. (Suddenly, I felt a bit less odd for drawing nine of them.). 

Let's hope that the squirrels and birds allow these seeds to grow into big, cheerful sunflower faces in my summer garden!

Hillbillies, squirrels, and the drought

"Hillbilly" heirloom tomato

Prismacolor colored pencils on Stonehenge paper

Between the drought and a pair of brazen black squirrels, it's been a tough summer for my vegetable garden. Everyone's tomatoes are late this year, and I think the vines are finally producing more tomatoes than the squirrels want. This is an heirloom variety called "Hillbilly". They are deeply lobed, and are gorgeous colors. This first one that I picked—before the squirrels got it—weighed in at around a pound:

The one I used for the model for my drawing seemed to ripen and change colors before my eyes:

There are loads of green tomatoes out there, just waiting to ripen; the fact that it's supposed to be 100 degrees here today should hasten that process!

Ground cherries?!

Ground Cherries, "Aunt Molly's"

Physalis pruinosa

4" x 9", Prismacolor colored pencil on Stonehenge paper

(click to enlarge)

Among the heirloom seeds that my daughter gave to me for Christmas, was a pack labelled "Aunt Molly's Ground Cherries". Ground cherries?  Even at my age, this was a new one. The fruit in the photo looked more like little yellow tomatillos—a smooth fruit within a papery husk—and what's with the "ground" part? Well, I read the packet to learn that they have that name not because you grind them up (admit it, that crossed your mind too...), but because you wait until they fall to the ground to harvest them. And the sweet fruit, also known as Cape gooseberries, are indeed related to tomatillos. Huh! Who knew?

Isn't it funny (and a bit eerie, if I'm being honest) when you learn about something for the first time, or hear a term you've never heard, and then it pops up again almost immediately? Well, this spring, what did I see in my grocery store, alongside the berries? Pichuberries, which seem to be identical to my Ground Cherries! Check them out here. Apparently they're a new "super fruit" or something. But my favorite fun fact from that discovery is this: "In France, this fruit is also referred to as 'Love in the Cage'". Well, if we're getting all lyrical, I am compelled to add that, while I was drawing,  my composition started looking to me a little bit like a nativity scene: two adoring parents and a new baby. Am I crazy or do you see that, too? And if their husk shape looks familiar, it's because they're also related to the ornamental Chinese Lantern plant, usually a showy orange or reddish husk.

My plants aren't huge, but this has been a tough summer in our garden; we're trying to water just enough, considering the drought we're in. These first ones, that I gathered to draw, are on the small side as you can see here:

Here is my initial sketch, followed by a few more WIP scans:

How about you: are you familiar with ground cherries aka cape gooseberries aka pichuberries?

SunSugar Cherry Tomatoes

Hmmm. This is one of those pieces that didn't turn out quite as I'd envisioned. Maybe I should've used richer colors, or should add a background—I'm not sure. Things just haven't clicked: I even felt like the hot weather was affecting my pencils, making them waxier than usual! 

These little "SunSugar" cherry tomatoes are so beautiful on the vine—the way the clusters become a rainbow of color as they ripen. I wanted to capture that stage, as I've drawn fully ripe ones in the past. 

Here are a few work-in-progress pics. This time, I used an empty slide mount instead of my usual viewfinder that I've shown you before:

I decided to enlarge it to 5x the original little thumbnail sketch on the right:

The tomatoes continued to ripen and change colors as I worked—what a show!

As I look at this next pic, I'm thinking that I like this "unfinished" stage more than the final one. The negative space where the vine will go might've looked more interesting left alone."Food for thought" for the next piece.

Well, while there's nothing horrible about this drawing,

I think that I'll chalk it up as a learning piece.

(Or maybe I'll just have to add a background before it drives me crazy...!)

Hidatsa Shield Figure Beans

Prismacolor colored pencil on Strathmore charcoal paper, "Golden Brown"

One of my Christmas presents from my daughter was a fabulous selection of vegetable garden seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange. (If you're into gardening, you must check out their website; you can also order one of these catalogs that I just received—isn't that cover gorgeous?)

Among my seeds was this packet of Hidatsa Shield Figure Beans. That name had me intrigued right off the bat, and the photo on the front of the packet sealed the deal. So, I did a little bit of research: The markings on the beans are supposedly reminiscent of the painted shields of the Hidatsa tribe who raised corn, squash, beans, and sunflowers in the Missouri River Valley of North Dakota. I looked for an image that supported this theory, but didn't see anything strikingly similar, but I'll keep sleuthing. Shield Figure beans are described in the fascinating Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden (1987) which you can read more about here.

As for my drawing, it was lots of fun, but I'd forgotten that the charcoal paper needs a lighter touch than I gave it, I'm afraid. Here's how I set up my little "models" on my drawing table. I just stuck them on a piece of foam core with this Quake-Hold museum putty that I use all of the time when positioning the things that I'm drawing. (And yes, when you live in earthquake country, you do also use this stuff to secure valuables in case of The Big One.)

While working on this drawing, I had to get out one of my favorite picture books, the exquisite A Seed is Sleepy. Sylvia Long's amazing illustrations could keep my entertained for hours. They've also collaborated on A Butterfly is Patient, A Rock is Lively, and the stunningly beautiful, An Egg is Quiet. I simply adore these books.

Well, it's getting warmer here in the Bay Area, but we're experiencing quite a drought this winter (this is our rainy season); the plants in my yard don't know what season it is. Here's hoping that Mother Nature gets some rain on its way in time to set the scene for my seed planting!

Update: I've just realized that this week's topic on Illustration Friday is "beginning". What's more of a beginning than some seeds? (Okay, we could get into the which-came-first conundrum but we won't...)

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!

A flower for Penelope

Prismacolor colored pencil and graphite on Strathmore Toned Tan sketch paper

(click to enlarge)

This week's topic on Illustration Friday is "Tribute", in honor of its founder, Penelope Dullaghan, who has recently moved on to pursue other projects. Before I launch into my own tribute to Penelope and IF, I'll explain my little sketch:

When my husband and I moved to California many years ago, we were invited to dinner at the home of a family friend. Along one side of their house, they had a profusion of different varieties of fuchsia on display, and I fell in love. I haven't had any in my own garden for years, so when we recently replanted a flower bed, we decided to add some fuchsias. At the nursery, I was instantly drawn in by their names. I love it when plants are named as a tribute to a famous person. I chose two, almost as much for their names as for their beauty. One is Fuchsia "Winston Churchill" (which I love because I'm an admitted Anglophile) and the other is the one I've sketched here. With its red "hat" and white "beard", how could I resist Fuchsia "Santa Claus"?! Such a lively little blossom; the whole time I was sketching it, I kept thinking of the Flower Fairy illustrations by Cicely Mary Barker. You can see her charming Fuchsia fairy here.

Now for my tribute to Penelope Dullaghan:

One of the reasons that I started blogging a few years ago was so that I could participate in Illustration Friday. For a long time, I was a very consistent contributor—I rarely missed a week! Early on, one of my drawings was even selected to be IF's "Pick of the Week" which gave me lots of exposure and encouragement. But most importantly, I got to know many fellow artists that also participated  in IF regularly. (Once I realized that if I commented on a drawing, that person often commented back, the communication floodgates were opened!) I consider a number of these people to be friends: I still visit their blogs regularly, chat with some on Facebook, and a few of us even check up on one another when we haven't posted in a while. For these reasons, I send my heartfelt thanks to Penelope for her devotion to this website that gave rise to such a wonderful supportive community.

Having said that, my recent IF entries have been few and far between. I've had a busy spring and wasn't at my drawing board as much as I'd have liked, but things are a bit quieter now, and I'm hoping to spend more time doing these quicker sketches when I'm not working on a more detailed piece. I will also be visiting blogs, making some new friends, and checking up on the old ones! So, in the spirit of the IF community that Penelope nurtured, feel free to leave a comment and say hello!

Miss Rosa Bianca Aubergine

Prismacolor colored pencils on Strathmore Bristol, vellum

Here I go, personifying my produce again. I can't help myself—from the moment this beautiful little "Rosa Bianca" eggplant appeared in my garden, it looked just like a little face to me. It even has a human-sounding name, for heaven's sake! (By the way, isn't the French name aubergine far superior to the word eggplant?) This little gem gets its name from the fact that it's basically white, but gets streaked with red-violet as it develops in the sun. 

Maybe I've been watching too much "Masterpiece Theater", but I can't look at the way the green cap curls on the sides without thinking of those Jane Austen heroines' hairstyles:

I was tempted to draw a little face on my eggplant when I sketched it, but my portrait-drawing skills are woefully rusty—besides, I think it's more fun to imagine it, don't you?

A Tomato Family

Prismacolor colored pencils on Strathmore Bristol Vellum, 5" x 8"

When I was setting up this still life, it occurred to me that it looked like a little family portrait. So, the whole time I was drawing these tomatoes, I envisioned them as such: Mom, Dad, the baby next to its mother, and the two older children by the father—one refusing to sit up straight.

These folks were all born and raised in my garden: the "parents" are a wonderful heirloom variety called "Kellogg's Breakfast". They're a beautiful yellow-orange, and are fleshy, very sweet, and have few seeds. You'd almost think you're eating a nectarine—so delicious. The "kids" are "Sugar Sun" cherry tomatoes, also really yummy.

There's nothing quite like a beautiful still life. Here are two of my favorite still life painters:

Janet Rickus paints gorgeous, often whimsical, pieces. (I think that perhaps her sense of humor led me to create a tomato "family" with my own drawing.) Her work is hard to describe in words...you've got to take a peek here.

Abby Ryan creates a daily oil painting, usually an elegantly simple still life, and they're gorgeous. Each painting is then auctioned off on eBay. She collaborates with a potter, Jury Smith, who creates beautiful pieces specifically for use in still life paintings. Isn't that fascinating? And you can even watch videos of Abby painting on her blog and her website. It's a joy to watch.

I hope you'll check them out!

Illustration Friday: Suspend

Prismacolor colored pencils on Strathmore Bristol Vellum

In my garden, ripening blackberries are suspended from their stems, 

waiting for the birds—or me—to pluck them off. 

 

My blackberry plants are out of control—in a good way. They have razor-sharp thorns, and they grow like weeds, but I love them anyway. Maybe it's because I can never pick them without thinking of Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit, in which Peter's sisters obediently pick blackberries during his misadventure in Mr. McGregor's garden. 

It's great to be participating in Illustration Friday...it's been a little while! I'm reserving judgement on the new format—maybe it'll just take some getting used to. (I'm not so good with change.) I hope to visit some old favorites as well as some new faces this week! (Update: After actually posting my first time in the new IF  format, I have to admit that it's nice to not have to make a thumbnail—even though I miss the "surprise" element of clicking on them—and the "sharing" capabilities are amazing!)

Illustration Friday: Boundaries

Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes • Prismacolor Pencils on Strathmore Bristol Vellum

"Now, my dears," said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, "you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor."

The animals around my garden have not been heeding their mothers' admonitions about respecting boundaries.  What started as a tentative nibble on a spaghetti squash, has escalated to bold beheading of sunflowers, and brazen feasting on tomatoes.  Are my nighttime visitors squirrels, raccoons...or maybe even rats?  I'm not sure, but when I see their handiwork in the morning, I can't help but picture them more as Beatrix Potter characters than as garden pests.  Fortunately, there are plenty of vegetables for all of us.

•   •   •

While on the topic of boundaries, I was thinking about how Illustration Friday really transcends all geographic boundaries.  I want to mention two artists and fellow bloggers, well-known to many of you, from distant points on the globe (well, distant from where I live). They're both very generous with their comments, very prolific (I'm convinced that neither one sleeps) and if you haven't visited their blogs, now's the time:

From Hokkaido, Japan: Check out DosankoDebbie's Etegami Notebook. Her artwork is so beautiful and unique. She has multiple blogs (!) and amazing talents, and I learn something from each and every post.

From Newscastle, NSW, Australia, Andrew Finnie. He creates fascinating, beautiful (and sometimes surreal) digital illustrations, and his accompanying text is just as entertaining. And recently, he has blogged about an exhibition of his paintings, which are completely different than his digital work, and are simply sublime. Oh, and he's a surfer and an optometrist in his other life.

Enjoy!

Ten Minutes of Imperfection

My kids are right: I talk too much...even in a sketchbook. For more about my embarking on The Sketchbook Project, click here.

Summer colors

"Royal Burgundy" beans from my garden
Prismacolor on Strathmore Bristol - Vellum

(My summer obsession with cool colors continues...)

These beauties come from equally lovely plants—deep green leaves with purple stems. And they're tender, stringless and tasty. Interestingly, their color changes to green when you cook them, which just sort of adds to their rather exotic appeal, don't you think?

Illustration Friday: Gesture

Giving flowers is a gesture of caring—whether it's romantic love, remembrance, or just an attempt to bring a little sunshine into someone's day.  Flowers from a florist can be dandy, but some of my favorites have been the handfuls of blossoms plucked from the backyard and proudly presented to me by one of my kids.

This time, I did the plucking—these delphiniums (or larkspur, a name I like better) are from a pot on my front porch. They're the July birth flower, and are symbolic of an open heart, according to the Victorians. As any fan of the Brontës or Jane Austen knows, the Victorians felt that it was improper to express strong emotions verbally, which led to the popularity of a whole coded language of flowers, also known as floriography. While a bellflower meant "I'm thinking of you", a yellow carnation meant "You disappoint me".
So polite, so proper.

Maybe it's the warm weather, but my last three posts have all been drawings in very cool colors—have you noticed? That's unusual for me: usually those blue and violet pencils are languishing in their jars while the warm colors (and the ever-present greens) are front and center. I also played around with a something I've seen in traditional botanical illustration - combining color with black-and-white drawing. The "plant hunters" of the Victorian era would sometimes color only part of their field drawing...just enough to accurately record the colors and get back in time for tea. So polite, so proper...sigh.

If you're into botanical illustration even the slightest little bit, you must check out this blog from the exhibit at the NY Botanical Garden before it wraps up at the end of this month. There are some really spectacular pieces!

Note to visitors from Illustration Friday: Thanks for stopping by in spite of my messed-up blurry thumbnail on the link viewer...that's what happens when I try to post late at night...

Illustration Friday: Launch

An alien spacecraft preparing to launch?

Nope, it's a passion flower, easily the most exotic plant in my yard, and certainly one of my favorites. And "launch" it does, believe me—I'm constantly hacking back the vines and ripping out new shoots that spring up all over my garden. I have two slightly different varieties in my yard, and both grow like weeds. Better than weeds. It's indestructible. You can't kill it. Hmmm, maybe it is an alien life form after all...

As one might expect from a bloom this intriguing, the passion flower, or passiflora, has quite a bit of lore and legend attached to it. Its name comes from the Passion of Christ, as Spanish missionaries saw all kinds of symbolism in it, which you can read about here . In cultures where Catholicism isn't as widespread, it is sometimes called the clock flower (although there are 10 not 12 petals) or the Maypop—its hollow fruit pops open when you squeeze it.

While fascinating to look at, it's a bit of a challenge to draw. The flower doesn't last long, and closes when the light fades. I intend to try this one again, and hope to show the beautiful vines and leaves, the different stages of the bloom, and the fruit. In the meantime, check out some of these amazing photos...rather bizarre, but so beautiful!

Illustration Friday: Journey

This week's Illustration Friday word is "journey", so I give you...a shrub. 

This is Brunfelsia pauciflora, but I prefer its evocative common name,  

Yesterday-Today-and-Tomorrow.

Walking through our neighborhood, a friend and I used to pass one of these gorgeous plants, and we'd always comment on how much we liked it.  Once I finally learned its name, I liked it even more.  The name is derived from the fact that the blossoms start out a bright violet, fade to a beautiful lavender about a day later, and end up almost white.  Its poetic name makes it a perfect gift to celebrate a birthday, a new baby, any landmark along life's journey.

  "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow."

—Albert Einstein

Note: For some reason, my jpg images are looking fuzzy once they're placed into this post. (Click on the drawing if you'd like to see how it should look.)  If anyone has advice for me, I'd love to hear from you!

My Yesterday-Today-and-Tomorrow plant

Illustration Friday: Duet

I normally don't like to draw things in twos; odd numbers are usually much more pleasing to my eye.  So, when I saw this week's topic on Illustration Friday, "duet", I was in a quandry.  Of course, some things do make sense in pairs: shoes, dice, even birds. (There are, in fact, a number of gorgeous pairs of birds in this week's group - well done, everyone!)  Then, I was out in my garden and saw that my calla lily plants had decided to solve my problem: two blooms were showing their faces, just asking to be my models.

Most flowers do look best in odd-numbered groupings; the Japanese practice of ikebana certainly adheres to that tradition.  Perhaps it's because they're oddly asymmetrical, unlike most flowers, but I think two calla lilies look just right.  (After all, if it's good enough for Georgia O'Keefe, who am I to quibble?)

And if you're in the mood for a musical duet, there's none better than the father-daughter YouTube sensations, Jorge and Alexa Narvaez.  If you haven't seen them, take a few minutes to watch...I promise you'll be glad you did!

Illustration Friday: Cultivate

"The garden is a ground plot
for the mind." 

—Thomas Hill,  The Gardener's Labyrinth, 1577

Several days in a row of spring rains are keeping me from putting in my vegetable beds as I'd planned, but the Illustration Friday topic of "cultivate" has me thinking of gardening nonetheless. (I found that wonderful quote in a book that I love to page through when I can't be outside in a real garden: The Garden of Reading.)

This magnolia drawing (also part of my page banner) was drawn at a workshop that I attended quite a few years ago at Filoli, an historic estate with beautiful gardens about thirty minutes north of where I live.  (The mansion was used for the exterior shots in the tv show "Dynasty", once upon a time.)  Filoli has a wonderful botanical drawing program, but the classes are quite pricey—however, the two-day workshops are a little more affordable.  The class description said that all mediums were welcome, but I was the only person not using watercolors, which I found a little intimidating.  I never completed the drawing (I'm not sure I even went back for the second day, come to think of it), but I kind of  like the fact that the image is sort of blossoming out of the white paper.

At that time, I did very little drawing for pleasure.  But in the following years, I would occasionally steal a peek at this piece, as if to remind myself that, even though I didn't have the time or inclination to cultivate it, the artistic side of me was lying dormant, ready to emerge when the time was right.

By the way, two of my favorite farmers/gardeners are back in my life this week:  The Fabulous Beekman Boys will be back for Season Two on Planet Green on Tuesday, March 22!  (There is also a Season One marathon being shown today, at this very moment.)  You may remember that I blogged about and drew my Beekman 1802 goat milk soaps here and here, back in January, and even got a comment from the guys themselves.  Love them, love the show, love Josh's book, love their goats...you get the idea.