On the Easel

I am working on Trillium cards to send to Pat and Sarah, the two friends who walked with me the day Garbry Sanctuary was filled with trillium. The Lone Pine is from a photo I took along the Blue Ridge Parkway last October. The Soft Homemade Doll is one my mother made.

I have the doll set up as a still life but you can see I have a photo also. That is because I started the painting at a friend's house. It is easier to carry a photo than a still life. The first photo came out redder than the painting actually is. The second one is bluer. If you can imagine the skirt of the first photo on the second photo you have imagined the painting close to what it actually looks. The yellow on the lace is masking fluid which protects the white under it. After I have painted the other details of the lace, I will rub the mask off.  It is a bit like rubber cement. I have played with the color adjustments on the computer but haven't found truer colors. The painting as it appears on the easel is closest to the true colors.

I usually work on several watercolors at the same time. I paint on one painting until I have to wait for it to dry. Then I work on another painting. I know I could blowdry the painting but I have found I like to take time to think about my paintings as I go. Other times I work on one painting until I am not sure what I want to do next so I paint a while on another painting.

Sometimes life is so busy I don't paint for several days. I write notes on Post-its to remind myself of what I want to do next. The easel is placed so I see it every time I go down the basement stairs to put clothes in the washer or in the dryer or get something out of the freezer. I stand on a step that is about half way down and just look at my paintings. 

You may notice that I have a mat laid around the Lone Pine.  Sometimes I get ideas for further painting by isolating sections.

Ladies Day Out...Garbry Sanctuary, April 22

Pat, Sarah and I went out to eat and then we decided to walk at Garbry Big Woods Sanctuary.  Both of them like walking out in the woods as much as I do.

Wild Ginger leaves were everywhere.

I took my usual photo of the Putty Roots leaves. The Putty Root leaves are the ones with the many lengthwise whitish lines on them. There are a lot of lengthwise dark veins. The leaves are drying up at the tips. The leaves will be gone when the flowers appear. Other leaves are already beginning to cover the Putty Root leaves.  Since the flower stalks are short compared to the greenery around them when they bloom in May, they are hard to find unless a person have some sort of reference point to remember exactly where to look. 

Judy, one of the county parks' part-time staff and also a volunteer, puts up signs like these as the flowers bloom. I always read them because she has interesting bits of information on them.

 Goldenseal flowers are very small.  They are barely visible at the bottom of the sign stake.  Here is a closer view.  The flowers consist of only stamens and pistils.

                          

There were very few  Bloodroot flowers but the leaves were becoming more and more noticable as they grow larger.

Spring Beauties were everywhere although most of them were closed because the day was overcast and rain was expected at any time.

Lots of Sessile Trilliums were blooming, some of the flowers poking up through dead leaves. In this photo, one of the Sessile Trillium's spotted  leaves is visible to the right of the dead leaf encircling the flower and its sepals
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Sarah noticed that the leaves of the Drooping Trillium were broad,  broader than those of the Large-flowered Trillium.

This is a very small cluster of Large-flowered Trillium. There were thousands of them blooming throughout the entire woods. Once the Drooping Trilliums bloom, too, the sight is even more spectacular. The Drooping Trillium is also a good sized white flower.

The Blue Cohosh has a blue tinge to its leaves. The purplish flower is more maroon than it appears in this photo.

Sometimes the Blue Cohosh has yellow flowers. The white flowers are Rue Anemone.

Although the Large-flowered Bellworts were not as noticable as some of the  flowers, there were  a lot of them sprinkled throughout the wet woods.

Most of the yellow Trout Lilies had dropped their petals. Their seed pods were developing. Another name for Trout Lily is Dogtooth Violet.

Two species of Waterleaf are found at Garbry.. The first leaves of both plants are spotted, the way varnished wooden furniture spots if water is dropped on it.  Later on, the leaves are shaped somewhat differently and are not spotted.  In the midst of the Waterleaf with the leaves that look a bit like maple tree leaves is a Bedstraw plant.  The leaves are in whorls around the stem.

Before we left, we sat on one of the benches conveniently placed along the boardwalk and rested, not speaking, just soaking in the peace and quiet and beauty.

Our timing was perfect.  Just as I drove out of the parking lot, rain began falling.

Portrait and Figure Studio...April 21

We warm up with five minute poses. Watercolor sketches on 140 weight watercolor paper...5x7 inches

Watercolor sketch painted in one hour on Fredrix watercolor canvas.. For these longer poses, the model sits for a half hour and then takes a fifteen minute break. Our models are usually not professional models but people one of us knows who are willing to sit for us. For some people, one sitting is enough but others are willing to come back and pose again. It is very hard to hold a pose for a half hour stretch.

Twinleaf... Jeffersonia diphylia

I am not a botanist, just a wildflower lover. I try to remember to add the scientific name to these blogs because I know that a lot of plants have different common names from area to area.

I have missed seeing Twinleaf for several years. It is another of the ephermals with a short blooming season. I was pleased when a fellow artist called me to say she had seen it blooming at Stillwater Prairie Reserve. The next day was rainy but the following day, April 12, Tom and I made the trip to the county park. However, the day was dreary, cool and overcast. Rain fell shortly after I took this photograph. Twinleaf must be like Spring Beauty and Bloodroot which close when rain is eminent.

Tom and I returned on April 13, a sunny day, and the flowers were open. Notice that the leaves are still not open and green.

On April 20, the bloom was gone and the leaves were in various stages of opening to display the two lobes which give the plant its name. The seedpod is well on its way to complete development. Donald Cox, in Common Flowering Plants of the Northeast, reports that the mature seeds in the pod have fleshy appendages on one side which may be so the seeds can be dispersed by ants.

According to two online sources, USDA Forest Service and www.wildflower.org/plants, William Bartram, a botanist friend of Thomas Jefferson, named the genus. According to my reference book, The History and Folklore of North American Wildflowers, by Tomothy Coffey, the newly named plant was announced by Benjamin Smith Barton at the May 18, 1792 meeting of the American Philosophical Society when Thomas Jefferson was Secretary of State.

Twinleaf is found from New York to Iowa and from Canada to Alabama and Georgia. For some reason, it has not been found in North Carolina. It is Endangered in Georgia and New Jersey and Threatened in Iowa.

The only other species of twinleaf, Jeffersonia dubia,is found in Japan.

Mother's Madonna

Mother's Madonna watercolor 6 X 8 inches

I'm hoping one of my sisters remembers more about this Madonna than I do. What I remember is that Mother received a bouquet in this vase when our brother was born. I am sure I remember a time when Mother didn't have this vase and then a time when she did have it. Once it arrived, it always stood on the bookcase in front of a mirror in the living room. From daffodils in spring to mums in fall, Mother always kept fresh flowers from her flowerbeds in the vase.

Years ago, when I was wandering through shops in a little town in Texas, I saw a vase like Mother's Madonna in a shop that sold "almost antiques". I didn't buy the vase and, later, I wished that I had. A couple years ago, I found the vase again in a shop close to home. I bought it. And now I have used it in a painting as I had intended.

Enchanted April

Last Sunday afternoon, Tom and I went to Cincinnati to see Enchanted April.  This is the last play of  The Drama Workshop's 2010-2011 season. If you live in the Cincinnati area, you might consider it for your weekend entertainment.  It is being presented again on April 14, 15, and 16. Tom and I throughly enjoyed the production.

The setting is 1922 England. The delightful play begins when Lottie Wilton, a Hampstead house wife, sees an advertisement in a newspaper...."To let for the month of April -- a small castle in Italy, Sunshine and Wisteria in Abundance".  She talks Rose Arnott, another housewife, into going with her.  The plan is to escape English rain and annoying husbands. To make the vacation affordable, they advertise for two women to share the cost.  The legend of the acacia tree with its message of birth and rebirth and love is entwined throughout the play.

Antony Wilding, owner of the castle, presents the lease agreement to Lottie Wilton and Rose Arnett.

Rose tells her husband, Frederick Arnott, that she is going to Italy with Lottie.

Mrs. Graves and Caroline Bramble, the two women who answered Lottie and Rose's ad, with Rose and Lottie in the garden of the castle in Italy.

The plot grows funny and complicated when the husbands show up at the castle. Here, Costanza, the castle's housekeeper and cook, has words with Mellersh Wilton, Lottie's husband.

Gretchen Gantner Roose, who plays Rose Arnott, told me the play is based on a book that was written in 1922.  The script for the play which we saw was written by Matthew Barber.  Gretchen said there was an earlier  play version which came out not long after the book was published.  The Drama Workshop play selection committee rejected that one as antiquated. 

Gretchen says the Matthew Barber play follows the 1992 movie version fairly closely. The play received Outstanding New American Play, an award from the Outer Critics Circle and was nominated in  two Tony  Award categories. The Movie version received two Golden Globe Awards. 

Below is The Drama Workshop cast. For information about tickets and location contact the group on Facebook, through the ticket line at 513-598-8303 or through their website... www.thedramaworkshop.org

Trout Lily Sketch

Trout Lily Pen and Colored pencil 7 X 7 inches

I have seen lots of leaves of this flower at the sanctuary but no flowers yet. We have had a couple warm days so it may be blooming now. I hope to get out to see it soon. This is another of those ephemerals, here today and gone tomorrow. Some years I miss it.