who said romance was dead

I got home from work today and my husband presented me with a bunch of flowers ( he is rather good at flowers) from the garden and a homemade valentines card.  We have been together 17 years now and this is the first time I remember getting anything for Valentines, even in those heady days when we first met.  So it was a lovely suprise.  He got nothing from me and my daughter has told me off and says I must make him something.?? I shall have to put on my thinking cap.

I can't even imagine where he got the idea or the technical know-how and materials to make this card.  The girls said he had a bit of trouble finding ten things that he loved about me and some family brain-storming was required, ha ha. I am only allowed to peel off a heart a day, I shall have to be patient.

10 minute sketch-Roses

I found roses growing over the fence from next door, lots and lots of them, and they smell lovely.  I grabbed the ones that were freshest and also found pink geraniums and some gorgeous blue daisies.  And while I was cooking fish-fingers I did a couple of sketches.

These were done with a thick, running out, Sharpie,  but I am quite pleased with them.  

There are roses every-where in the neighbourhood at the mo, I would quite like to take my secateurs on daily walks with me to whisk a few roses into my pocket, but then I might get spotted.

10 minute sketch apple blossom x3

I have drawn the blossom before it all blows away, from my little apple tree which will hopefully have some fruit on it this year.

 I am quite happy with the pencil drawings, but not sure about the black pen, not the right medium for a delicate blossom I think.

Oh I do love blossom it's such a lovely time of year now with all these lovely flowers popping out all over the place.  And they all smell good too. And they are pink.

fabric from photos

I have been playing on Spoonflower again today.  I have ordered some test swatches of fabric from some of the photos I took at the weekend of trees and lichen.  I have left the scale quite big so they are quite bold especially with the bright sky blue and yellow of the lichen.  I thought that if they came out ok I could make some easy gathered skirts with them. Or some cushion covers.  Or some fab frocks.

Some of them wouldn't come up on the link for some reason 

rabbits

I have been doodling some rabbit ideas, taking inspiration from books and the internet and some deep recesses of my brain.  I have a previous bunny post  and also this bunny skate board design so maybe I have a need to see rabbits at the moment.  

 And then I wanted to draw some leopard spots....

......and tinkered with some roses, which I find quite tricky, but I have looked closely at some other roses that are on fabric and elsewhere and they quite often are quite loose in design and still look rose-like, so I try not to get too hung up about it.  Roses are coming out in gardens around us at the moment, so I will need to take a look and persevere. 

I finished some rather tedious chores late last night, so today I am going to have a nice creative day finishing my christmas card designs so I can get them printed up, written and handed out.  It is something I have not managed for about four years (Christmas in New Zealand, being in the summer time, is a little odd, and I quite often forget that it is that time of year and am consequently rather dis-organised about it, being form the northern hemisphere).  I have been here five years and still it has not sunk in yet.

flowers

 Lovely cow-parsely found at casa pinka

 beautiful wild colour

 branches and balloon jars at southern living

 It's not flower arranging as such but I loved the Pre-Raphealite moment.

pretty things at my design chic

and a wild and beautiful teapot of flowers at tea for joy.  divine!

It's that time of year when flowers are popping up all over the garden and everywhere around town.  I do love it.  My garden flowers tend toward the more wild and weedy variety, forget-me-nots, pink jasmine, and some old plants that have been there for eons, wisteria, magnolia, blossom and the occasional rose.  and at a certain time of year the hydrangeas go mental.  I love having flowers in the house and so now there are little jars and op-shop vases sprinkled around.  My arranging is not good though.  I can spend quite some time trying very hard to make things look pretty, or I can give them to my husband who will plonk them in a vase and they look fabulous.  I have tried this method also, but it doesn't work for me. It's not fair!

10 minute sketch, jasmine

Jasmine time of year, hooray!  Actually there are lots of lovely smelly pretty things around at the moment.  When we walk to and from school I often find myself sniffing around trying to find the origins of some delicious perfume or other.  We have jasmine, fresias, wisteria, magnolias, mexican orange blossom and other things of what I know not the name. 

 I picked some of this Jasmine and put some in the kitchen and some in the living room, and it is so fab. 

And I couldn't resist painting it having had a remarkably un-creative day.   The sketch book was calling me.

Have a bit of a Terry Pratchett thing going on at the moment.  Have just read "The Wee Free Men" trilogy to my elder daughter and consequently myself, and am now reading "Going Postal".  Interesting things about letters and un-read words, and very clever and funny.

Kowhai 10 minute sketch

These Kowhai are out in the garden at the moment. They are a New Zealand native plant and there are meant to be leaves as well but I think the friendly garden possum ate them all.  

I tried to draw some today, they don't quite have the freshness of the original flowers, not a springy picture.

I found a kowhai sketch from a thousand sketches, there are lots of lovely sketches of flowers to peruse.

more cherry blossom

 Last night in town we had the Mask Parade ( all the primary school kids make masks on a certain theme and parade the streets) very cool, I forgot my camera so had to use my cell-phone, which is not great.  this is child no.2 in her fishy mask.  it was a pacific theme.

And then this morning I went for a run in the hills and came accross a lovely white blossom tree  (possibly apple), again with the cell-phone.  I love this time of year with flowers and blossom and wonderful flowery smells, it makes coming out of winter worth while.

cherry blossom 10 minute sketch

 This little blossom tree sits in a rather untidy corner ( there a few of these) of my garden.  For quite a lot of the year it is quite a nice shape but in the way a little bit.  And then for about two weeks in spring it does this lovely flowery blossomy thing and it is just so pretty.

as a un-related footnote my printer is driving me crazy.  I have tried to print something out five times, it says it is off line, with some cord wiggling it will then print out half the picture or a message saying "ERROR, OFFENDING COMMAND"  I wasn't being offensive to start off with, but did feel like utering some offensive commands by the end of it all.  

10 min sketch no 8. Magnolia

My younger child was off school today as she was not feeling her best.  We sat in the garden together and had lunch in the sunshine next to the beautiful pink magnolias.  They smelt divine  and the tree had started to drop petals all over the deck and path.   I just had to go and get my sketch-book and timer and do a little drawing.  

 blind contour sketch 4.34 mins.

All pictures drawn with a fine liner.  The second one has a dash of pink felt-tip.  All started as blind contour ( looking at object you are drawing, not the picture on the page) but did peek a little bit to line up the petals with each other.

10 minute sketch no. 7. Camelia

 today I picked a nice white camelia from the garden, 

 and did a quick sketch with felt-tips.  Those bits in the middle were fiddly, I need to check out some flower drawings to see how other people manage these things.

and there were some pretty wild flowers, pretty wild, pretty wild-flowers ( weeds).